An Interfaith Child in the World: Rise Up Joyful

My children have grown up in an interfaith utopia: a shimmering bubble of Judaism, Catholicism, Unitarianism, Protestantism and Buddhism swirling around them, creating gorgeous patterns. As interfaith couples raising children with more than one family religion, we created a community for our children, to show that interfaith families can be successful and happy while celebrating their full heritage.

Now comes the moment when my daughter, my first-born, must emerge from the beauty of this bubble, or so they say. In a few days, she leaves for a college that is thousands of miles away. She will encounter religious institutions still attempting to assign binary religious labels: Jewish or Christian, Muslim or Hindu, never both. She will hear that interfaith families must choose, interfaith children must fit into one religious box.

And yet, I expect my daughter to change the world as much as the world will change her. I have spent the past year interviewing grown children raised in interfaith family communities for my forthcoming book (Beacon Press, 2013). Based on the experiences of this new generation, I have great optimism that the gifts we have given our children in intentional interfaith communities will serve them well as interfaith activists and as ambassadors for religious peace.

My daughter is literate in two religions, and hungry to learn about others. She stands ready to defend both Judaism and Christianity, and to explain their interconnections. She can ponder the mystery of the universe in two languages. She is primed for deep empathy, building bridges, resisting intolerance.

For my daughter, interfaithness has never been incidental. Her confidence is bolstered by the presence and support of a beloved pastor, and a beloved rabbi. Since graduating from the interfaith Coming of Age program in eighth grade, she has taught in Sunday School classes for four years, getting up on Sunday mornings all through high school to teach interfaith kindergarteners.

At the final gathering of our interfaith community before the summer break, Our daughter stood at the front of the room, so that we could sing a parting blessing for her: an adaptation of a verse from the poem “Prayers and Sayings of a Mad Farmer” by our favorite farmer and poet Wendell Berry:

When I rise up let me rise up joyful, like a bird.
When I fall let me fall without regret, like a leaf.

We also said our weekly interfaith responsive reading, including a Benediction and Charge written by Cantor Oscar Rosenbloom, from the interfaith families community in Palo Alto, California. On the eve of my daughter’s departure, these words took on new resonance:

May we go out into the world carrying with each of us the love and blessing of this Interfaith Community.
May we continue to hold on to what is good
and to stand as beacons of light and understanding for all people.

Demographics are on my daughter’s side. There is no stopping the formation of families across the lines of race, culture, religion and tribe. Some of us will choose one religion, one tribe. Some of us will not. I send my daughter out as a messenger bringing the good news that interfaith children raised with both religions can, not just survive, but truly thrive.
In my mind, my daughter does not exit, vulnerable, from our bubble into some harsh climate. Instead, I imagine that she is breaking off into a smaller bubble, rising on an updraft, taking the beauty of religious fluidity with her, floating out into the world for all to admire. Rather than leaving behind the idea of interfaith community, she will take it with her, gathering the interfaith children of her generation–Buddhist and Jewish, Wiccan and Quaker, Sikh and Catholic—and inviting them into this new reality.

On Being Both Mohawk and Catholic: Kateri Tekakwitha

In our kaledioscopic world, there are many ways of becoming “both” or acquiring complex identity. The force that spins and swirls us may be intermarriage, adoption, immigration, expatriation, colonization. As a child of interfaith parents, someone deeply rooted in two traditions, I often discover shared qualities with transracial and mixed race families, third-culture kids, dislocated populations, and indigenous peoples surviving in the 21st century.

In today’s New York Times, a headline jumped out at me: “Complex Emotions With Naming of First American Indian Saint.”  I felt immediately drawn to the story of Kateri Tekakwitha, an Algonquin and Mohawk woman born in 1656 who is scheduled to be canonized next October by the Vatican.

Kateri came into contact with Catholic missionaries as a teenager, fled an arranged marriage, was baptized at age 20, devoted herself to prayer and to working with the sick, and died at age 24. Over the centuries since then, those who pray to her say they have experienced miraculous healing.

On the Mohawk River in upstate New York, a shrine to Kateri created by Fransicans incorporates Mohawk symbols and cultural elements. The article notes that there are some 680,000 American Indian Catholics in America. ”I don’t look at it like she gave up her native beliefs,” the article quotes a local Mohawk man as saying. “She added to her faith.”

