Spring Interfaith Holidays 2023

Glorious Color quilts by my cousin, Liza Prior Lucy

This post has become an annual tradition. Each year, the various calendars shift, pulled here and there by the sun and the moon, and the chronology and overlap of holidays will change. This year, the spring line-up begins with Shrove Tuesday tomorrow. And this year, we have Easter, Passover and Ramadan all converging–a special challenge and blessing for interfaith families with Abrahamic trifecta lineages!

Over more than a decade writing this interfaith blog, I have posted multiple essays on many of the spring Jewish and Christian holidays: Purim, St Patrick’s Day, Passover, Easter. But interfaith families these days have multiple heritages, and multiple practices, well beyond Jewish and Christian. So this post takes note of some (but not all!) of the many interlocking spring religious holidays.

Note the ancient connections many of these holidays have to the astronomical and agricultural calendars, and often, to each other. Religions and cultures are not static, but change over time in response to neighboring religions and cultures, just as we change and grow through our interconnections in interfaith families.

February 21, Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras). For Roman Catholics and some Protestants, this day marks the end of feasting before the beginning of the fast for Lent. Shrove Tuesday is the finale of Carnival (Shrovetide), with notable multi-day celebrations in Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, New Orleans, Venice, and some Protestant regions. Carnival is thought to have historical ties to the pre-Christian celebrations of the return of the sun.

Feb 22, Ash Wednesday, for Roman Catholics and some Protestants, marking the start of Lent. Lent is a period of prayer and penance in commemoration of Jesus’s 40 days in the desert, and in preparation for Easter. Many practitioners make a Lenten sacrifice, giving up a specific luxury food (chocolate, all sweets, alcohol) during Lent.

March 6, Purim. Jewish commemoration of the Biblical story of Esther in ancient Persia, celebrated with costumed reenactments (Purim spiels), three-cornered pastry (hamantaschen), carnival games, drinking, and charity. Some believe Esther is connected to the ancient fertility goddess Ishtar, and there may be a historical connection between Norooz and Purim.

March 6, Magha Puja Day. Buddhist commemoration of Buddha delivering the principles of Buddhism, on the full moon. Celebrated in Southeast Asia with temple visits, processions, and good works.

March 7, Holi. Hindu commemoration of the arrival of spring and love, celebrated with bonfires, throwing powdered color pigments and water on each other, music, feasting, forgiving debts, repairing relationships, and visiting. Popular even with non-Hindus in South Asia, and increasingly (and not without controversy over appropriation) throughout the world.

March 8-10, Hola Mohalla. Sikh celebration including processions, ceremonial battles, poetry reading, and music. There is a historical connection between the Hindu festival of Holi, and Hola Mohalla.

March 17, St Patrick’s Day. Catholic commemoration of the Feast Day of St Patrick, primarily celebrated by Irish-Americans with parades, drinking, and the wearing of the green, as a way to connect with Irish heritage. Now celebrated in America by people of many religions. Possible historical connection to Ostara.

March 20, Spring Equinox. Ostara, Modern Pagan/Wiccan commemoration of the spring equinox and Eostre, the Saxon lunar goddess of fertility. Celebrated with planting of seeds and nature walks. Possible historical connections between Eostre/Esther/Ishtar, and between Easter, Passover, and Norooz.

March 20-21, Norooz (Nowruz, Naw-Ruz). Zoroastrian/Bahai/Persian celebration of the New Year on the spring equinox. With roots in ancient Iran, people of many religions may celebrate Norooz together in the Balkans, Caucasus, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East, with spring cleaning, flowers, picnics, feasting, and family visits. Afghan refugees in your neighborhood may be celebrating Norooz. Possible historical connection between Norooz and Purim.

March 22, the new moon marks the start of the month-long daytime fast of Ramadan in Islam. The month commemorates the revelation of the Qu’ran. Muslim holidays are on a lunar calendar, so move through the seasons over time.

April 4, Mahavir Jayanti, the Jain holiday celebrating the birth of Lord Mahavir with temple visits, charity, rallies promoting non-violence and veganism, and running events.

