Q: "I'm married to a non-Jew. We always thought we'd make both of our religions available to our kids, but I have to wonder: Is it possible to raise kids as 'both' Jewish and Christian? Or do the children turn out as 'neither'?"
Catherine Newman
Writer; Author of Waiting for Birdy:
A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a
Family
A mix of both and neither. You know how if you visit the Yankee Candle store in December, it's all miniature Bavarian villages and real pretend Santas and a trillion candles with aromas like 'Cranberry Crumb Cake for Jesus?' And then in some miserable shtetly corner there's the Chanukah kiosk? Sometimes my marriage is like that. My husband and I are both half Jewish. Sometimes we make a whole Jew between us, and the kids are good little twice-quarter Jews. But sometimes, in response to one of their questions about Chanukah, I am stuck stumbling through one of my muddled explanations while they stare, glossy-eyed, at the lights twinkling on our tree—and all I can say in my defense is that I feel about this the guilt of at least one and a half Jews."
Sherry Davey
Comedian; Featured performer in "The J.A.P.
Show—Jewish American Princesses of Comedy," running off Broadway
In my case, it worked out as 'neither' for a very long time. I'm half-Jewish, half-Catholic, married to a non-Jew. Being Jewish and Christian was not easy. I could never reconcile the two; the only things they have in common are guilt and candles.
"For some time, I rejected both religions. Whichever choice I made would surely make one of my parents unhappy, so I did the fair thing and disappointed everyone.
"But Judaism always made sense to me. After the death of my brother-in-law on September 11th, I found myself coming back to Jewish rituals because I find comfort and meaning in them. So now my husband and I belong to a synagogue, and we're raising our 5-year-old daughter with an emphasis on Judaism."
The Experts Weigh In
Like all good Jewish
questions, the answer to this one is a very emphatic "It depends."
But to cut to the chase: If you intended to have your kids answer confidently "Yes" when asked "Are you Jewish?" and "Are you Christian?" you are out of luck.
First of all, if you're married to a non-Jew, you're not alone. Though the figures vary, recent studies have shown that about half the adult Jewish population in the United States is intermarried.
But what does that say about the kids? "The Boston survey," as a report from the Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University is now referred to, found that 60 percent of the intermarried families in the greater Boston area are raising their kids as Jews. Conventional wisdom from even a few years ago dictated that the children of interfaith couples were, for all intents and purposes, "lost" to Judaism. (You know: the old rending-of-parental-garments, "You're dead to me" shtick.)
What these results mean, however, is that more kids raised in families with ›› a Jewish parent are identifying as Jews—not as both Jews and Christians (or any other religion). And that's because such a thing does not really exist, say experts.
"Listen," says Rabbi Menachem Creditor of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, Calif., "it's not easy to raise a Jewish child when both parents are Jewish, let alone when only one is." While some intermarried couples have the notion that exposing kids equally to multiple religions gives them the benefit of choosing one over others, Rabbi Creditor claims that this is a false choice. "If you want your children to have ownership of their identities, they need to be able to call one faith 'home,' " he says. He compares the situation to how difficult it can be for children of divorced parents to have two literal homes without either one being primary: "It's very hard for a child to have some of his stuff in one home and some in another. Even when the parents' split is amicable, the child feels torn over which home is really his."
Rabbi Sherre Hirsch, author of We Plan, God Laughs: Ten Steps to Finding Your Divine Path When Life Is Not Turning Out Like You Wanted (Random House), agrees. "I don't believe being raised with both religions ever works," says the mother of three. "It's just like when you're parenting your children. If one parent gives one set of rules and the other gives another, what you inevitably breed is confusion and lack of clarity."
That said, how should an interfaith couple choose one religion over another? The first step is a little self-analysis to figure out the brand of your interfaith couple, says Rabbi Lev Ba'esh, director of InterfaithFamily.com's Resource Center for Jewish Clergy.
Do both of you regularly attend religious services? Is one of you more religious than the other? It's time for you to get specific about what each of you wants to pass along from his or her religious tradition. Are the expectations impractical? Do both parents want their kids to go to religious services and education from each tradition—Hebrew school and Sunday school, for instance? Or would it be enough to celebrate the holidays of the nonprimary religion with extended family?
Rabbi Hirsch says that choosing a primary religion is often not as difficult as it might sound. First, she advises couples to schedule three informational sessions with a rabbi and with a priest (or whomever the clergy member is for the other faith). "I find that there's usually one that speaks to them authentically as a couple. Once they begin a process of questioning, they quickly figure out that something appeals to them more about one religion over the other—the spirit of inquiry in Judaism, for instance, or repenting for sins in Catholicism."
If a couple chooses Judaism as their primary religion and has decided to raise their kids in the faith, she recommends that both the Jew and non-Jew in the couple take a course in basic Judaism, since the Jewish partner is often ignorant of many of the tenets of the religion. "If you say you want to raise your children as Jews but can't say one thing about a holiday or the meaning behind it, then you're not raising them with Judaism," explains Rabbi Hirsch.
In case opting for just one religion feels too extreme, it's good to bear in mind that the one doesn't have to completely blot out the other. Like Sherry Davey, interfaith couples can choose to emphasize one faith but still incorporate elements of the other into their family's life, by going to an extended family's holiday celebrations and teaching children about the history and tenets of the religion so that they have some basis of understanding that side of the family. "We can appreciate and respect the other without embracing it," says Rabbi Hirsch. "It's a matter of saying, 'Grandma celebrates Easter because she's Christian. We celebrate Passover because we're Jews.' Especially when they're little, kids don't need or want more explanation than that."
Starting an interfaith family isn't easy. But maybe that's the good part. "By investigating their priorities and beliefs, interfaith couples consciously do what a lot of same-faith couples take for granted," says Rabbi Ba'esh. "After all of this work, they come to a full sense of self and identity. Some couples where both partners are Jews never go through that questioning period to figure out what's most important to them about being Jewish." •
Contributing Editor Emily Bloch is a freelance writer and editor living in Amherst, Mass. She has written for Real Simple, Parenting, and Self and regularly writes "Two Jews, Three Opinions."