A wise math tutor working with my children once told me, “As human beings, we love to add and multiply, whereas we struggle with subtraction and division, from a psychological point of view.” We build our complex identities through adding and multiplying, not subtracting or dividing. The New York Times quotes a Navajo man as saying that the canonization of Kateri might heal rifts by “connecting us together.” Those of us with complex identities inevitably find ourselves bridging gaps, straddling boundaries, striving to heal and connect. This fall, I will celebrate the canonization of Saint Kateri as a sister in complexity.

“Partially Jewish” and Proud: Interfaith Identity

With the release of a new study of the Jewish population of New York this month, researchers officially acknowledged the growing cohort of people with complex, interfaith identities. We exist!

According to the Executive Summary of the Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011, “Rising numbers of people report unconventional identity configurations. They may consider themselves ‘partially Jewish,’ or may identify as Jews even while identifying with Christianity or another non-Jewish religion (many more do so now than who so reported in 2002). Of such people with unconventional configurations, 70% have a non-Jewish parent (or two).”

In the study, they note, “…we also see more hybridity— that is, the confluence of multiple traditions not only in households but even within individuals. Today, more and more individuals feel comfortable adopting elements from multiple religious traditions, and even identifying with several traditions at once. As one of our respondents declared, ‘I am two religions.’ In another case, our interviewer noted that the respondent derives from mixed upbringing and ‘identifies with both’.”

Not to seem ungrateful after finally being recognized, but I am not partial to the term “partially.” I do not consider myself a “partial” anything. I am a self-defined Jew, who also insists on my right to celebrate my birth into an interfaith family. I revel in my hybridity, in my fluid and yet deeply satisfying spiritual practice, and in my participation in an intentional and independent interfaith families community. I invite demographers to explore what I call “the joy of being both” on my blog, onbeingboth.com. Next year, my book on how and why parents are choosing to educate interfaith children in more than one religion, and how those children feel about it when they grow up, will be published by Beacon Press.

The authors of the study asked themselves, “Should ‘Jewish and something else’ be seen as a somewhat qualified form of Jewish upbringing, or a functional equivalent of non-Jewish socialization, or an intermediate category?” They go on to infer that “the ‘Jewish and something else’ response signifies very weak levels of Jewish socialization.”

Let me describe our family’s Jewish engagement, which strikes me as anything but “weak.” We always host a Passover Seder, light Hanukkah candles, go to High Holy Day services. We also light Shabbat candles, celebrate Purim and Sukkot and Tu Bishvat. My children learned Hebrew, recited the blessings over the Torah when they turned 13. My children have a warm and personal relationship with more than one rabbi. They are quick to identify themselves as Jewish when they encounter anti-Semitism. Oh, and we have shlepped our children to Jewish Museums on more than one continent (visiting Jewish museums is one of the forms of Jewish engagement measured in the New York study).

But we also embrace our entire family tree. We celebrate Christian holidays, go to church with extended family. And we put our children through nine years of study about both Judaism and Christianity–about the common ground and the essential differences and the points of historical connection–in an interfaith education program for interfaith children.

It is true that my family feels alienated from the state of Israel, since none of us would be legally accepted as Jews there, and there is a troubling correlation between religious identity and civil rights in Israel. And Birthright will not take my children on a free trip to Israel unless they sign away their right to interfaith identity.

It is true that our family scores low on connections to institutional Judaism. My children aren’t accepted as Jews by many of those institutions, and that, frankly, decreases our desire to belong to them. Our insistence that our children be educated about Christianity, our openness to the possibility that our children will choose to get spiritual sustenance from Christian traditions, and that they have the right to choose a Christian (or for that matter Buddhist or Hindu) identity someday, is wholly unacceptable to most Jewish institutions. Interfaith families that seek to educate their children in more than one religion are expressly barred, by policy, from most synagogue classrooms.

I am cautiously optimistic that this new acknowledgement that we exist represents progress towards understanding that many interfaith children both want to stay connected to Judaism, and also want access to learning about both of their ancestral religions. I am hopeful that researchers will now seek to understand all that is positive about interfaith education for interfaith families. We engage the whole child, the whole family, and embrace our bothness. You can call us unconventional. We embrace that label, too.

