Being Both: Paperback Release Events!

Dear readers (interfaith families, interfaith activists, therapists, visionary clergy, theologians, sociologists, historians of religion), I am so very thankful to you for joining the conversation around Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family, over the past year. With your help, I have been able to bring the stories of interfaith families engaged in interfaith education to churches and synagogues, libraries and bookstores, colleges and universities. And because of our success, Beacon Press is honoring the one-year anniversary of Being Both by releasing a paperback edition on October 21st. (Random House handles distribution for Beacon Press, thus the lovely box that just arrived on my front porch, pictured below).

If you have been waiting for a lighter and less expensive edition of Being Both, with plans to order a whole stack of them for Christmas and Hanukkah gifts, for your in-laws, for the clergy and therapists you know, this is the moment!

And to celebrate the paperback, I’ll be signing the book at a number of appearances this fall. (Books will be available for sale and for signing at all these stops). So if you have friends or family in Washington DC, Frederick MD, Baltimore MD or Chicago, please let them know about these upcoming events:

Washington DC, Sunday October 19,  7-9pm, I’ll be giving a 3-minute talk, along with 16 other authors, and signing the brand new paperbacks at the DCJCC Literary Festival Local Authors Fair. FREE but you’re encouraged to Register, because space is limited!

Chicago, Friday October 24 at 8pm, I’ll be giving the Shabbat talk and leading discussion on interfaith families at Kol Hadash Humanistic Jewish Congregation, at North Shore Unitarian Church, in Deerfield IL. All are welcome! This is my only public appearance in the Chicago area on this trip.

Baltimore, MD, Wednesday November 5 at 6:30pm, Book Talk and Signing, Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral Street.

Frederick, MD, Sunday November 9, Adult Education talk at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick (10am) and Book Talk and Signing, Curious Iguana Bookstore (4pm) Please RSVP on Facebook.

Takoma Park, MD, Sunday November 16 2014 1-3pm, Book Signing and Paperback Release Celebration, at Now & Then. Refreshments, including Being Both M&Ms!

My calendar is now filling with events for spring and beyond, so contact me if your church, synagogue, college or book club wants to sponsor a talk. Every interfaith family deserves to encounter the idea that interfaith families have real benefits (as well as challenges). And every clergy member needs training in how to support interfaith families. I plan to continue speaking out, wherever I am invited to go, until interfaith families feel heard, and feel appreciated in their role as skilled interfaith ambassadors and peacemakers. Please join me!

PS In case you missed it, check out this great review of Being Both by atheist author Dale McGowan, over at Patheos on the Secular Spectrum channel. And also, I think you would be interested in my latest Huffington Post piece, Letter to an Interfaith Child, in honor of the birth of Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky.

Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family by Susan Katz Miller, available now in hardcover and eBook from Beacon Press. Pre-order your paperback now. Please support local brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Jewish and Muslim: Interfaith Children in Israel

Olive Branches, photo by Martha Legg Katz

One of the reasons I wrote Being Both was to encourage more adult interfaith children to speak out about their own experiences, positive and negative. Too often, the discourse on interfaith marriage has been dominated by people speculating and worrying about the experiences of interfaith children, rather than listening to the voices of those who actually grew up in interfaith families.

So I was very glad to read a story in Haaretz this weekend about Jewish and Muslim interfaith families in Israel. The reporter actually interviewed not only parents, but at least two children from these families (ages 10 and 19) about their experiences and identities. The article adds to the small but important collection of stories told by interfaith children about their own lives in the 21st century (including the fifty interfaith children I surveyed for Being Both).

I appreciate the reporter and Haaretz for acknowledging that these intact interfaith families exist, for giving them space to tell their own stories, and for allowing them to describe both the challenges and the benefits of being intercultural, interfaith families. In the article, 10-year-old Nour says “I’m half-Jewish, half-Arab, and I’m not ashamed of it.” This is a strong statement from a very young person, given the history of conflict in the region. (And putting aside for a moment the fact that Arab is a language-group and ethnicity, not a religion, and that there are Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Arabic-speakers).

