What are the challenges that patralineal Jews face regarding their identity as Jews? Here are some of the things they have to say: My dad is Jewish, my mom is not. I was adopted and raised Jewish. My mom had a Reform conversion. Why do people tell us we aren’t Jewish? Are you annoyed, hurt,…
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Summer Fun – Let’s Go to the SF Film Fest in Oakland
Let’s Go to the Movies! Join us for the SF Jewish Film Festival! BJB is co-presenting Little White Lie The film runs from 7 to 8:05pm. We’ll go for ice cream afterwards. Little White Lie tells Lacey Schwartz’s story of growing up in a typical upper-middle-class Jewish household in Woodstock, NY, with loving parents and…
Read More »Should I take my adopted child to the mikvah?
A mother sent me this question about her adopted child. 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 life, she is…
Read More »A Patralineal Jew chooses to Convert
Michella Ore wrote a wonderful article for JVibe, a now out-of-print Jewish teen magazine, back in the spring of 2009. I contacted her recently to ask if I could reprint her article. I also asked her to give us an update on how her decisions were turning out for her. As a biracial daughter of…
Read More »Jewish and Asian in San Francisco
A 2004 study of the bay area Jewish population found that 14% of families in our community include Jews of color. That means that at least every tenth Jew you see is a multiracial Jew or lives in a multiracial family. But that was nine years ago. That percentage can only have grown. You would…
Read More »Jewish and Asian in San Francisco
We had such a wonderful series of panel discussions in the East Bay about our multiracial Jewish community. I asked Sherith Israel to host the next gathering and several of our panelists grew up at Sherith Israel! Come on over and hear from all of them. The Jewish community if the San Francisco bay area…
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