New Family Traditions: Creating Rituals (Interfaith or Otherwise)

As interfaith families raising children with two religions, we often find ourselves creating new rituals as we go through life honoring both family traditions. Starting with the design of an interfaith marriage, and moving on through welcoming an interfaith child, coming of age, and ultimately facing death, we draw from both religions and cultures, respecting the integrity of each, and yet compelled to also innovate in order to form a coherent whole that highlights the interconnections in our families. As a result, we are sometimes accused of being “inauthentic,” or watering down our religions, or creating a third religion. But those of us who live interfaith lives, through marriage or birth, escape early from the fear of change or innovation, and learn quickly the beauty and power of creating new rituals.

In The Book of New Family Traditions: How to Create Great Rituals for Holidays and Every Day, author Meg Cox encourages all of us (whether interfaith or monofaith) to create our own family-specific rituals. She goes further, advocating for the right of all families to take inspiration from rituals of other religions and cultures. In the author’s preface to the revised 2012 edition of her popular book, Cox writes, “When it comes to ritual (and loads of other things), parents should feel free to borrow from good ideas that are already circulating, no matter that another family’s tree was planted in a different country or a different type of soil.”

Cox describes the rituals that different families have created for moments large and small, including bedtime, daycare drop-off, gardening, first menstruation, leaving for college, and both pet and family deaths. The book would be equally useful to those families that are secular, spiritual but not religious, or deeply religious.

Cox does describe many religious inspirations including Quaker and Buddhist blessings for meals, weekly family nights created by Catholic and Mormon parents, and Native American, Celtic and African traditions. The strength and heart of this book dwell in the ideas for everyday rituals and rituals for “non-religious” events such as getting a driver’s license or traveling by plane. Cox does not attempt to compile a compendium of world religious holidays, though she does have sections on rituals for Hanukkah, Christmas, Solstice, Easter and Passover. (This blog is mentioned in the Passover section).

As a parent, I wish this book had existed when my children were still small. As an interfaith parent, of course I have created rituals for my family, but Cox describes many more ways in which family life can be enriched by the intentional pairing of words and actions, imparting greater meaning to our lives. Some of these rituals work not just for parents, but for couples without children, singles, and empty-nesters. I intend to embrace more of them, starting today.

The Five Year Engagement: Jason Segel’s Interfaith Worldview

Plenty of movies depict interfaith couples: Exodus, Annie Hall, When Harry Met Sally. The new romantic comedy The Five Year Engagement chronicles the courtship of chef Tom (Jewish), and graduate student Violet (Christian). Actor Jason Segel, the leading man and script co-writer, happens to hail from an interfaith family himself. So I went to see the movie, searching for traces of Segel’s view on interfaith life.

Last year, Segel co-wrote and starred in The Muppets. The first time I heard “Man or Muppet,” the Grammy-nominated song from that movie, the song immediately struck me as a metaphor for the choices the world forces on interfaith children. I would love to find out whether Segel ever thought of the song in those terms.

Generally, I have to say I am not a fan of  the work of Judd Apatow, producer of The Five Year Engagement. Though I appreciate the sharp and witty dialogue, I prefer my romance without Apatow’s signature drunken vomiting, potty humor and crude guy talk, all of which appear in this film. The Five Year Engagement also runs too long, with a rambling chronology. On the other hand, the film centers on a real and bittersweet exploration of the dilemma for both partners over work, geography, and marriage.

Religious difference plays very little role in this film’s plot. Segel has said that some of the religion material ended up on the cutting-room floor. I like to imagine that by minimizing religion as a source of conflict, Segel, as an adult interfaith child, is making a positive statement about the possibilities of interfaith love.

We do get a glimpse of religious difference in each of the successive wedding plans, as the couple repeatedly approach and then back off from tying the knot. In the first wedding planning session with all four parents and a clergy member representing each side, the Jews announce that the men will wear yarmulkes, and the Christians counter with a plan to have communion at the wedding. Interfaith lesson #1: passive-aggression, willful religious ignorance and hardline negotiation are not effective interfaith communication skills. The wedding plan falls through.

