Tonight the photo exhibit, This Is Bay Area Jewry, will hold it’s opening reception. We’ll begin at 7pm with some wine and cheese. Have a brief tour of the exhibit at 7:15, more wine and nibbles. Then at 7:45pm 3 of the groups who participated in the exhibit portraits will speak about their reasons for…
Read More »Jews of Color
Growing Up Interfaith + Local Events
Growing Up Interfaith: Conference May 22 What’s it like to grow up with one Jewish and one non-Jewish parent? You can actually buy books that will tell parents exactly what to do and say to their children so that “everything will be fine.” Such a book is a farce. If you have a sibling you…
Read More »Welcoming people of color to the Shul
Another good email from Rabbi Milder of Beth Emek in Pleasanton. Are You a Person of Color? We Welcome You! Here’s the punch line that doesn’t work anymore: “Funny, you don’t look Jewish!” There’s no such thing as looking Jewish, and there probably never was, unless you go back to the very origins of the…
Read More »I was Born Black and Jewish
Kim Carter Martinez is born Jewish and is tired of the questions: How did you get to be Jewish? OR How long have you been Jewish? She said, “I feel like saying, I got to be Jewish through my mother’s vagina.” I told her to go ahead and say that. People won’t forget. Kim in…
Read More »I’m Jewish, she’s Asian—what will our future kids be?
Another question from my Mixed and Matched column in the J-Weekly. I’m a 26-year-old Conservative Jew and celebrate the major Jewish holidays, although I’m not terribly religious. I’ve been dating a Korean girl who is Catholic but also not very religious. We are getting serious and I’m scared. I do love her, she’s my…
Read More »Our adopted baby doesn’t need a ceremony, but I do
March 2014 column of Mixed and Matched in the J-Weekly The question: I am Jewish and my husband is not. We adopted a girl, 8 months old, whose birth mother is not Jewish. We belong to a Reform synagogue and our rabbi said if we raise our daughter with Jewish lifecycle events and synagogue…
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