Web Magazine. The December Dilemma. Holiday au Lait. What We Learned from the Third Annual December Holidays Survey. Fearing the Holidays

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1 Page 1 of 3 Print entire issue Web Magazine The December Dilemma Issue 197: December 5, 2006 FEATURED ARTICLES Holiday au Lait By Annie Modesitt Does doing Christmas and Hanukkah water down both traditions? Annie doesn't think so. Read More What We Learned from the Third Annual December Holidays Survey By Micah Sachs and Edmund Case Learn how other interfaith families raising their children Jewish are celebrating the December holidays. Read More Fearing the Holidays By Kim Mortellite Why couldn't it just be January already?

2 Page 2 of 3 Fear Not! Read More By Dawn C. Kepler and Karen Kushner A pair of outreach professionals respond to Fearing the Holidays. Read More ALSO IN THIS ISSUE More Articles on the December Dilemma 'Tis the Season to Be Ironic By Jim Keen Their interfaith family is raising the kids Jewish, but they spend every Christmas with his Protestant parents. A Magen David on Our Christmas Tree By Simon Round A Jewish man and a German woman make it work in Britain. From Our Article Archive Handling the December Holidays: Ten Tips from InterfaithFamily.com By Edmund Case and Ronnie Friedland Intermarried and struggling with balancing Christmas and Hanukkah? We can help. Turning the Dilemma into a Tradition By Jemi Kostiner Mansfield Will one month with a Christmas tree cancel out 11 months of Jewish parenting? O' Christmas Tree, O' Christmas Tree-- You're So Much More than--foliage! By Marlena Thompson When she got married, she was resolutely opposed to having a tree. Things change.

3 Page 3 of 3 News and Opinion Intermarriage Tipping Point Long Past, But Institutions Must Now Catch Up By Paul Golin The debate over welcoming interfaith families is over. Arts and Entertainment The Nativity Story: Responses of an Interfaith Couple By Tracy Hahn-Burkett and Paul Burkett A Jewish woman and her non-jewish husband see the new movie about the events leading to Jesus' birth. Interview with Scott Simon By Ronnie Friedland The National Public Radio host talks about growing up with two faiths and raising his adopted daughter as a Jew. A Play that Illumines a Generation By Lisa Traiger Robert Brustein's tour-de-force asks whether corned beef and Yiddishisms are enough to sustain Jewish identity over the long term. Copyright InterfaithFamily.com, Inc. All rights reserved.

4 Page 1 of 3 For more information, visit our December Holidays Resource Page. Holiday au Lait By Annie Modesitt Irony intrudes on life, speaking more eloquently than I ever could. As I began editing a rough draft of this essay on how my interfaith family has maintained a sense of Jewishness and of living in a larger world each holiday season, I spilled eggnog on my laptop. After drying out the computer, all of my changes were lost. My eggnog ate my interfaith essay. But the incident encouraged me to move in a different direction. I've written about my family's choice to raise our children to identify as Jews, while at the same time allowing me to retain my Methodist identity. This is disturbing to folks who like to see tidiness in others' life choices, but after 13 years of marriage and 10 years of raising interfaith children, I feel more strongly than ever that it is a good choice for our family. The whole idea of a December dilemma is rather insulting to practicing Jews and Christians. It assumes that someone in a typical interfaith relationship is so easily swayed by tinsel and a tree that they'll forswear their Jewishness for a few gifts and goodies in a stocking. It has seemed clear to me that the dilemma portion of the December equation is the hugeness of Christmas--how it creeps into every crevice of modern American life for a few weeks. As annoying as this is (and it's just as annoying to many Christians as it is to Jews) the strains of Christmas hymns in the shopping center will probably not be responsible for a mass rejection of traditional Jewish practices. Although Christmas--and all the trimmings--gets the most attention as a divisive factor in an interfaith home, Hanukkah is a very difficult holiday for interfaith spouses who know the underlying anti-assimilation message of this Jewish civil-war celebration. At some point during the week of Hanukkah my husband will remind me, "You know, if we lived back in the day, they'd be coming for US first!" And it gives me a chill to realize that at its root the Hanukkah celebration was a victory not just over unjust Seleucid intervention in Jewish tradition, but a routing of mixed-faith Jewish/Greek families by a more fundamentalist strain. As a family we could focus on the divisions, or we can try to find the common ground and create a dialogue--learn and grow from the experiences and traditions of our collective past. When my children were just babies I wrote the following in an essay for InterfaithFamily.com, Raising my children as Jews: I have strong, positive memories of my own childhood Christmas celebrations, and I work each year to find a way to re-live these memories while maintaining a Jewish

5 Page 2 of 3 home. One route we've explored is to use the Christmas season as a time to teach our children about people who have used peaceful means to achieve their goals. We contrast this with Hanukkah, a holiday that stresses the importance of fighting to retain religious rights. Our Jewish home is not a "typical" Jewish home, but I suspect that our practices reflect a growing movement in the Jewish community. The controversial "Who is a Jew?" question poses the query, "What is a Jewish home?" To find my own answer to this I must trust my intelligence and my education and I constantly reevaluate my own place in Judaism. And I still feel the same way. Yes, we have a tree. In the few years when I suggested to my husband that we shelve the idea, either he or his mother were so disappointed that we ended up getting one. Neither my husband nor I can understand how having a tree in the house for two weeks can undo 52 weeks of Shabbat (Sabbath) celebrations or a year of Hebrew school lessons. We also have a menorah--several, in fact. Our children each have their own, we have a family menorah, and we have the plastic lighted one for the window. We gather each night of Hanukkah, we all say the blessings and we light the candles--often with non-jewish friends who drop by for latkes and Christmas cookies. I teach knitting and write books about knit and crochet for my living. I travel across the country speaking to groups about the effect knitting can have on their lives, and how to make their stitches "happy." It's an odd way to earn a living, but I feel incredibly fortunate that I've been able to carve out my own little niche. In my travels I meet folks from a variety of faith traditions, and because knitting can be such a meditative endeavor, at times the discussion turns spiritual. I meet people who may not be active members of a church or temple, but they consider themselves spiritual--they rely on a sense of numinous mystery to help them discover their own personal identity. They may not necessarily be the most dogmatic or traditional representative of a belief, but they carry a spark of self discovery-through-faith into everything they do. Sometimes they belong to a religious group, but just as often they're seekers, not tied to any one doctrine, discerning truth where they can find it. And they give me a great sense of hope. As we discuss our ways of celebrating the distinctive holidays from each culture, a common thread emerges: the self-identifying spirituals tend to be more open to adding a diverse celebration to their own family calendar. On the other hand, I find that folks who believe a Christmas tree in an interfaith home spells doom for Judiasm, or that the menorah on the piano sets the grandkids on a path to eternal damnation, are giving too much power to the outward trappings of a celebration. The 500-pound gorilla in the room in all of these discussions is a fear of assimilation--the assumption that it will lead to a weakening and watered-down, pale version of a robust religious tradition. Logically there can be an argument made for this, but it doesn't take into consideration the chemistry of human interaction. Elements can react in unexpected ways. Add water to milk and you've watered it down; add coffee to the same milk and you've created cafe au lait. Who is to say that the mixing of Jewish and Christian holiday traditions may not provide us with a more potent blend? We're told--perhaps by the same folks who tell us that an interfaith family should pick ONE

6 Page 3 of 3 religion and stick with it--that we shouldn't discuss politics or religion. However, I've found that with a little guidance these conversations can be respectful and enlightening to all parties. And that has become the key to my family's holiday celebration. With a bit of guidance we can use the legacy of my own childhood, and lessons from my husband's faith, to create a space where both traditions are honored teaching tools. We are growing our own spiritual tradition, and we honor the traditions of all of our parents. Annie Modesitt is the author of Confessions of a Knitting Heretic (ModeKnit 2004), Twist & Loop (Potter Craft 2006) and Men Who Knit & The Dogs Who Love Them (Lark, Jan 2007). She celebrates all types of holidays with her husband and children in South Orange, N.J. They plan a move to Minnesota, where they intend to add a few Scandinavian holidays to their calendar. She blogs about knitting, teaching and life at Copyright InterfaithFamily.com, Inc. All rights reserved.

