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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It can be hard to hear another person when the words in your head are drowning out their voice. Everyone deserves to be heard out. If someone else’s experience is being blotted out by your own pain you may need to be heard out before you can listen to that person. Try to sort out…
Read More »“My wife and I knew that raising biracial Jewish kids meant there would be situations when people would question their Jewish authenticity. We thought about scenarios that could come up. We brainstormed how to response and how to teach the kids to respond. We told them, “You owe nobody an explanation. No one has the…
Read More »My mom and I are Jewish, my dad is Catholic. Growing up we were members of a synagogue and I went to Hebrew school. When I got close to my bat mitzvah it suddenly hit me, We have a Christmas tree! I went to my parents and said, “We have to stop having a tree….
Read More »Women are typically more comfortable discussing the challenges of their marriage and parenting. So when husbands balk at coming to a program Women in Interfaith Relationships is a great option because the women can attend and take the good ideas home to share. I am not saying that men never discuss these things, only that…
Read More »Patrilineal Descent, Reform Judaism and those other Jews In 1983 the Reform movement officially recognized children of Jewish fathers as Jewish. But if you read the statement it says that every child of a mixed marriage, whether the mother or father is Jewish, must establish their identity as a Jew “through appropriate and timely public…
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.