(Image of a chuppah available for rental at Afikomen) It’s the very end of June – a favorite month for weddings in America – and I received an email from Afikomen titled, Easy Chuppah Rentals, Home Gifts and Breaking Glasses. I decided to write to you about weddings this week. Let’s start with some rarely…
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(This first appeared in my Mixed and Matched column in the J-Weekly, Monday June 9, 2021) Dear Dawn: I am Jewish and planning my wedding to a non-Jewish man. I have not been very involved in Judaism since my bat mitzvah almost 20 years ago. I don’t want to have a rabbi, but I want to…
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(Image: A Jewish Scottish wedding) When it comes to planning an interfaith wedding many interfaith couples want to integrate elements of both partners’ traditions into their wedding ceremony. Personally, I like to get the whole picture before I plan an event. So I’m going to give you a link to a traditional Orthodox explanation of…
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A Jewish woman wrote to me asking about how to include something Irish in her wedding to reflect her fiancé’s Irish heritage. Here’s what she asked. My fiancé and I are starting to plan our wedding for next spring. Neither of us is particularly religious. I’m proudly Jewish and he is Irish and was…
Read More »Having a chuppah is a beautiful Jewish custom. Chuppah, חוּפָּה in Hebrew means “covering”. On ReformJudaism.org, Rabbi Victor Appell describes the chuppah this way. The canopy under which Jewish couples stand when they are married is called a chuppah. The chuppah represents the new home a couple establishes through their marriage. It also represents the…
Read More »What great timing! Last night I received the last email from my list of San Francisco bay area non-Orthodox rabbis replying to my question, “Do you officiate at same sex weddings for two Jews?” It was my belief that they all did. But I was challenged by a colleague who said that just wasn’t true….
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.