7 What We Learned from the Third Annual December Holidays Survey By Edmund Case and Micah Sachs Introduction In October 2006, InterfaithFamily.com conducted its third annual December Holidays Survey. The survey, which fielded responses from 759 people--nearly double the response from the 2005 survey--was designed to understand how people in interfaith families participate in celebrations of their own and their partners holidays and to gain insight into those celebrations. Of all respondents, 581 reported being in interfaith relationships (as the Jewish partner or with a Jewish partner). Of those respondents, 455 said they had raised or were raising children, and of those respondents, 342, or 75 percent, said they had raised or were raising their children as Jews. That figure is significantly higher than the 33 percent of intermarried Jews raising Jewish children reported in the National Jewish Population Survey While the survey thus is not representative of all interfaith families, it provides important information about interfaith families who are raising their children as Jews--a very important demographic for Jewish continuity. For couples in interfaith relationships, the so-called December dilemma can be a tricky issue to resolve; for those in interfaith relationships who have made the choice to raise their children Jewish, it can be more so. Our goal in this report is to determine how these families are balancing their celebrations of Christmas and Hanukkah. Therefore, this year s report focuses exclusively on those respondents who said they were in an interfaith relationship (as the Jewish partner or with a Jewish partner) and were raising their children Jewish. Unless otherwise noted, use of the term respondents in the report refers to this subset.

8 The Report Almost all of the respondents expect to participate in Hanukkah celebrations and Christmas celebrations this year: 99 percent expect to participate in Hanukkah celebrations while 89 percent plan to participate in Christmas celebrations. The great majority of these respondents plan on doing multiple activities relating to the celebration of Hanukkah in their own home. Ninety-nine percent plan to light the menorah and 63 percent plan on telling the Hanukkah story: 6. Which of the following are you planning to do in your own home (check all that apply): Count % (of 342) Light a menorah Give gifts Hanukkah decorations Hanukkah music and songs Hanukkah foods Tell the Hanukkah story Significantly lower percentages of respondents plan to do Christmas-related activities in their own home. Just over a majority (51 percent) plan on giving gifts, while 44 percent plan to decorate a Christmas tree and only 5 percent plan on telling the Christmas story. In the homes of relatives or friends, significant majorities plan on giving gifts (77 percent) and eating Christmas foods (62 percent), although again, very few (6 percent) plan on telling the Christmas story: 11. Which of the following are you planning to do in your own home (check all that apply): Decorate a Christmas tree Count % (of 342) Which of the following are you planning to do in the homes of relatives and/or friends (check all that apply): Decorate a Christmas tree Count % (of 342) Hang stockings Hang stockings Give gifts Give gifts Christmas decorations Christmas decorations Christmas music and songs Christmas music and songs Christmas foods Christmas foods Tell the Christmas story 17 5 Tell the Christmas story 22 6 In addition, only 18 percent of these families plan on attending religious services for Christmas this year. 2

9 Of the 289 respondents who answered the question, If you are raising your children as Jews, will you tell your non-jewish relatives not to give Christmas presents to your children?, 261, or 90 percent, said they would not tell their non-jewish relatives not to give Christmas presents. Most of the respondents offered explanations for their decision; a significant majority of the responses cited respect for non-jewish relatives as the reason for their decision: Because we are an interfaith family and my son is being taught that he is being raised Jewish because it was a decision made by his father and I to do so. But he knows what his mother believes in and is taught to respect her beliefs and traditions. While they are being raised as Jews, the non-jews are part of their family too. If I am going to teach my children respect for others and for others' views, I have to start with myself. I want my children to learn about and respect other people's faiths. If non-jews want to give them gifts to show their love, that's great. Both family traditions are important and deserve to be honored. A number of respondents also said they didn t want to make waves or cause turmoil : It is my husband's wish not to "cause waves." Because it would hurt my parents' and grandmother's feelings. It would be insulting to my relatives to tell them not to give the kids gifts. Some in the Jewish community are concerned with religious syncretism, or blending of religious traditions. This year, 89 percent of the respondents who said they were participating in celebrations of both holidays said they would keep their holiday celebrations separate, while only 8 percent said they would be blended. 2. If you plan to participate in both Hanukkah and Christmas celebrations this year, will you blend your holiday celebrations, or kept them separate, where 5 = kept separate, and 1 = blended. Count % (of 308)

10 Following up on last year s survey, we asked if respondents had heard about Chrismukkah, a holiday first mentioned on the Fox drama The O.C. that combines symbols and celebrations of Hanukkah and Christmas into one holiday. There was an increased awareness of Chrismukkah since last year. Of the 581 survey respondents in interfaith relationships, 71 percent said they had heard of Chrismukkah, as compared to 57 percent last year, and only 29 percent had not, compared to 43 percent last year. Of those who had heard of Chrismukkah, 68 percent said they thought that Chrismukkah is a bad idea, while 10 percent think it is a good idea: 4. Please rate whether you think Chrismukkah is a good idea or a bad idea, where 5 = a very bad idea and 1 = a very good idea. Count % (of 411) Among respondents in interfaith relationships raising their children Jewish, even greater numbers thought Chrismukkah was a bad idea (75 percent) and fewer (5 percent) thought it was a good idea. 4. Please rate whether you think Chrismukkah is a good idea or a bad idea, where 5 = a very bad idea and 1 = a very good idea. Count % (of 248)

11 While most of the respondents who plan to celebrate Hanukkah expect to enjoy their celebrations this year (87 percent), a little more than half (56 percent) said they expect to enjoy their participation in Christmas celebrations: 8. If you plan to participate in Hanukkah celebrations this year, please rate how much you expect to enjoy your celebrations, where 5 = a great deal, and 1 = not at all. Count % (of 340) 15. If you plan to participate in Christmas celebrations this year, please rate how Count much you expect to enjoy your celebrations, where 5 = a great deal, and 1 = not at all. % (of 305) However, when it comes to children, more than three-quarters (76 percent) expect their children to enjoy Christmas celebrations, while 91 percent expect their children to enjoy Hanukkah celebrations. This would suggest that children being raised Jewish in interfaith families enjoy both holidays, while their parents are much more ambivalent about Christmas. 9. If your children will participate in Hanukkah celebrations this year, please rate how much you expect they will enjoy your celebrations, where 5 = a great deal, and 1 = not at all. Count % (of 285) 16. If your children will participate in Christmas celebrations this year, please rate how much you expect they will enjoy your celebrations, where 5 = a great deal, and 1 = not at all. Count % (of 244) For interfaith families raising Jewish children, a primary way to resolve potential conflicts over the December holidays is to participate in celebrations of both holidays but treat Hanukkah as a religious holiday and Christmas as a secular one. Only 23 percent of respondents who are celebrating Hanukkah reported that their Hanukkah celebrations would be more secular than religious. In contrast, 79 percent of respondents who are participating in Christmas celebrations said their Christmas celebrations would be more secular than religious, a point verified by the very low number of respondents who plan 5