In their next attempt, the couple approach a Chabad rabbi at the last minute, who asks if the bride is Jewish. The couple dissembles and the rabbi dances at the engagement party (in a barbecue joint specializing in pork!). But the wedding again falls through. Interfaith lesson #2: dishonesty about who we are and last-minute random religious choices are not helpful. The wedding plan falls through.

In the end (spoiler alert, though you will see it coming from a mile away), the couple succeed in getting married. Choosing between a Christian, an “extreme Christian” (who appears to be Eastern Orthodox), a Buddhist, a Rabbi, and a justice of the peace, Tom chooses the lay officiant. Cue the happily-ever-after credits. Interfaith lesson #3: the desire for a sense of balance often leads interfaith couples to choose a secular officiant. If both members of the couple are secular people, this works fine.

For those of us who want balance, but also care deeply about religion, finding clergy to co-officiate is the alternative to a justice of the peace. But this solution would have been too complex for the rushed wedding in this movie, and perhaps too much religion for the fictional couple in question.

In a recent interview with the Jewish Journal, Segel described his upbringing this way: “My dad’s Jewish, and my mom’s Christian, so I was raised with a little bit of everything.” Note that he introduces his own religious background with a description of balance, rather than choice. His lament is familiar to all of us who felt excluded growing up as patrilinial Jews: “I wasn’t considered Jewish at Hebrew school because my mother isn’t Jewish, and I wasn’t considered Christian at Christian school. What occurred to me is, ‘This is not God’.”

Segel had a Bar Mitzvah. But when asked if he considers himself a “cultural Jew” he replies: “Yes. But in terms of organized religion, again, I think the notion of ‘I know better than someone else’ is wildly arrogant.” Here, Segel sounds to me like a classic adult interfaith child. Having lived the experience of growing up in interfaith families, we tend to see the world from more than one viewpoint, and we tend to question the idea that only one religious tradition could be the true path. We are also likely to feel alienated from religious institutions that have rejected us.

Rather than bitterness, Segel’s fairytale ending expresses optimism that interfaith couples can achieve happiness. For those of us who grew up in functional interfaith families, interfaith love is not just a romantic fiction. We need to stand up and be counted, to let the world know that in spite of the obstacles our parents still love each other, that we are not confused, and that we draw creative power from our double-belonging.

“Half Jewish” Conference: Rare Focus on Heirs of Intermarriage

Interfaith marriage receives a fair amount of attention from researchers, foundations and religious institutions. The children of intermarriage, not so much. This, in spite of the fact that the children of intermarriage are now the majority of children with Jewish ancestry.

Thus, I celebrate the upcoming colloquium entitled  “Half Jewish?” The Heirs of Intermarriage, in Chicago from April 20-22, organized by The International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism in cooperation with the Hillels at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. The term “heir” sounds positive to me, like an acknowledgement that I am enriched by my interfaith ancestry.

It is particularly encouraging that the organizers have invited a graduate of Chicago’s Interfaith Family School, a program that teaches Judaism and Catholicism to families raising their children in both traditions, to sit on a panel entitled “One, Both or Neither: ‘Half Jewish’ Experiences.” I appreciate the recognition that a growing number of families choose both religions, and the opportunity for a graduate of one of these programs to explain the benefits of interfaith education for interfaith children. And I appreciate the distinction between “Both” and “Neither.” All too often in the past, these pathways have been conflated. As a parent who has worked hard to give my children a deep experience of both, I do not appreciate being told that my children are nothing.

The colloquium will also feature Maya Escobar, an edgy Latina-Jewish performance artist who explores hybridity and the social and cultural construction of identity. If you live anywhere near Chicago, it would be worth registering to go see Escobar.

Secular Humanistic Judaism, as well as Ethical Culture (founded in part by Felix Adler, son of a prominent rabbi), have long provided shelter and community for families formed through Jewish and Christian intermarriage. Secular groups accepted intermarried families in an era when they would not have felt welcome in many synagogues or churches. Because secular communities emphasize moral social action, rather than theology, they refer to intermarried families as intercultural, rather than interfaith. The term “intercultural” acknowledges that even if a couple agrees in their atheism or humanism, they still bring different cultural experiences, their Jewish and Christian ancestry, to the marriage.