The article does have a certain amount of language derived from traditional anti-intermarriage discourse, including the idea that identity questions “plague” interfaith children “for life.” For the interfaith families in this article, I would argue that part of the stress clearly derives not from celebrating two religions, but from living in a war zone in which the parents are expected to identify with opposite camps. It is hard to keep straight the religious, cultural, ethnic, tribal, and national issues at play in this context. For instance, the reporter writes that one family observes “the holidays of both religions except…Independence Day.” Israeli Independence Day is not a  Jewish holiday, it is a national holiday, even if some Jewish communities in the US choose to celebrate it.

But despite the complexity of this story, it is hard to ignore the voices of young people testifying to the benefits of growing up interfaith. We have young Nour, age 10, declaring that she “felt at home everywhere.” Reading her words, she does not sound plagued. She explains the issue here very succinctly, as she describes friends who gossip about her interfaith status: “I’d prefer to leave my parents the way they are, but it’s easier for friends when parents have the same religion.” In other words, she is comfortable with her interfaith family: the confusion, as I have so often written, is in the eye of the beholders.

In this article, an Israeli advocate for interfaith families, Irit Rosenblum, frets that sometimes these children choose a single religious identity in adulthood, and this can lead to a “break with one parent.” My point of view is that this break occurs only when parents cannot accept the reality that children, all children, whether interfaith or monofaith, can and will grow up to make their own religious choices. But Rosenblum also observes that some of these children lead “happy lives, content with both cultures,” and that while parents may struggle, “these children are more open to dialogue and cultural receptivity, and they can more easily cross cultural divides.” It is heartening to observe that even in Jewish and Muslim interfaith families, even in the fraught atmosphere of Israel at the end of a very long summer, the idea that growing up in an interfaith family can have benefits as well as challenges can no longer be pushed aside or ignored.

 

Susan Katz Miller’s book, Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family is available now in hardcover and eBook from Beacon Press. You can also pre-order the paperback now.

Ask Interfaith Mom: Is it OK for Interfaith Parents to Adopt Interfaith Identity?

Dear Interfaith Mom,

I’m the Jewish parent of my interfaith family. My husband and I are raising our children in both traditions. He grew up Methodist. What we are discovering is that we don’t want our interfaith children to have a different religious identity from us so we’ve decided to call ourselves “interfaith” also. I try to celebrate and dive into Christmas just like my husband dives into the Hanukkah nights. Now we are all “interfaith”!  What do you think of this?

–Interfaith Family

Dear Interfaith Family,

First of all, if it’s working for you, it’s working! And I like your feisty and creative attitude. What I see as important here is that you feel a sense of unity, and mutual appreciation, and you are giving your children knowledge of and access to their complete religious heritage. The labels are less important.

Families want to feel unified. For some interfaith families, the solution is to choose one religion and have that be the family religion (whether or not the “out-parent” converts). This choice can work if there is one parent willing to forgo, or minimize, their religion. Other families decide to unify around being secular humanists or join ethical societies, dropping religious tradition and ritual altogether. This can work if neither parent feels attached to the God concept, or the specifics of their original religion. And still other families choose to unify around a “third” religion, such as Unitarian-Universalism (UU), Buddhism, Baha’i, or Quakerism.

For families in which both parents want to continue to celebrate a religion, and share that religion with children, we now have interfaith family communities providing dual-faith education, and the opportunity for families to sit and sing and reflect together as equals, with no “out-parent.” This can work when both parents are open to learning about and sharing, on some level, the spouse’s religion. Clearly, this is the case in your family.

You are not alone in feeling that the interfaith identity label, the label more and more of us have chosen for our children, has unique benefits and positive associations. I feel that way myself. In telling your story, you still identify yourself as the Jewish parent. It makes sense to continue to embrace the fact that you are the parent who brings Jewish extended family and Jewish history to the family. Surely your children know this, even if you have all adopted the interfaith label. I don’t think this complexity of religious identity will be confusing to them. It represents a reality. They have one parent from a Jewish background, and one parent from a Christian background. As an interfaith family, you practice together, unified by shared rituals and love.