12 on telling the Christmas story either at their home (5 percent) or the home of relatives and friends (6 percent). 7. If you plan to participate in Hanukkah celebrations this year, please rate the religious nature of your celebrations, where 5 = deeply religious, and 1 = entirely secular. Count % (of 340) 14. If you plan to participate in Christmas celebrations this year, please rate the religious nature of your celebrations, where 5 = deeply religious, and 1 = entirely secular. Count % (of 305) Despite the evidence of ambivalence over Christmas, three-quarters of respondents feel that participating in Christmas celebrationswill not affect their children s Jewish identity. 21. If you are raising your children as Jews and you participate in Christmas celebrations, do you think that your participation in Christmas celebrations affects your child s Jewish identity? Count % (of 276) Yes No Many of the respondents said they re comfortable with the distinctions they ve made between the holidays: to our children, Christmas is just a fun day that has nothing to do with Jesus. We celebrate Shabbat once a week, so I don't think one evening of opening Christmas gifts will undermine all of the other Jewish celebrations we have throughout the year. Our children know they are Jews - you can participate in another culture s celebrations without becoming their religion or taking their identity. We approach Christmas as a secular tradition, not a religious observance. Christmas is like Halloween and Thanksgiving. We don't think that participating in Christmas celebrations affects our children's Jewish identity because our kids celebrate being Jewish virtually every day. 6

13 However, some reported concerns over the impact of participating in Christmas celebrations on their children s Jewish identity: This is the major issue I am struggling over. [My children] are too young right now to ask questions. My kids (9 & 6) are curious about Christmas religious celebrations. They usually ask to be able to go church on Christmas. I think the fact that they know their friends go to church on Christmas also plays a role in that. It gives them a sort of dual consciousness, which I find a useful perspective in adulthood but may be difficult for a child to negotiate. My children attend a Jewish Day School where Christmas is never mentioned, so they catch on early that it's not the best place to talk about their Christmas tree or stocking stuffers. Ironically, there are quite a few families at our school who celebrate both holidays to some extent. Unfortunately, when parents talk about it together we do so in whispers rather than in open dialogue. it raises the question of why we celebrate a holiday that is not "ours," and in this way drives home the sense of being "other." At very young ages, as children are learning what is "Jewish" and "Christian," the sharing of traditions requires parent to educate our children, and to define our identity as Jews over and against Christian practices again and again. A handful of respondents said that celebrating both holidays actually strengthens their children s Jewish identity. I think frankly it strengthens the Jewish identity We teach our kids to honor and respect other people, which includes being interested in or at least supportive other others' differences. In fact, they love showing their Christian cousins how to light a menorah, and what it means and commemorates. The clarity with which you express your own feelings and the openness of the atmosphere that you create in your household is what really teaches. Allowing others to express their feelings and ideas/not preaching is what made her comfortable with Judaism. If anything, our participation in Christian holidays has made our Jewish identity stronger. With two Christians and two Jews in our household, our celebrations make for perfect settings for discussion about Jewish vs. Christian traditions, etc. 7

14 Of the 155 Jews in interfaith families who report having a Christmas tree in the home, slightly less than half of the Jews in interfaith families feel comfortable with having a Christmas tree in their home (48 percent) while slightly more than a quarter (28 percent) feel uncomfortable with having a Christmas tree in their home: 17. If you are Jewish and you will have a Christmas tree in your home, please rank how you expect to feel about the tree, where 5 = very comfortable, and 1 = very uncomfortable. Count % (of 155)

15 Conclusions The great majority of interfaith couples raising their children as Jews plan on participating in celebrations of both Christmas and Hanukkah. Some observers of intermarriage have cast a skeptical eye on this trend, arguing that interfaith families can t raise their children as Jews and celebrate Christmas, but the results of this survey suggest that they can. According to our survey, interfaith families raising Jewish children who participate in Christmas celebrations are doing a very good job of distinguishing between the holidays and are giving clear priority to Hanukkah over Christmas, as both a family celebration and a religious holiday. While these families do not observe Hanukkah in a deeply religious way, their participation in Christmas celebrations is almost entirely secular. Very few of these families expect to tell the Christmas story or attend Christmas services at church. In contrast, the vast majority of these families plan on celebrating Hanukkah by lighting the menorah, giving gifts and eating Hanukkah foods. There is also a surprisingly low level of participation in even non-religious Christmas activities at home like listening to Christmas music, eating Christmas food or hanging stockings. Barely one-half even plan on giving Christmas gifts at home. Less than half plan on having a Christmas tree. Many of these families plan on participating in Christmas celebrations at the homes of friends and relatives and plan on giving and receiving gifts, but it should be noted that many single Jews and in-married Jews also participate in Christmas celebrations at the homes of friends. Despite the high level of participation in some kind of Christmas activities at homes of friends or relatives, these families feel comfortable that celebrating Christmas won t negatively impact their children s Jewish identity. For most of them, participating in Christmas at the home of extended family is simply a matter of respect for the traditions of the non-jewish family. This emphasis on respect is also indicated by the very small number of families who will tell their non-jewish relatives not to give Christmas gifts to their children. Among Jewish partners in interfaith relationships, there is a significant level of ambivalence over Christmas, which could be expected from people who are trying to reinforce their children s Jewish identity. The children in these relationships, however, look forward to both Christmas and Hanukkah. 9

16 Appendix: Demographic information Seventy-five percent of the respondents in interfaith relationships said they were raising their children as Jews: Analysis of answers about religion in which children are/were being raised Count % (of 455 who answered questions about children) Jewish The non-jewish partner s religion 18 4 Both Some in one, some in other 33 7 None 6 1 Other (Not Jewish, not the partner s Religion) 25 5 There was not a significant different between the percentage of Jews in interfaith relationships raising their children Jewish and the percentage of non-jews in interfaith relationships raising their children Jewish: Respondents identifying as Jews in interfaith relationships addressing what religion they will raise their children in: Count % (of 278) Respondents identifying as non- Jews in interfaith relationships addressing what religion they will raise their children in: Count % (of 177) My religion (Jewish) My religion 8 5 Partner s religion 10 4 Partner s religion (Jewish) Both Both Some in one, some in other 23 8 Some in one, some in other 10 6 None 6 2 None 0 0 Other (Not Jewish, not the partner s religion) 15 5 Other (Not own religion, not Jewish)

17 Sixty-one percent of the respondents in interfaith relationships who are raising their children Jewish who responded to a question about their religion identified as Jewish, 16% as Catholic, and 13% as Protestant: 26. What is your religion (check all that apply): Count % (of 342 answers) Jewish Catholic Protestant Muslim 0 0 Hindu 0 0 Agnostic 7 2 Atheist 5 2 None 12 4 Other Eighty-five percent of respondents in interfaith relationships who were raising their children Jewish were female: 29. What is your gender: Count % (of 342) Male Female Seventy-four percent of respondents in interfaith relationships who were raising their children Jewish were between 30 and 49: 30. What is your age: Count % (of 342) and over 2 1 Age of children: 31. What is the age of your children (check all that apply): Count % (of 297) 10 and under and over

