The following message was sent to me via my monthly column, Mixed and Matched – My dad is Jewish, but my parents raised me with no religion at all. I’ve always been spiritually minded and wanted a connection to God. I found a rabbi who was very kind and sympathetic. I told her that I…
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I’m Jewish but People Keep Questioning Me
In the June 2016 column of Mixed and Matched, I responded to a comment from a woman who had experienced what was described in the previous month’s column – having her Jewish authenticity questioned. I can relate to your May 20 column “My father is Jewish and my mother is not.” My mother and…
Read More »‘My father is Jewish and my mother is not’
In my May Mixed and Matched column in the Jweekly I chose to address a question I hear regularly: “My father is Jewish and my mother is not. Where will I be accepted? Where can I go that they won’t quiz me?” *** Ever since the Reform movement refined its views on so-called patrilineal…
Read More »My Catholic mom wants my baby to be baptized
A message from a young woman soon to be a mother sent to my Mixed and Matched column in the J-weekly. I was raised Catholic but no longer practice. I’m pregnant and happy to raise my children Jewish, and my husband and I belong to a Conservative synagogue. We plan to take our baby…
Read More »My Conservative conversion didn’t grant ‘born Jewish privilege’
There are so many nuances to the concerns that patrilineal Jews have. It is VITAL that we listen to them and not get stuck in our own opinion. After receiving four different messages on this topic I merged them into a single letter for my Mixed and Matched column. I have a Jewish father…
Read More »My Daughters are put off by N.Y. Jewish Culture
A worried Jewish father with a non-Jewish wife wrote to me about the take his college age daughters had towards New York Jewish “culture”. I answered him in my Mixed and Matched column. I’m Jewish, my wife is not. Our two daughters, who have been to Israel, were raised Jewish with all the Jewish lifecycle…
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