Those of us in complex families often give more than one answer when we are questioned about our identities, as psychologist Maria Root has documented. I continue to claim my Jewish label, particularly in the presence of anti-Semitism, and I expect my children to do the same. But I also claim the right to celebrate my interfaith identity, as my children do. And you have that right, as every human being has the right, to self-identify in whatever way best describes your very individual and interior religious and spiritual landscape.

In short, I think it is marvelous that your whole family shares an interfaith identity. You must be prepared to have to explain how this works to those who will question and challenge you. But as interfaith families, we will face questions of one sort or another, no matter which pathway we choose. What I love is the joy you have found in sharing traditions with each other. Your children will benefit from this joy.

Interfaith Mom

Breakthrough! Interfaith Families, Interfaith Engagement

For years now, I have been advocating for interfaith families to be included in interfaith activism and conversation. Since 9/11, an inspiring interfaith movement has been growing, including interfaith activism on campuses. And just in the past couple of years, atheists and agnostics and secular humanists have been welcomed by many of these interfaith organizations, in recognition of the growth of these communities, and the idea that you do not have to have a faith to want to join the interfaith movement. All of this is good—very, very good.

But for those of us from interfaith families, the new focus on interfaith activism has raised two tricky (and intertwined) issues. The first challenge is linguistic. Interfaith families have always used the word “interfaith” to describe who we are. The pioneering intermarriage of my parents occurred in 1960. And since at least the 1980s, some of us have been raising interfaith children with both religions, and some of those children use “interfaith” as an identity label. So the word “interfaith” is being used both at a macro level to describe engagement between people of different faiths, and on a micro level to describe, well, engagement and marriage and identity in interfaith families. I don’t know if we should have or could have had different terminology to distinguish these two phenomena, but we don’t.

The second issue is that official interfaith conversations between representatives of different religious institutions have not always welcomed interfaith families and those with interfaith or dual-faith or multifaith identity. We represent a blurring of boundaries, and that ambiguity can sometimes make people uncomfortable.  And yet, people from interfaith families have skills to contribute to interfaith conversations and programs. We practice the art of communicating across religious divides, day and night, throughout our marriages, or throughout our lifetimes if we are born into interfaith families.

This week, I felt like I witnessed a breakthrough. I was invited by interfaith activist Sana Saeed to co-sponsor a twitter chat, alongside a group of interfaith organizers, leading up to a DC Young Adult Faith Leaders Summit tomorrow, organized by Faith in Action DC.  (Note: You can follow the Summit on twitter at #DCFaith). I started to buzz with excitement when I saw that the Summit will include people who “belong to traditional religious institutions, have multiple affiliations, no affiliations, or are somewhere in-between.” In other words, the summit is inclusive, on a whole new level.

In the twitter chat, I dove in and asked two questions: What can people from interfaith families, or who claim more than one religion, bring to interfaith activism and conversation? And, what are the challenges of including people with dual-faith or multiple-faith identities in interfaith conversation?

It was thrilling to read the responses from people who work full-time on interfaith engagement. Usra Ghazi of the Interfaith Youth Core tweeted that “interfaith families are like religiously diverse communities: great places for interfaith literacy.” Bud Heckman of Religions for Peace USA agreed that people from interfaith families bring their “lived daily experience” to the conversation, “But also assumptions/positions that are threatening to ‘single faith’ others. Benefit & barrier.”

And so, on to those challenges. Ghazi tweeted that interfaith conversations “tend to put people in a box. You can’t do that with ‘seekers’ and multi-faith identities.” InterfaithYouthCore responded that people with dual-faith or multifaith identities challenge “the norm that certain faiths are exclusive of others.” Faith in Action DC confided that, while organizing tomorrow’s Summit, they had the “challenge of placing multifaith participants. Which group are they in? So we created “Multi” category! #simple!” I am not sure everyone will find it that simple. But this chat felt like the beginning of a beautiful, and radically inclusive, conversation.