18 Page 1 of 3 For more information, visit our December Holidays Resource Page. Fearing the Holidays By Kim Mortellite It's difficult being in an interfaith relationship around Christmastime. Growing up, Christmas was always an elaborate celebration in my home. The whole month of December was my favorite time. I loved everything about Christmas. Although I went to CCD (Catholic education classes) and was confirmed as a Catholic, at home we were largely secular Christians. The holiday was about family more than anything else. When discussing religion with my boyfriend Aaron of two-and-a-half years, many feelings arise. We have decided that we want to raise our future children in one religion. We have chosen Judaism because it is important to Aaron and because I don't agree with a lot of the teachings of the Church. I also want my children to be proud of their Jewish heritage. What I love about Judaism is that it's not only about how you worship God but also about what kind of person you are, and how you treat others, values that I share. But, while I am okay theoretically with raising our future children Jewish, when the holiday season arrives I don't know what to do with the feelings of loss that inevitably arise when I imagine a future for my children very different from the one I grew up with. One thing that made the holiday season particularly difficult last year was our decision to enroll in an Introduction to Judaism class in the fall. I have decided not to convert, but I think it's important if I'm going to raise my children in the Jewish religion that I fully understand what this means. Being immersed in the long arduous history of the Jewish people was challenging. I experienced the history of the world through a different lens and it was very surreal. I felt like the core of my soul was torn to shreds and I was trying to reassemble the pieces into something workable. My eyes were opened; I could never go back to my previous ignorance; yet I didn't quite know how to assimilate this new information. I felt conflicted over whether to hang Christmas decorations or listen to my favorite Christmas songs. The problem with religion is that it isn't just about running down a list of items and deciding if you agree with them or not. There's this divide between what you can intellectualize and what has been

19 Page 2 of 3 imprinted into the fibers of your being. What took a lifetime to store cannot easily be changed. The memories of the emotions run very deep. Even though I have decided not to convert, I am well aware that if I am raising Jewish children in a Jewish home, then many changes are going to take place. My parents' reaction to the Judaism class has been the most stressful to deal with. They are very hurt that I won't be raising my children as Catholics. They feel betrayed and believe they will be alienated from their grandchildren. I think they secretly fear I will convert without telling them and that I'll become a different person, unrecognizable and lost to them. Of course, that isn't true, but religion is a very complex subject for everyone. I've experienced enough of my own fears, especially in the beginning, to have compassion for theirs. Aaron and I had discussions about my feelings and about what we would do on December 25 last year, given that it was Christmas as well as the first night of Hanukkah. The rabbi of our Judaism class was also holding a get-together at his home in the afternoon on the same day. I honestly didn't want to have anything to do with the holidays and wished we could just skip over them. I was stressed and afraid of disappointing anyone and everyone. Finally I realized I was letting my fears take over and had to take a step back. I am in love with Aaron. There is a Yiddish term, bashert, that means soulmate. I truly believe he is my bashert. Many of the things I love about him are because of his Jewishness. I would never want him to be anything else. But in order to love him I must also be my full self. Ultimately, I gave myself permission to hang some Christmas decorations in my apartment and to listen to my favorite Christmas songs. I also bought a very beautiful Hanukkah gift bag that I couldn't pass up. Overall December 25 went smoothly. We decided to spend the day with my family and the evening with Aaron's family. We did not attend the party at the rabbi's house. Aaron wished everyone a Merry Christmas and exchanged gifts with my family. We enjoyed eating food all day and spending time with my nephews. Later, we lit Hanukkah candles with his family and also exchanged gifts. Regrettably the time was not shared equally, but we spent another night of Hanukkah later in the week with his family. I am anticipating that it will be easier this year when Hanukkah will be completely over before Christmas Eve and we can fully share in both holidays. Our relationship is more important than one month out of the year and it is worth the effort of working through these issues together. There is no other place I'm supposed to be than right beside Aaron. Together we will create our own family traditions. Kim Mortellite is studying at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., toward becoming an expressive therapist and licensed mental health counselor. She is an accomplished clarinetist and currently performs with the Melrose Symphony Orchestra. She and Aaron are engaged to be married in July 2007.

20 Page 3 of 3 Copyright InterfaithFamily.com, Inc. All rights reserved.

21 Page 1 of 3 For more information, visit our December Holidays Resource Page. Fear Not! By Dawn C. Kepler and Karen Kushner Dawn C. Kepler's Response I want to begin by commending Kim on starting life with Aaron with her eyes wide open. She is being self-aware and proactive in her examination of what her future will be like with Aaron. Deciding on one religion for children is easier for the kids, but I never said it is easy for the adults. Kim raises some excellent topics. Let's consider them. Growing up, Christmas was an "elaborate celebration," not particularly religious, but that celebration was most likely emotionally connected to family and loved ones. That's a lot of meaning for one day--even one month--to carry. Additionally, Christmas is a national holiday embedded in every aspect of American public life. The first issue Kim must face is her very real sense of loss. It is important to realize that this is her feeling as she anticipates raising her children in a different way than she herself was, and different than she had expected. Ideally she will not transmit the sense of loss to her children. But in not perpetuating it, she must recognize what she is losing and take care of her own needs. Kim should identity the core elements she misses and look for ways of replacing them. Additionally, she can invigorate and strengthen existing practices that feed her emotionally. To replace a practice you want to discontinue or reduce, identify its most basic components. Say, Kim bakes Christmas cookies each year with her mother and it is a tradition filled with memories. It involves time with mom, remembered recipes, good smells and good tastes. We look to have all these things. They can keep baking, including make those Santa and reindeer shapes. But they can add dogs, birds and palm trees. Or get Hanukkah cutters. Give the Santa cookies to non-jewish family and friends and keep the array of other shapes for her Jewish family. This practice can continue when there are kids with the message that, "We make cookies for everyone we love!" Or change the baking date to May and make blintzes for Shavuot. Be creative. Look for solutions that feel good to you. Give them time to become a tradition.

22 Page 2 of 3 To modify an existing practice, again be creative. Do you have Christmas brunch at Aunt Dorothy's house? Is it the only time Kim really sees Aunt Dorothy all year? Create a different activity with her. Take her out to dinner on her birthday. Or create a day just for the two of you, March 3. Or just make a point of seeing her more than once a year! Don't reduce all your love-filled gatherings to one mad month. Be creative, be patient, it takes time, repetition and humor to create new traditions. Be willing to try things out in the spirit of fun and adventure. Kim wisely chose not to over-stress herself when she realized she was trying to please everyone. Don't perform for others. December is a demanding month; give yourself some couple-time. Finally, although Kim is looking forward to coming years when Christmas and Hanukkah don't overlap and they can "fully share both holidays," she should not create an illusion of equal time. Complete fairness and equality is an ideal, rarely a reality. Raising kids will throw new questions at Kim and Aaron. Just go with the flow, ask for help, be patient with yourself and be ready to be surprised by hours of family happiness at unanticipated moments and traditions not yet dreamed of. Karen Kushner's Response This woman spells out the Christian position beautifully and I want every Jewish partner to read it! I don't know if she was able to say these things to her "Aaron" or whether, like a lot of us, meaning comes out clearer in the writing. This triggers a suggestion that couples would do well to have a journal where each could write their feelings about the holiday struggles and grow to learn more about their own feelings and the feelings of each other and their history with holidays. Of course this would hopefully come out in a couples group as well, but we know that many couples don't have the opportunity to go to a group. Kim explains the loss that partners of Jews experience as they give the enormous gift of agreeing to rear children in Judaism. That is why it is so important for the Jewish partners to read this essay so that they will realize the gratitude and thanks owed to their partners! I was glad to see that Aaron could also be generous and open enough to join in her family's celebration. This couple is working through their feelings and finding a way to balance their two histories, two families and the two holidays. I would tell Kim that she is correct that she has to be her full self and that her history is a part of that whole self. She should not be guilty about the sweetness of her memories and her desire to keep those things alive. She will have many years, God willing, to celebrate Christmas with her side of the family and she should enjoy it thoroughly. Her enjoyment will not diminish the Judaism of their home, if they enter into the Jewish holidays and culture with a search for equal enjoyment. It is the joyous moments that create the strongest memories, so the more they "do Jewish" and the sooner they find a community of young couples to share those experiences with, the more sweet memories of Judaism will be accumulated.