The term “half Jewish” elicits strong reactions. From a Jewish institutional perspective, either you are a Jew, or you’re not. From my perspective, I resent being fractionated. I am a whole Jew, by my own definition. But equally important, to me, is that I contain an interfaith multitude.  As a child of intermarriage, I avoid identifying myself as “half Jewish” because I resent the idea that this identity label makes reference only to my Jewish parent, as if my Christian parent did not count or exist. For me, the “half-Jew” label signals a discourse dominated by the panic over Jewish continuity and authenticity. Defining me solely by the extent of my Jewishness ignores my lived and deeply felt experience as the child of two parents, two cultures, two extended families.

The line-up of speakers and panelists at the conference clearly reflects a Jewish perspective. Rabbis and Jewish outreach officials will speak–not, for instance, the Catholic priests who have been working with rabbis to support interfaith families for decades in Chicago. I await the day when we will have a conference led by the voices of the heirs of intermarriage, with supportive clergy representing all of our many halves. Nevertheless, including the “both” viewpoint at this conference represents a very welcome, and I believe inevitable, shift towards accepting the vibrant complexity of the interfaith world in formation.

Black and White, Jewish and Christian

Mixed race, mixed religion. To what extent are these parallel states of being? What experiences do we, as children of racial and religious intermarriage, have in common? And at what point does this powerful metaphor break down? I have spent a lifetime contemplating these questions, most recently this week, when I read an essay by author Thomas Chatterton Williams in The New York Times, in which he worries that “a new multiracial community could flourish and evolve at black America’s expense.”

Williams and I are both the “mixed” children of blond-haired and blue-eyed mothers. We were both raised to identify exclusively with our paternal half: in his case African-American, in my case Jewish. We each, nevertheless, “intermarried” in adulthood–he married a white woman, I married a Protestant. The comparisons between white/black and Jewish/Christian identity resonate in part because of all the ways in which Judaism has functioned historically as a race, culture, and civilization, as well as a religion.

Several writers of African-American and (white) Jewish parents have written memoirs exploring the convergence and divergence of race and religion in their own families, and the usefulness and limits of the interracial/interfaith metaphor, notably Rebecca Walker in Black, White and Jewish, James McBride in The Color of Water, and anthropologist Katya Gibel Azoulay in the more scholarly Black, Jewish, and Interracial. Williams himself compares the two states towards the end of his recent essay, writing, “I am struck by the parallels that exist between my predicament and that of many Western Jews, who struggle with questions of assimilation at a time when marrying outside the faith is common.”

How did Williams become aware of this Jewish struggle? It is worth watching this engaging and disarming video produced for the release of his memoir in 2010, in which he discusses the role of books in his life with his father, a sociologist and huge bibliophile. Both men feel a special attachment to Jewish scholar Maimonides, and have read deeply in Jewish history and philosophy.

In this week’s essay, entitled “As Black as We Wish to Be,” Williams acknowledges the right to self-identify. He concludes that his (theoretical) children “will have to make up their own minds” about their racial identity. My children will also have to make up their own minds, which is why I adapted Maria Root’s Bill of Rights for Mixed Race People into the Bill of Rights for Interfaith People.

On the other hand, Williams worries that “the cost of mixed-race blacks deciding to turn away” from the African-American community “could be huge.” He asks, “Do a million innocuous personal decisions end up having one destructive cumulative effect?” This is precisely the fear expressed by institutional Judaism when faced with those of us who insist on educating our children about both Judaism and Christianity. But why does learning about both have to be interpreted as abandoning Judaism? Why does checking both a white and an African-American box on the census have to mean turning away from the black community?

And, I must ask, how can those of who are “mixed” ignore the race, religion, culture, and influence of the “majority” (white or Christian) people in our families? I understand the compelling political and sociological argument for choosing blackness, as outlined by Williams, and as explained by my friend Denise in a comment on one of my previous blogposts on this topic. But I find that the parallel electric lines of this metaphor converge, cross, and short out in sparks of frustration, when I feel like I am being told I should only be Jewish, or my children should only be Jewish. My children may choose Judaism because they feel the Jews need them more, or simply because they love the ritual or history or theology or culture. But I feel exhausted sometimes by the domination of this discussion by the imperative to maintain Jewish continuity: the pressure, the guilt, the disrespect for the experiences and feelings of those who marry Jews, and for those of us who want to celebrate kaleidoscopic identities.