(Note: Some twitter abbreviations have been expanded in this post, to ensure greater comprehension by those over 30)

Inauguration: Celebrating President Barack Obama and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Inauguration 2009, copyright Susan Katz Miller

Four years ago this week, we awoke before dawn, bundled our children into layers of clothing, and walked from our house to the Metro station. We wedged our family onto a subway car with throngs of neighbors and tourists, and emerged in downtown Washington DC, just as the sky began to turn pink. As we sleep-walked past the grand Constitution Hall heading towards the Washington Monument, I told my children how the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) prevented opera singer Marian Anderson from performing in that Hall in 1939. They were amazed that their own grandparents had lived through such times.

At the base of the Monument, we found a place to wait, and wait, and wait, for hours in the freezing cold, far from the Inaugural stage, facing a huge video screen. We found ourselves part of a vast, diverse crowd, our collective spirits so high that we were able to endure the long hours standing on the frosted grass, packed in side by side. The point was not to try to glimpse the tiny figure of the distant President, so much as it was to be a part of this sea of humanity–to find ourselves part of the America we had voted for when we elected President Barack Obama.

Four years later, I could complain about whether President Obama has been progressive enough. But it remains true that our image of ourselves as a country changed forever, and for the better, with his election. And his re-election proves that we meant what we said the first time. We want to try to live up to the dream Obama represents, the dream of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

The convergence of this year’s Presidential Inauguration and the remembrance of Dr. King’s birthday heightens the significance of both events. For those of us in interfaith families, some of whom are also in mixed-race families, Dr. King’s dream has special resonance. The vision that “all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands” inspires us as we hold hands every day with our partners, spouses, children.

President Obama chose Christianity, and he chose to identify as an African-American. As Americans, we are lucky to live in a country that does not issue ID cards stamped with race or religion: we have the right to choose our own labels. At the same time, I recognize in Barack Obama the child of a global village. I know the stories of his white grandparents, his extended African family, his years in Indonesia, his Catholic school, his love for the diversity of Hawaii. As an interfaith child and an interfaith parent, this week I celebrate Dr. King’s dream, and President Obama’s re-election. Now, we have four more years to come a little bit closer to making that dream a reality.

“Mixed Religion” on the United Kingdom Census

This post ran on my Huffington Post blog.

This week, we learned of 23,000 people in England and Wales classified as having “Mixed Religion.” This news comes from the United Kingdom’s Office on National Statistics, which just released new numbers on religious identity from the 2011 government census. Most of the news reports have focused on the finding that from 2001 to 2011, the percentage of Christians in England and Wales fell from 72 percent to 59 percent. Meanwhile, the number claiming no religion almost doubled to 25 percent, paralleling the rise of the “religious nones” in the U.S. The numbers of Muslims grew most quickly, to almost 5 percent, and the percentage of Hindus, Sikhs and Pagans all increased as well.

But as someone who was born into an interfaith family and raised my children with two religions, my eye was drawn to the new evidence of people claiming more than one religion in their lives. Who are these “Mixed Religion” folks? How many of them are born Christians or Jews who find Paganism or Buddhism equally compelling? How many of them are in long-term relationships and find themselves practicing their spouse or partner’s religion as well as their own? And how many of them are adults raised with more than one religion in interfaith families?

Here in the United States, the government’s Bureau of the Census collected information on identity from religious organizations from 1906 to 1936, but then stopped. As a matter of separation of church and state, I understand that we do not want to ask about religious identity on the Census. The question about religion was added to the U.K. Census in 2001. Answering the religion question on the Census is optional, but only about 7 percent declined to answer.

For statistics on religious identity in America, the best source may be the Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. In the 2009 report “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” Pew researchers found that, even beyond weddings and funerals, almost a quarter of Americans sometimes attend services of a faith other than “their own.” But the Pew researchers did not directly address the idea of “Mixed Religion” as a primary identity.

I chose to raise my children with an education in both Judaism and Christianity, in a community dedicated to supporting interfaith families. Many of the young adult graduates of these interfaith education programs, which exist in several cities now, would claim “interfaith” or “Mixed Religion” or “Jewish/Christian,” as a religious identity in a census, given the chance. And so would some of their parents, who may have spent their entire adulthoods celebrating two religions together, as a couple.