23 Page 3 of 3 Karen Kushner is director of Project Welcome, an outreach program welcoming interfaith families, unaffiliated Jews and seekers into Independent, Renewal, Reconstructionist, Reform and Conservative synagogues in Northern California. Project Welcome is a project of the Union for Reform Judaism and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund & the Walter and Elise Haas Fund. Dawn C. Kepler is director of Building Jewish Bridges: Outreach to Interfaith Couples, located in the East Bay area of San Francisco, Calif. Copyright InterfaithFamily.com, Inc. All rights reserved.

24 Page 1 of 2 For more information, visit our December Holidays Resource Page. 'Tis the Season to be Ironic By Jim Keen When my wife and I first told my Protestant parents, over 15 years ago, that we were going to raise our children Jewish, I'm sure that they must have felt a pang of regret. As we explained how we really wanted them to be active participants in their grandkids' lives, any regret or sadness fortunately turned into love and support. However, I bet they still wondered how Christmas would work out. Ten years after our first daughter was born, the reality of how my parents spend Christmas is a bit surprising to them--and even to me. When I was a kid, celebrating Christmas meant having my grandparents stay at our house. It meant a big dinner Christmas Eve, and then waking up the next morning to twinkling lights on the tree, a nice fire in the fireplace, wonderful aromas coming from the kitchen, and, of course, all those presents. My brother, sister, and I would take down our hand-knit stockings and dig in. We also had two weeks without school to get to know our presents on a more personal level. That's how I wanted Christmas to stay forever. Unfortunately, we grew older, moved out, and married. This meant a change in the status quo. For the first few years, it signaled just a slight change in plans. The only real alteration was that we drove home to my parents' house, rather than already being there. My siblings and I (and spouses) would spend the night Christmas Eve and open presents Christmas morning. With my wife being Jewish, we made it clear that she was only there to "help" me celebrate my holiday. My family "helped" her celebrate her holiday of Hanukkah earlier in the month. Then, my wife and I gave birth to a Jewish daughter. My wife has always celebrated Hanukkah. But now, having a child meant that we could jazz up the holiday a lot more. We decided to add an annual Hanukkah dinner to our December calendar. Because my in-laws live out of state, we began inviting my whole Christian family over to help us celebrate. They live in town, so it's more convenient. Plus, it's a fun way to include them and teach them a little about Judaism. We set up a tradition that our daughter, and subsequently her younger sister, would receive their big Hanukkah presents at this annual party. So what happened that first Christmas after our daughter was born? All of us still drove to my parents' house. Not a whole lot changed. We continued to emphasize that my wife and daughter were not celebrating both. However, it was okay for them to help me celebrate my holiday by being with me (and eating a few too many Christmas cookies).

25 Page 2 of 2 A few years later, my Christian siblings gave birth to Christian daughters. Not unexpectedly, they wanted to create that Christmas magic in their own homes. Suddenly, we found the arrangements changing. My siblings decided to spend Christmas Eve at their own homes. They wanted Santa to come down their own chimneys. I think this decision came as a bit of a shock to my mom and dad. However, my parents soon understood, as this was how it was done when they were raising a young family. Today, it is just my nuclear family that spends the night on Christmas Eve with my parents. My brother, sister, and their families don't join us until around noon Christmas day. It is ironic how, as the only person in the family married to a Jewish woman, my family is the one spending Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my parents. My mom and dad take a lot of comfort in having their grandkids--their Jewish grandkids--help them celebrate Christmas. My mom reads them 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. My daughters help their grandpa set out cookies for Santa. We also go sledding in the woods, we drink hot chocolate by the fire, and, of course, we bake more cookies. I look at all of this and think how lucky I am that I married someone Jewish so that I don't have to miss out on this special time with my parents. I keep a lot of my childhood traditions this way. I get to use the same hand-knit stocking that I've had since I was born. I get to enjoy my parents' tree with all of the same ornaments that I grew up with. It's a warm, fuzzy feeling during a warm, fuzzy time of year. It is ironic that I used to think marrying outside my religion meant that I'd have to give up these particular traditions. It is ironic that my children are firmly Jewish in their upbringing, yet they can help their Christian grandparents enjoy Christmas in ways that their Christian cousins cannot. It is ironic how the relationship that was supposed to be so problematic is the relationship fulfilling so many needs. Jim Keen is the author of the book Inside Intermarriage: A Christian Partner's Perspective on Raising a Jewish Family (URJ Press). He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife and two daughters. A 15% discount is available to InterfaithFamily.com subscribers if you purchase Inside Intermarriage through the URJ Press website. If you sign up today, you will receive the discount code in your confirmation . If you are already a subscriber, visit My Profile for the discount code. Copyright InterfaithFamily.com, Inc. All rights reserved.

26 Page 1 of 2 For more information, visit our December Holidays Resource Page. A Magen David on Our Christmas Tree By Simon Round Reprinted with permission of The Jewish Chronicle of London. July 13, 2006 David and Carolin Sommer have been married for five years. They live in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, and have two children: Leon, 2, and Benjamin, six months. David, 34, is Jewish. He was born in Welwyn Garden City and brought up in Surrey. He studied physics at Oxford University and works as a commercial director in publishing. Carolin, 33, is non-jewish and was born in Dusseldorf, Germany. She is currently on maternity leave from her job in marketing. For those who fear that intermarriage will lead to the extinction of Judaism, David and Carolin Sommer make an interesting case study. David's father is Jewish and his mother had a Liberal (similar to Reform) conversion. He grew up in Farnham, Surrey--not the most heimishe of areas--and was to his knowledge the only Jewish child in his school. When he met a nice, non-jewish German girl from Dusseldorf and settled down in a leafy part of Buckinghamshire, you might imagine that Judaism would not figure high on the list of priorities for their children. You would be wrong. Despite the fact that 2-year-old Leon and six-month-old Benjamin have only one grandparent who was born Jewish, they have both gone through conversions under the auspices of Maidenhead Synagogue, already attend services there, and in due course will go to cheder (Hebrew school) and have their bar mitzvahs. "What we don't want is the boys falling between stools--not feeling British or German, Jewish or Christian," David says. "We hope that we are giving them a strong sense of identity." There is another reason why David is so keen that they should grow up Jewish. "My brother, Daniel, died three years ago at the age of 28 from cystic fibrosis. His death gave extra poignancy to the idea of giving Leon and Benjamin a Jewish education. Although they can't replace him, there is a strong feeling that we are keeping the Sommer name Jewish. Otherwise, it would be the end of