Williams plans to teach his children “that they, too, are black–regardless of what anyone else may say–so long as they remember and wish to be.” In the same way, and for many of the same reasons, I have insisted on teaching my children to identify with their Judaism, and have provided them with the education to be able to defend that identity, if they so choose. But I have also taught them to acknowledge and understand and appreciate the complexity of their identities, and to acknowledge everyone who contributed to that complexity.

Catholic and Buddhist: Barbara Johnson, Deconstructing False Binaries

My days and nights are full now as I work to meet the deadline for my book manuscript. I am weaving together the stories of hundreds of interfaith families, describing the growing grassroots movement to teach interfaith children about both Judaism and Christianity.

So at the moment, I try not to be distracted by the daily news. But it has become impossible to ignore the story of local art teacher Barbara Johnson, who was refused Communion, because she is a lesbian, by the Catholic priest at her mother’s funeral. Now, the media has discovered an online paper Johnson wrote, in which she described herself as a Buddhist. So the focus has shifted from “Should a priest give Communion to a lesbian?” to, “Should a priest give Communion to someone who claims both Catholicism and Buddhism?”

Suddenly, Barbara Johnson’s story has become yet another “both/and” challenge to the “either/or” world. Washington Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein, who has covered this story from the start, interviewed Johnson (and her brother) to get Johnson’s own description of the role these two religions play in her life. Johnson says that by the time of her mother’s death, ironically, she “had really integrated my Catholic identity into my larger identity as someone who is very influenced by Buddhist teachings.” She also described how, for her, Buddhism and Catholicism “inform one another in this constant internal conversation.” That conversation will be a familiar one to many of us who are born into interfaith families.

Often, clergy who claim religious double-belonging seem to carry more weight than those of us who are rank-and-file dual-faith individuals. And so, Boorstein mentions Trappist monk Thomas Merton as another Catholic who embraced Buddhism. And she mentions, though not by name, Ann Holmes Redding, a former Episcopal priest who describes her religious identity as a convergence of Christianity and Islam.

Perhaps the best contemporary exploration of religious double-belonging is by eminent theologian and former Catholic priest Paul Knitter, in his 2009 memoir, Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian. Knitter writes, “dualism results when we make necessary distinctions, and then take those distinctions too seriously. We turn those distinctions into dividing lines rather than connecting lines; we use them as no-trespassing signs.” When writing about his own identity, he says, “I have to be religious interreligiously.” As an adult interfaith child, I, too, feel compelled to be religious interreligiously.

As an interfaith parent raising interfaith children, this rising tide of fluid identity thrills me: I feel lifted up, weightless and exhilarated, each time a new wave rolls in. I feel supported by other Jewish and Christian interfaith families, but also by Catholics claiming Buddhism, and Episcopalians claiming Islam, and multiethnic and bilingual and immigrant and expatriate and multiracial families, and all of the many expressions of gender identity and sexual orientation in our world.

In the 2011 memoir Nina Here Nor There: My Journey Beyond Gender, Nick Krieger concludes, “Some people see it as a binary, a spectrum, a continuum, or a rainbow. But when I envision my own gender, it is with my eye to the lens of a kaleidoscope that I spin and spin and spin.” Thanks to Krieger’s metaphor, I can now visualize the complexity of my own religious identity as a kaleidoscope of shifting spots of Jewish belief, English and Scottish and Irish heritage, Jewish ritual, New England Protestant culture, Jewish studies, Catholic social teaching, Muslim immersion, African animist encounters, Buddhist practice.

In Barbara Johnson’s eloquent academic paper posted online, she discusses the dilemma of gay and lesbian teachers in the context of queer theory that is “deconstructing the false sexual binaries of masculine/feminine and heterosexual/homosexual.” And now, by her own example as a Catholic and a Buddhist, I believe that she is helping to deconstruct false religious binaries, as well.

