(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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Dear Dawn: I moved in with my Jewish boyfriend in July. At that time, I agreed not to have Christmas in our apartment. Now I’m having second thoughts. I do Passover and Hanukkah with him. Christmas is just one day a year and I have so many beloved traditions. For me, getting and decorating the tree, shopping…
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Where Will You Spend Thanksgiving and Christmas/Hanukkah? Non-Jewish families are often confronted with which spouse’s family will get them for Christmas. One solution is to flip back and forth for Thanksgiving and Christmas. For interfaith families the question of “who gets us?” can be, Thanksgiving with the Jewish family and Christmas with the Christian (or…
Read More »Our weekly email goes out to hundreds of interfaith couples & families in the Bay Area. Topics cover the many questions and mysteries that interfaith couples want answered.