27 Page 2 of 2 the Jewish line for our family." While the boys will grow up Jewish, they will also grow up with German relatives in Dusseldorf. So Carolin, who met David while spending a year in England as part of her university course, tries to speak to her children in German. She is perfectly happy about the children being brought up as Jewish, even though it is not her own religion. "I thought for a long time about converting [to Judaism], but in the end I decided I couldn't do it, despite the fact that I had been to so many classes at the synagogue that I could easily have qualified. I haven't been brought up as a Jew and I just can't feel it. I have no problem with the Jewish religion, but I'm not a religious person myself," she says in a barely discernable German accent. "On the other hand, I didn't want the boys to grow up wondering what religion they are. So, when it was suggested that Leon and Benjamin could have a conversion, which meant that I didn't need to, it really was a huge weight off my shoulders." Carolin explains, in the same way, that she could never become British, despite feeling more at home here than in Germany. "I prefer the British mentality, but I am not and can never be British myself." The problem of their different cultural inheritance was not an issue for David and Carolin, or for either of their families. As a German, Carolin did feel "slightly worried" about meeting David's parents--particularly as his father was the child of German-Jewish refugees who arrived here in the 1930s. She need not have. She was immediately accepted and now feels very close to her parentsin-law. David adds: "I lived in non-jewish areas, attended non-jewish schools and didn't move in Jewish circles, so the chances of my meeting a Jewish girl were always going to be small." Once David and Carolin became engaged, they had to decide on the kind of wedding they wanted. A Jewish wedding was out of the question, so in the end they were happy to opt for a civil ceremony, but with a strong Jewish component. David says, "I broke the glass, and we said grace after meals. The non-jewish guests were fascinated." There are, of course, complications--for example, what to do at Christmas. After all, Carolin's family are Protestant, although not religious. Carolin says the easiest option is to go to Germany to see the grandparents for the holidays, but they have spent Christmas at home. David explains: "We light the candles for Chanucah and give presents. As far as Christmas goes, we have a turkey, but then so does just about everyone in the country--it has long since ceased to be a religious festival any more. There was a debate about whether we should have a tree and in the end we did, except ours had a Magen David on top, rather than a fairy." Simon Round is a staff writer for the The Jewish Chronicle of London. Copyright InterfaithFamily.com, Inc. All rights reserved.

28 Page 1 of 3 For more information, visit our December Holidays Resource Page. Handling the December Holidays: Ten Tips from InterfaithFamily.com By Ronnie Friedland and Edmund Case Okay, so you are intermarried, and have to deal with both Christmas and Hanukkah. What to do? According to experts who have written for InterfaithFamily.com, a free Internet magazine for intermarried families, here are some tips. This document is also available in an easy-to-distribute PDF format. 1. If you are raising Jewish children and don't know what to do about Christmas (or if you are raising Christian children and don't know what to do about Hanukkah), our experts say that it is okay to participate in the holiday as a way of respecting the non-jewish (or Jewish) spouse and family. You can tell your kids, Today we're going to Grandma's house for Christmas because that is Daddy's (or Mommy's) holiday. We'll help him and his family celebrate, just as he helps us celebrate Hanukkah. 2. Keep the focus on the children's needs. What kids most love about Christmas is not the presents but the family togetherness. You don't need to focus on the gifts; it is having the family all together which will make it most meaningful for your children. And help children understand that they can enjoy Christmas and Hanukkah activities without betraying either parent or their religious upbringing. At the same time, use holidays to reinforce children's religious identity. 3. If you are raising Jewish kids and they feel uncomfortable about singing Christmas carols in school, should you complain to the school or reassure your kids? Our experts say you can do both. You might speak with the principal of the school about broadening the holiday song repertoire to include singing Hanukkah songs. That way, your child would be singing both Christmas and Hanukkah songs, as would the other kids. You can also reassure your children that singing the Christmas holiday songs doesn't make them Christian, nor does enjoying those songs. It is okay to enjoy other people's holidays, as long as your kids are clear what their holidays are. 4. Should you tell your in-laws that they shouldn't give your children Christmas stockings or presents (if you are raising them Jewish) or Hanukkah presents (if you are raising them Christian)? That is up to you. Some parents ask the grandparents to give gifts wrapped in paper that indicates the holiday the children do celebrate, and that includes all the relevant paraphernalia. There is no

29 Page 2 of 3 right answer for everyone. Do what works for you and your family. 5. If your children want a Christmas tree in your home and your Jewish spouse refuses, how should you handle it? Perhaps you had an agreement to celebrate Christmas at the grandparents' home, but now your kids (and you) want to celebrate in the home. Situations do change over time. Perhaps it is time for you and your partner to sit down for a talk. It would be important for each of you to explain what the holiday means to you. Share memories of when you were a child, how your grandparents celebrated with you, and what about those memories and traditions make them meaningful for you. Be clear about what the underlying issues are. Is it your own reluctance to have a Christmas tree or menorah in your home, or your fear about how your relatives might react? 6. Remember, the main concern is to decide how your family will live religiously throughout the year, not just for the month of December. If you agree about how you will live the rest of the year, then giving in on this holiday is less significant. 7. Allow your initial decisions to change as you and your family evolve. Certain things that may have seemed important at one stage of your marriage may become less important later. But pay attention to your inner feelings, to whether or not you feel comfortable with the practices your family evolves. 8. Work as partners to develop new family traditions while recognizing each partner's needs and work out ways to meet them. Denying a need will breed resentment, whereas negotiating a mutually acceptable way to meet it will validate what is most important to your partner, strengthening your relationship. Creating ways to celebrate aspects of the holidays in your home, in your own style, unites the family. 9. If you are in a relatively new blended family, keep in mind that it is most important for your children to have a sense of continuity and of cherished traditions being preserved, despite the splitup of their original family. Therefore, you and your new husband may each want to maintain certain traditions with your own children, rather than do everything together at this time. 10. If you are in a blended family, your own children may not want to visit the parents of their new step-mother or step-father for Christmas or Hanukkah, especially if this is not a holiday they have celebrated. If that is the case, it is probably not a good idea to force them. And if you are celebrating a holiday in your home that is new for your step-children, expect that the holiday may be awkward and uncomfortable for the first few years, until it becomes a tradition of your new family. Understand that they may even feel as if they are betraying the religion they have been raised in. Respecting their boundaries may mean inviting them but not forcing them to participate. Ronnie Friedland is the web magazine editor of InterfaithFamily.com.

30 Page 3 of 3 Ed Case is the publisher and president of InterfaithFamily.com. Copyright InterfaithFamily.com, Inc. All rights reserved.

31 Page 1 of 2 For more information, visit our December Holidays Resource Page. Turning the Dilemma into a Tradition By Jemi Kostiner Mansfield Working in a synagogue education department, I am constantly asked by other parents what my family does in our home during the winter holiday season: Do we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas? Do we have a tree? Do we let the children get presents from Santa? Do we try to shelter our children and pretend we aren't affected by the megalomania of Christmas in America? Every parent who asks me (or anyone else) these kinds of questions is looking for reassurance that what they themselves are doing is okay. My answer is always this: we don't allow the "December dilemma" to overshadow our family's lives--in December or any other time of year. Alex and Ben are our sons. They are Jewish. There was never a question of how they would be raised. Greg and I discussed this long and hard years before we were even engaged, back in the day when children were still theoretical. Our children would be Jewish automatically through matrilineage, and the only religious instruction they would receive would be in Judaism. In fact, Alex is finishing first grade at a day school. When it comes to winter holidays, we don't run into problems of whether or not to have a tree. We have a tree. What is a very real worry is what we'll do when the day comes--and it will come--that Alex asks why we have a Christmas tree if we're Jewish. This goes beyond the traditional December dilemma. We have the responsibility to instill in our children a strong Jewish identity, both in and out of our home. But we also have a responsibility to make the children understand that Daddy's family isn't Jewish, and they have traditions and holidays, too. Their non-jewish traditions are no less important than our Jewish ones, and the one tradition that is important to Daddy is the Christmas tree and the family gatherings around the holiday. Unlike me, whose grandparents lived 3,000 miles away on the East Coast, Greg grew up with his family all in the same town. Overnights at grandparents' homes were commonplace events. An impromptu dinner quickly became a party as the family grew. Christmas was the biggest party of all for the family--the time to pull out all the stops and all the food; the time for emotional highs and lows, for in-fighting and for in-jokes, for just gathering together and taking the time to appreciate the people around you. That was very important to Greg, especially after divorces and remarriages changed the dynamics of his family. Regardless of what went on during the rest of the year, he knew that Christmas was a constant--a time of security. That was all Greg asked for in our many discussions about our children, our home and our family. He wanted our boys to appreciate the traditions from both sides of the family without necessarily