April 14, Viasakhi, the Sikh New Year and harvest celebration marking the founding of the Khalsa order, a group of highly devout warrior-saints founded by Guru Gobind Singh. The holiday is marked by parades, community service, music (kirtans), and visits to the gurdwara.

April 6, Maundy Thursday. Protestant and Roman Catholic commemoration of The Last Supper. There may (or may not) be a historical connection between The Last Supper and the Passover seder.

April 7, Good Friday. Protestant and Roman Catholic commemoration of the Crucifixion of Jesus, with church services and fasting.

Sundown on April 5 to April 12, Passover (Pesach), Jewish commemoration of the flight from Egypt described in the book of Exodus. Primarily a home-based celebration with one or more festive Seder meals of ritual foods, songs, and prayer. As with Easter, Passover incorporates (presumably pre-Judaic pagan) spring equinox fertility symbolism (eggs, spring greens).

April 9, Easter. Protestant and Roman Catholic commemoration of the Resurrection of Jesus, celebrated with church services, family dinners, and baskets of candy for children. Fertility imagery including bunnies and eggs may, or may not, have a historical connection to pre-Christian rituals and the spring equinox.

April 16, Orthodox Easter (or Pascha) in many of the Orthodox Christian traditions using the Julian rather than Gregorian calendar, including Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Greece, Lebanon, Macedonia, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as millions of people with heritage from these regions now living in North America. Many of these cultures include a feast of lamb (connected historically to Passover) and hard-boiled eggs (possibly connected to more ancient fertility traditions).

April 20-23, Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting. Celebrated with prayer, family visits, new clothes, gifts, and charity.

April 30, Beltane, a Pagan festival with Gaelic roots, celebrates the return of the sun and the fertility of the Earth. It falls midway between the spring and summer equinox, and is celebrated with bonfires, and blooming branches. The American cultural phenomena of maypole dancing and hanging May Day baskets have roots in this holiday.

Glorious Color quilts by my cousin, Liza Prior Lucy

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is an interfaith families speaker, consultant, and coach, and author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on twitter @susankatzmiller.

Spring Interfaith Holidays 2022

Glorious Color quilts by my cousin, Liza Prior Lucy

This post has become an annual tradition. Over more than a decade writing this interfaith blog, I have posted multiple essays on many of the spring Jewish and Christian holidays: Purim, St Patrick’s Day, Passover, Easter. But the complex, interlocking quilt squares of #GenInterfaith now go far beyond Judaism and Christianity.

My latest book, The Interfaith Family Journal, is designed for all interfaith families, of any or all religions, or none. And while we make many different choices about what to believe, how to practice, and where to affiliate (or not), all of us in extended interfaith families (and increasingly, that is most of us) benefit from these spring multi-sensory celebrations with extended family, neighbors, and co-workers.

This year, spring holidays kick off tomorrow with the convergence of Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday) and Maha Shivaratri. And, head’s up for all my Jewish and Christian interfaith families: 2022 is one of those years when the first night of Passover falls on Good Friday.

Below, I list some of the highlights of the dense schedule of spring holidays in March and April (for a more complete list go here). Note the ancient connections many of these holidays have to the spring equinox, and often, to each other. Religions and cultures are not static, but change in response to neighboring religions and cultures, just as we change and grow through our interconnections in interfaith families.

March 1, Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras). For Roman Catholics and some Protestants, this day marks the end of feasting before the beginning of fasting for Lent. Shrove Tuesday is the finale of Carnival (Shrovetide), with notable multi-day celebrations in Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, New Orleans, Venice, and some Protestant regions. Carnival may have many historical ties to the pre-Christian celebrations of the return of the sun.

March 1, Maha Shivaratri, a major Hindu festival honoring Lord Shiva and his marriage to the Parvati (Shakti), combining their energies. The celebration includes staying up all night to meditate, chant, and dance, in the darkest season.

March 2, Ash Wednesday, for Roman Catholics and some Protestants, marking the start of Lent. Lent is a period of prayer and penance in commemoration of Jesus’s 40 days in the desert, and in preparation for Easter. Many practitioners make a Lenten sacrifice, giving up a specific luxury food (chocolate, all sweets, alcohol) during Lent.