Interfaith Children: Born This Way

I often wonder if people who are not born into interfaith families can ever truly understand, on the gut level, the positive aspects of growing up in an interfaith family. Whether we grow up practicing one religion, two religions, or no religions, as interfaith children we are nourished by parents who model the art of communication, respect for the other, and love that transcends boundaries. And often, in December, that communication and respect and transcendence involve Christmas trees.

This week, Debra Nussbaum Cohen, a blogger for The Jewish Daily Forward, wrote a post in the form of a letter addressed to me, entitled “Interfaith Mom is Wrong About Chrismukkah.” She was responding to the recent Huffington Post piece in which I explain why my interfaith family celebrates both Hanukkah and Christmas. I respect Debra’s point of view that children being raised Jewish should not celebrate Christmas in any form. I do not believe that strategy will work for every interfaith family, not even for every interfaith family raising Jewish children, but it is a point of view that has gotten a lot of play this season.

It was interesting (and, of course, for me, heartening) to note the backlash in her post’s comment section, and on twitter, mainly from adult interfaith children, many of them with strong Jewish identities, who took great exception to the tone (and to some extent, the content) of her column.

Since Ms. Cohen has initiated a sort of virtual correspondence with me, I guess I should write back and clarify a few points:

Dear Debra Nussbaum Cohen,

I am puzzled by the headline of your story, since my family does not celebrate “Chrismukkah” or any other “mash-up” holiday. I know, as a journalist, that sometimes editors write the headlines, so maybe that wasn’t your fault. But let me respond to some of your specific concerns:

1. You write that Christianity was a radical departure from “Judaism’s basic tenets.” Many of us who have studied both religions simply don’t see it that way. I see the basic tenets of both religions as monotheism, love, and social justice. The prophet Micah, Rabbi Hillel and Jesus all seem to agree on this one. Who am I to disagree?

2. You write of the irony of “someone born Jewish” (presumably me) now “advocating” for “assimilation.” First of all, according to the Conservative and Orthodox movements, I wasn’t born Jewish (because I’m a patrilineal Jew). And I am not advocating for assimilation. I am advocating for the right of interfaith families to teach their children love for and knowledge of Judaism, even if we do not (cannot) choose Judaism as the only religion practiced in our family. Perhaps you would prefer that I just raise my children as Christians, but I am not sure why that would be good for the Jews. And I don’t happen to think it’s the best choice for my particular family, or for my children.

3. You write that interfaith families should only celebrate Christmas at the homes of their Christian relatives. But not everyone has living parents, or family close by, to host Christmas celebrations. My mother had no aunts or uncles or cousins. When my grandparents were gone, we began celebrating Christmas in our (Jewish) home with her. This was very much the right choice, for our interfaith family.

4. You write that the celebration of Hanukkah is a celebration of the fact that “to be Jewish is to be different than the American Christian mainstream.” I am troubled when Judaism is defined negatively, in opposition to Christianity. For me, Judaism is defined by ancient ritual, by the possibilities for spiritual and even mystical experience, by love of language and law and justice. Hanukkah, in our family, reminds us of the freedom we experience in America to maintain our relationship to Judaism, and the opportunity to reflect on the idea of the miraculous.

5. You write that “having a clear religious and cultural identity in the home is better for the kids.” Apparently, you are stating your opinion that interfaith parents should choose one religion. We have no robust data actually comparing children raised in different interfaith family configurations. As an interfaith child raised with only Judaism, I can testify to the benefits and drawbacks of being raised in one religion. And I can describe the benefits and drawbacks of raising my children with both. I don’t think anyone has the research to support a statement of which strategy is “better for the kids.”

6. Okay, here’s where it got kind of bizarre. In an effort to provide a little leavening to a rather weighty topic, I alluded to the well-known fact that many great Christmas songs were written by Jewish composers, and added that if Christmas was good enough for them, it’s good enough for me. Somehow, this inspired you to retort, “Dressing as a fancy-hot-pants prostitute is good enough for Barbie…is it good enough for you?” Um, I don’t know, but comparing celebrating Christmas to dressing as a prostitute is pretty offensive, even to a “half-Christian.”