32 Page 2 of 2 identifying with anything outright Christian. I have spent seventeen Christmases with Greg's family. My parents have joined us on many occasions, especially when Hanukkah and Christmas have overlapped. Believe it or not, latkes fit right in on a smorgasbord table. Greg's mother's house on Christmas Eve is not so very different from my mother's house on Passover. While my motherin-law has Swedish meatballs, pickled herring and her grandmother's Advent calendar, my mother has matzah balls, gefilte fish and the Maxwell House hagaddah. These are traditions--important family traditions--constant, secure and something we want to pass on to our children. As we see it, our job is to make our family's Jewish identity so natural, so much a part of us, that it's not threatened by the presence of a Grand Fir in our living room for one month out of the year. Jemi Kostiner Mansfield is a native of the Pacific Northwest, born in Seattle and raised in Portland. Since 1992, she has worked at Congregation Beth Israel in Portland, Oregon, currently serving as education and life cycle administrator. With sons Alex and Ben, Jemi and her husband Greg live in Beaverton, less than two miles in either direction from their parents and childhood homes. This article was an entry in the InterfaithFamily.com Network's Essay Contest, "We're Interfaith Families... Connecting with Jewish Life." Copyright InterfaithFamily.com, Inc. All rights reserved.

33 Page 1 of 2 For more information, visit our December Holidays Resource Page. O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree-- You're So Much More Than--Foliage! By Marlena Thompson When I was first married, had a psychic told me she foresaw a brilliantly trimmed fir tree winking cheerfully through my bay window at Christmas, I'd have advised her to get another crystal ball. I was certain I would never countenance the presence of that most conspicuous of Christian symbols in my home, despite the fact that my husband is Episcopalian and I, though Jewish, am neither religiously observant nor irrevocably bound to tradition. It wasn't that I tried to ignore Christmas. In fact, I had acknowledged the holiday in some way all my life. As a child, I went caroling with friends and neighbors. I'd always sent "seasons greetings" cards to friends and family--jewish and non-jewish. After I married, my husband and I would exchange presents on Christmas morning. (December 25 is our anniversary, a fact that provided a convenient rationale for the gift giving.) But, despite my husband's entreaties for a tree in the early years of our marriage (we've been married for twenty years), I was resolute. A Christmas tree was out of the question. According to my logic at that time, (a logic some would likely call convoluted), it wasn't nearly as culturally disloyal to marry someone who wasn't Jewish as it was to have a Christmas tree. I was unmoved by arguments that Christmas trees don't really symbolize Christianity but evolved from the sacred pines originally used by Roman priests in their worship of the Great Mother Goddess. In religion, "poetic" rather than absolute truth often prevails. A Christmas tree is a symbol of Christianity, despite its pagan origins. As the years passed, I sometimes found myself wavering about my position on the tree. When I discovered my daughter Jenny was autistic, I became less concerned with how she would be affected by the presence of a Christmas tree in the house. Autistic individuals often have a great deal of difficulty fathoming the abstract, so my daughter's notions of God, Jewish history, and cultural traditions were--and are--vague at best. When Jenny was about eight, she begged to have a tree, which to her signified nothing other than an object of great beauty. I very nearly acquiesced to her request. She would be deprived of many things in life, I reasoned. If a Christmas tree would give her so much pleasure, how could I deprive her? But old resolves die hard and deprive her I did. I played up Hanukkah, and, I am now ashamed to admit, contrived to make that year's celebration of the Jewish holiday as similar to Christmas as

34 Page 2 of 2 possible. I hoped that would forestall any future craving Jenny might have for a tree. But the very next year, with that unnerving logic possessed by so many autistic people, my daughter approached me and said, "Let's get a Christmas tree for Daddy. He's Christian--he needs a tree. I will help him decorate it. You shut your eyes so you don't see it." That bit of autistic profundity almost had me persuaded--but not quite. She didn't get the tree. As the years passed, my husband (if not my daughter) stopped campaigning for a tree. In fact, he began to talk about how much better it was without one. After all, it was such trouble to find one with just the right shape. The cost of decent ornaments and lights was outrageous. And the cleanup was an absolute nightmare. He spoke with such conviction, I almost believed him. And so it went, until four years ago when my husband suffered from a mini-stroke. He remained in hospital for almost two weeks, and when he came home, he was a changed man. He hadn't lost any physical capacities, but he had become noticeably more sensitive and sentimental. During that period of time he began to speak with a great deal of feeling about Christmases past--the family gatherings, the festivities--and, especially, the tree. It was painful for me to hear all this, because I understood the void he had felt during the holidays for so many years. That year we had our first Christmas tree. I had made no conscious decision, but was rather prompted by an inner, instinctive voice that told me I had for too long been selfish in my stance against the tree. I knew the time had come for me to let go. I have had no regrets. What do you think? Marlena Thompson is a writer and storyteller. Her novel, A Rare & Deadly Issue, a murder mystery with a protagonist who is half-irish, half-jewish, was published by Pearl Street Publishing( in Her articles have appeared in many national publications. Currently at work on a book about her autistic daughter, Thompson lives in Falls Church, Virginia. Copyright InterfaithFamily.com, Inc. All rights reserved.

35 Page 1 of 3 Intermarriage Tipping Point Long Past, but Institutions Must Now Catch Up By Paul Golin NEW YORK, Nov. 22 (JTA)--Few Jewish communal leaders have openly declared that the battle against Jewish intermarriage is over and we should instead focus solely on outreach. But the battle is over, and has been for a generation. What's more, Jewish outreach works, and it works best when not hampered by mixed messages that tell intermarried families we want them, but they're still second-class citizens. That's the message we still hear from segments of the community, even as many other institutions move toward a more welcoming approach to intermarried families. Recent events suggest we may finally be able to put the debate behind us. Anyone who's read Malcolm Gladwell's groundbreaking book The Tipping Point forever thereafter seeks out the little things that portend big changes at exponential speeds. We've long since reached the demographic tipping point on Jewish intermarriage, but most of our institutions have yet to change direction in terms of their programming, posturing and professional training. After maintaining single-digit intermarriage rates for the first 60 years of the last century, we saw a rapid rise in intermarriage. A 13 percent intermarriage rate of those married before 1970 leapt to 47 percent in 25 years. By 2001, there were about as many intermarried households in America as inmarried households, according to the National Jewish Population Study. More importantly, those intermarried households are younger and produce more children. Forty-five percent of college students who identified themselves as Jewish came from households with one Jewish-born parent. Yet there is still an effort in the organized Jewish community to discredit those Jews. So they hire researchers, who find that intermarried Jews are less Jewishly educated, less Jewishly involved, even though the same could be said for many other Jewish sub-groups. The resulting policy recommendations are always the same: Don't spend money on the intermarried. Why would influential leaders in the richest, most powerful Diaspora community in history still feel the need to triage half our married population? We have a demographic and a moral imperative to reach out to intermarried families and welcome them into the Jewish community. Intermarriage is not the end of Jewish continuity; not raising Jewish children is the end of Jewish continuity. Recognizing this will lead the organized community to welcome all who would cast

