Last week I wrote to you that experiencing Christmas will not destroy your child’s Jewish identity and it won’t. Period. But that still means you have to GIVE them a Jewish identity. Going without Christmas won’t build a Jewish identity; you have to proactively teach your child that they are Jewish. So if you’re hanging…
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Many years ago Christmas fell on a Saturday. My family was invited to the annual Christmas party of some friends and the party was on Friday night, AKA Christmas Eve. My husband and I typically took our kids to Erev Shabbat services. They were under ten and a short service worked well for them. But…
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(This article was first published in my Mixed and Matched column in the J-weekly on Nov. 11, 2014) Dear Dawn, My wife loves Christmas, and it makes me so uncomfortable. I know I’m a Scrooge every December, but I just can’t help it. She doesn’t go to church, but she decorates the hell out of…
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(This article originally appeared in my Mixed and Matched column in the J-weekly on January 23, 2019 Dear Dawn, I am single and have no Jewish relations. But I have taken years to determine that I want to be Jewish. I am working on converting. I have one problem. My rabbi tells me that I…
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(This article originally appeared in my Mixed & Matched column in the J-weekly on 12/1/15) My mom is Jewish, my dad is Christian. Mom never had much interest in Judaism, and my brother and I were raised secular, with holidays from both our parents’ traditions. I’ve always been pulled to my Jewish side, and I…
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Hold your breath and jump in, it’s a week of holidays. First up is Hanukkah which begins this Sunday night, second is Christmas on Wednesday. Full stop! Whether you are doing one or the other holiday or both or neither, I want you to relax and enjoy it. If your family and you won’t be…
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