You then go on to suggest that I would be a “cooler Mom” if I played the music of Matisyahu, instead of “subjecting” my children to Irving Berlin.

Wow. Irving Berlin, the son of a cantor, was one of the greatest American popular songwriters of the 20th century. (I bet you Matt Miller might even agree.) I cannot imagine what could dissuade me from subjecting my children to Irving Berlin. As for my coolness quotient, you’re picking on the wrong mom. I may not wear hot pants, but I have pronounced hipster-mom tendencies. I took my teens to see Matisyahu, live, for Hanukkah last year. We danced together under the giant electrified dreidel.

In short, I am doing everything I can to instill in my children an appreciation for Judaism (and Christianity). My kids feel “pleasure and pride” in both sides of their family, in both religious traditions. I hope you will surf around a little on this blog, getting to know my interfaith family. I know you would be happier if we could be 100% Jewish, but that’s just not how we define ourselves.

Advent, Christmas, Hanukkah, Welcome Yule! Interfaith Families Doing the Most

This time of year, interfaith families make our annual appearance in the media. The world wants to know: How do we do it all? Are we confused? Are we superficial? Are we exhausted? For readers of this blog, my current column at Huffington Post, about why we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas, may seem rather obvious, but it is still stirring up a snowball fight of comments, both from people who insist we cannot do what we are doing, and people who appreciate our approach. Join the fray!

Meanwhile, here’s a series of small moments from the interfaith holiday season in our family.

Advent. I asked the kids (both now officially bigger than me, at ages 17 and 14) if they wanted an Advent calendar. They said yes. I bought the ubiquitous chocolate-filled cardboard calendar, at a suspiciously cheap price of $5. I checked that it was “made in Canada” and not in China. Nevertheless, the chocolate was so crummy that my son ran outside to spit it in the driveway.  Advent Fail. On the other hand, I have been touched by some of the Advent offerings posted on facebook by my friends, including glorious music by the Mediaeval Baebes, and a frenetic and surreal liturgical dance by Steven Colbert, which I find somehow deeply spiritual, perhaps because I know that in spite of his hilarious cynicism, he is an ardent Catholic and Sunday School teacher. Advent win.

Hanukkah. We already shopped, as a family, at an Alternative Gift Fair this year, and identified charities to fund for various nights of Hanukkah. We gave each of our two teenagers $50 to spend, and they picked out delivery of a bicycle through Bikes for the World, dental checkups for 10 Mayan children in Guatemala, one week of fresh vegetables for a local family from our local farmer’s market, and socks and underwear for our local soup kitchen.

A Sprinkling of Christmas, and Hanukkah. I made Christmas and Hanukkah cookies with a fabulous group of women friends. I try not to mix the holidays together, and I am not the least bit comfortable with the star-of-David tree-topper being marketed this year, but I think it’s kosher to let Hanukkah and Christmas cookies co-exist on a counter-top for a few seconds before they are devoured.

Christmas, with a Little Hanukkah. We trimmed our tree this week. My husband wrapped our porch with lights, and then the kids had their trip down memory lane unwrapping the ornaments. Usually, we listen to Christmas classics while tree-trimming, but because we are all still smitten with the Pink Martini holiday album from last year, we allowed a tiny bit of Christmas/Hanukkah crossover to occur when their irresistible version of Flory Jagoda’s Sephardic Hanukkah song “Ocho Candelikas” (with guest vocals by NPR correspondent Ari Shapiro) came on.

Welcome Yule! We heard a rousing live version of Ocho Candelikas this week, at the Christmas Revels, believe it or not. Every year, the Revels weave together some of the pagan and Celtic influences on Christmas. This year’s Revels was a brave departure, as it was set in the “golden age of Al-Andalus,” on the Iberian Peninsula in the medieval period when Jewish, Muslim and Christian cultures co-existed and recombined. We have been cautioned by academics, recently, not to over-romanticize this period, and the program at the show carefully pointed out that the “level of tolerance varied significantly by time and place.” Nevertheless, after years of Christmas Revels set in different historical periods and geographic settings, it was gratifying to see Judaism, and Islam, represented on the stage. And I see no reason not to be inspired in this season by the vision, however ethereal and ephemeral, of a time and place for religious harmony.