36 Page 2 of 3 their lot with the Jewish people. And when our population begins to grow, we will likely look back upon the recent release of the 2005 Boston Jewish Community Survey as a tipping point. That study showed 60 percent of intermarried families in that city are raising children Jewishly, and states that intermarriage "is contributing to a net increase in the number of Jews" in the Boston Jewish community. This position is made more powerful when combined with the 2005 San Francisco Jewish demographic study that also identified higher-than-average rates of intermarried households raising children Jewishly. What do San Francisco and Boston have in common? A Jewish community that, for the most part, welcomes intermarried families to participate as they are. Also, both cities have a tightknit group of interfaith outreach specialists. There is now talk that other federations should consider similar expenditures on interfaith outreach, highest in the country. Combined Jewish Philanthropies is reportedly spending about 1.5 percent of its budget on outreach. Detractors say that "we tried outreach and it didn't work," but how hard have we tried if communities have to be convinced to increase their spending on outreach to even 1 percent of their budgets. In order for it to work, however, we need to not only dedicate resources but also make distinctions between Jewish and halachically Jewish. A tipping-point moment on halachic issues came earlier this year, when Ismar Schorsch--outgoing chancellor of the Conservative Movement's Jewish Theological Seminary--proposed that the movement's Ramah camps allow children of Jewish fathers and non-jewish mothers to attend their camps until age 13, when they would then be asked to convert. The fact that this had not previously been allowed is all about culture, not halachah. Jewish leaders must recognize what their constituency already understands: We do not live in an ideal Jewish world. Not all Jews observe all of the mitzvot. But we don't kick people out of the Jewish community if they skip a few. Institutional admonishment against intermarriage doesn't stop intermarriage in America, it only serves to push away the intermarried. Our sole mission should focus on helping all existing Jewish households engage more deeply in Jewish activities. Boston and San Francisco have a head start, but there are some fairly clear outreach methodologies that other communities can adopt. First, they must train and sensitize all of their professionals and lay leaders. The Jewish Outreach Institute has conducted environmental scans of more than 500 communal institutions in North American cities like Ottawa, Louisville, Atlanta, San Francisco and Phoenix, and found that those who answer the phones or sit by the doors almost universally receive no sensitivity training for intake of intermarried couples. We also have to make the joys of being Jewish more visible to the community-at-large rather than keeping it all within the walls of our institutions. Cultural events in secular venues reach a less engaged audience. The findings of the Boston Study certainly feel like vindication for the outreach community, but we also note that 28 percent are raising their children in no religion. That's growth potential. That's an additional outreach target population. We know the outreach corps in Boston will keep working to draw in even more interfaith families. Outreach is some of the most challenging work in the Jewish community. But we will be a better people for trying rather than telling ourselves that those on the periphery of our community are not

37 Page 3 of 3 worth our time or money and should therefore be let go. Paul Golin is associate executive director of the Jewish Outreach Institute and co-author with Rabbi Kerry Olitzky of 20 Things for Grandparents of Interfaith Grandchildren To Do (And Not Do) To Nurture Jewish Identity In Their Grandchildren. Copyright InterfaithFamily.com, Inc. All rights reserved.

38 Page 1 of 3 The Nativity Story: Responses of an Interfaith Couple By Tracy Hahn-Burkett and Paul Burkett Tracy, writing from the Jewish perspective: Keisha Castle-Hughes stars as Mary in The Nativity Story. Photo 2006 Jaimie Trublood/New Line Productions The Nativity Story is an uncomplicated, mostly happy tale of the birth of a divine baby, suitable for any child to see at Christmas. Good and evil were clear, and any doubt or trouble suffered by Mary and Joseph was quickly dissipated by a visiting angel or a wry joke. Like any American Jew, I know the basic nativity story. As unlikely as it seems to me that two thousand years ago a virgin bore a baby sent by God to save mankind, I know that for many, if not most, Christians, this story is as irrefutable as the progression of day into night. Thus, I sought evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was more than a prominent Jew whose influence was feared by the Roman-backed king, Herod, and whose divinity was a corporeal creation of men with political agendas. Ultimately, the movie failed to shed light on this or any other substantial question. The Nativity Story did touch on, however, one of the many compelling aspects of Jesus: his Jewishness. I have always wondered how some Christians could harbor such deep anti- Semitism in the name of their savior who, after all, was a Jew. Artistically, I found the recitation in accented English of common Hebrew prayers to be jarring; even subtitles under Hebrew or Aramaic spoken words would have been preferable. Yet, when Joseph said hamotzi (the prayer recited before eating bread) in Hebrew over the couple's last remaining scrap of food, I was jolted back to the link between the Jewish people and Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and I briefly felt tied to the story. But then the film moved to the next simple plot point, and the movie felt like a mere tale once more. I did discover a spiritual moment in an unlikely place. The very last credit on the screen was a statement noting that the film's makers had planted trees to mitigate any environmental damage that might have been caused by the filming of the movie. Regardless of whether they believe in the

39 Page 2 of 3 nativity, both Jews and Christians place tremendous value on mankind's responsibility to care for God's creation. In one simple statement that wasn't really even part of the film, the teachings of Jesus and tikkun olam (the Jewish obligation to repair the world) came together to remind anyone who still remained in the theater that humanity still has much to do to fulfill the expectations of God. Paul, writing from the non-jewish perspective: The Nativity Story takes us on a mostly familiar journey. The film focuses on the human and political realities that lie beneath the tale of Jesus's birth. Unfortunately, director Catherine Hardwicke's rigid devotion to her source material undermines the movie. Her desire to include every particular from the Gospels gives the film a patchwork feel with little emotional or thematic arc. Ultimately, The Nativity Story is art without a soul. Any filmmaker telling this story is faced with a dilemma: how to be new or fresh without giving offense. Hardwicke solves the latter problem by reciting all the basic facts from the Gospels. The problem is that she incorporates all the reported facts whether or not they add to the story of Mary and Joseph's spiritual and physical journeys to Bethlehem. She does a better job bringing something new to the story by delving into the human elements that are left out of the Bible. How does Mary tell her family and Joseph of her unplanned pregnancy? How did Mary and Joseph get from Nazareth to Bethlehem and end up in a stable? Hardwicke explores these questions with heart and imagination, even though she limits her own storytelling by her desire to avoid controversy. Oscar Issac stars as Joseph in The Nativity Story. Photo 2006 Jaimie Trublood/New Line Productions Thus, as an exercise in retelling the story of Mary and Joseph, humanizing it and filling in some of the gaps, The Nativity Story works pretty well. I enjoyed the movie on this level and found the characters--joseph in particular--to be interesting and engaging. The movie is less appealing technically. The editing was rough in places, and the special effects were schlocky at best. The music was distracting at times. Having Mary and Joseph enter Bethlehem to the strains of "Carol of the Bells" was a low point. These shortcomings could be forgiven if the movie otherwise had more life and spirit. Ultimately, though, The Nativity Story falls flat because the filmmaker could not trust herself to tell the human story without including every last detail from the Gospels. In addition, the fairly incessant use of post-nativity Christian symbology--such as Herod's crucifying his enemies or Mary's washing Joseph's feet--was off-putting (perhaps Hardwicke is foreshadowing a sequel). As with the technical flaws in the movie, these editorial lapses could be forgiven if the film spoke to the audience more deeply, but it does not.