The discovery of a cohort of “Mixed Religion” adherents in the U.K. serves as a reminder that the demographic reality of religious double-belonging among adults can no longer be ignored. Most religious institutions continue to urge interfaith couples to pick one religion for children, to beware of confusion, to stop blurring boundaries. The reaction to dual-faith adherence is too often panic and disapproval, and the attempt to close borders. But for the individual, especially an individual like me who was born into a family with more than one religious heritage, crossing borders can be exhilarating and bring great joy. Our celebration of both faiths goes beyond Hanukkah and Christmas, beyond all the history of tragic conflict and religious violence, to a place where love prevails over dogma. In this spirit, and in the season of light in darkness, I send greetings across the Atlantic to those who celebrate Christmas and Yule, Hanukkah and Diwali, all of the above, or none of the above.

Life of Pi: Hindu, Christian and Muslim

At a recent preview screening of the new film Life of Pi by director Ang Lee, based on the novel by Yann Martel, I was relieved to discover that the film preserves  a key theme of the book: multiple religious belonging. The filmmakers have transformed a rather dense and philosophical read into a rollicking 3D adventure tale, focused on the survival of a young man and a tiger in a lifeboat on the high seas. But the film very clearly depicts the protagonist Piscine (“Pi”) Patel as claiming not one, not two, but three religions: Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam.

The venerable Interfaith Alliance sponsored the screening, which gives me hope that advocates for interfaith dialogue are beginning to feel more comfortable engaging with the idea that people can and do claim more than one religion. Some of us who who feel connected to more than one faith come from interfaith families. I envision a day when interfaith activists will actively include the perspectives of interfaith families in the interfaith conversation. And with Life of Pi in theaters, I look forward to a lively conversation about how claiming more than one religion fits into the push for respectful religious pluralism.

In the book, the clergy of all three religions challenge Pi’s right to multiple religious belonging:

The pandit spoke first. “Mr. Patel, Piscine’s piety is admirable. In these troubled times it’s good to see a boy so keen on God. We all agree on that.” The imam and the priest nodded. “But he can’t be a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim. It’s impossible. He must choose.”

In the film version, it is Pi’s father who insists that his son must choose one religion, while his mother points out that he is still young, and has time to choose a path. And yet, at the end of his adventures, despite wisdom and experience, a middle-aged Pi still defines himself as Hindu, Catholic and Muslim.

The example of Pi challenges the assertion that dual-faith or multiple-faith adherence is simply immature, or a temporary state. For those of us in interfaith families celebrating both family religions, this debate is all too familiar. Often, we are told that interfaith children “must” choose one religion eventually. And yet, some interfaith children insist in adulthood on maintaining connections to both religions, having grown accustomed to the benefits of claiming both.

While many religious institutions find the blurring of boundaries threatening, academic theologians have been discussing both the challenges and opportunities of multiple religious belonging for some time. They acknowledge that religious double-belonging has been the norm through much of history in many parts of the world, whether in Asia, Africa or Latin America. In Europe and America–areas dominated by the more exclusivist Abrahamic religions–claiming more than one religion has been less common. But as religious flux and fluidity (and intermarriage) rise with globalization, dual-faith adherence inevitably rises as well.

In the introduction to the book Many Mansions?: Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity theologian Catherine Cornille writes, “…widespread consciousness of religious pluralism has presently left the religious person with the choice not only of which religion, but of how many religions she or he might belong to.”

But interfaith families claiming two religions are not simply inspired by a consciousness of religious pluralism: they are living this pluralism on an intimate daily basis. Rather than choosing religions as in a cafeteria, interfaith children raised with both religions are are growing up celebrating the dual faiths already present around the family dinner table.

Some interfaith children raised with two religions choose a single faith identity in adulthood. And some, like Pi Patel, will insist on claiming dual or multiple religions, even in maturity. I am glad that the movie version of Life of Pi is bringing this theological discussion to the big screen. I hope that it will bring together interfaith activists doing the important work of trying to calm the seas of religious misunderstanding, with those of us who insist on riding the waves of more than one religion.

 

Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family by Susan Katz Miller, available now in hardcover and eBook from Beacon Press.

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.