March 17, Purim. Jewish commemoration of the Biblical story of Esther in ancient Persia, celebrated with costumed reenactments (Purim spiels), three-cornered pastry (hamantaschen), carnival games, drinking, and charity. Some believe Esther is connected to the ancient fertility goddess Ishtar, and there may be a historical connection between Norooz and Purim.

March 17, St Patrick’s Day. Catholic commemoration of the Feast Day of St Patrick, primarily celebrated by Irish-Americans with parades, drinking, and the wearing of the green, as a way to connect with Irish heritage. Now celebrated in America by people of many religions. Possible historical connection to Ostara.

March 18, Holi. Hindu commemoration of the arrival of spring and love, celebrated with bonfires, throwing powdered color pigments and water on each other, music, feasting, forgiving debts, repairing relationships, and visiting. Popular even with non-Hindus in South Asia, and increasingly (and not without controversy over appropriation) throughout the world.

March 18-20, Hola Mohalla. Sikh celebration including processions, ceremonial battles, poetry reading, and music. There is a historical connection between the Hindu festival of Holi, and Hola Mohalla.

March 20, Spring Equinox. Ostara, ModernPagan/Wiccan commemoration of the spring equinox and Eostre, the Saxon lunar goddess of fertility. Celebrated with planting of seeds and nature walks. Possible historical connections between Eostre/Esther/Ishtar, and between Easter, Passover, and Norooz.

March 21, Norooz (Nowruz, Naw-Ruz). Zoroastrian/Bahai/Persian celebration of the New Year on the spring equinox. With roots in ancient Iran, people of many religions may celebrate Norooz together in the Balkans, Caucasus, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East, with spring cleaning, flowers, picnics, feasting, and family visits. Afghan refugees in your neighborhood may be celebrating Norooz. Possible historical connection between Norooz and Purim.

March 30, Magha Puja Day. Buddhist commemoration of Buddha delivering the principles of Buddhism, on the full moon. Celebrated in Southeast Asia with temple visits, processions, and good works.

April 3, start of the month-long daytime fast for Ramadan in Islam, commemorating the revelation of the Qu’ran. Muslim holidays are on a lunar calendar, so move through the seasons over time.

April 14, Mahavir Janma Kalyanak, the Jain holiday celebrating the birth of Lord Mahavir with temple visits, charity, rallies promoting non-violence and veganism, and running events.

April 14, Viasakhi, the Sikh New Year and harvest celebration marking the founding of the Khalsa order, a group of highly devout warrior-saints founded by Guru Gobind Singh. The holiday is marked by parades, community service, music (kirtans), and visits to the gurdwara.

April 14, Maundy Thursday. Protestant and Roman Catholic commemoration of The Last Supper. There may (or may not) be a historical connection between The Last Supper and the Passover seder.

April 15, Good Friday. Protestant and Roman Catholic commemoration of the Crucifixion of Jesus, with church services and fasting.

Sundown on April 15 to April 23, Passover (Pesach), Jewish commemoration of the flight from Egypt described in the book of Exodus. Primarily a home-based celebration with one or more festive Seder meals of ritual foods, songs, and prayer. As with Easter, Passover incorporates (presumably pre-Judaic pagan) spring equinox fertility symbolism (eggs, spring greens).

April 17, Easter. Protestant and Roman Catholic commemoration of the Resurrection of Jesus, celebrated with church services, family dinners, and baskets of candy for children. Fertility imagery including bunnies and eggs may, or may not, have a historical connection to pre-Christian rituals and the spring equinox.

April 24, Orthodox Easter (or Pascha) in many of the Orthodox Christian traditions using the Julian rather than Gregorian calendar, including Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Greece, Lebanon, Macedonia, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as millions of people in North America. Many of these cultures include a feast of lamb (connected historically to Passover) and hard-boiled eggs (possibly connected to more ancient fertility traditions).

Glorious Color quilts by my cousin, Liza Prior Lucy

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is an interfaith families speaker, consultant, and coach, and author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on twitter @susankatzmiller.

Interfaith Zoom Life in Pandemic Times

I have always loved February. My parents had their interfaith wedding in a blizzard on February 13th. So I love the deep February snow when it comes. And I love the chocolate hearts, since the first day for my parents as a married interfaith couple was Valentine’s Day, a day devoted to love. During the six years of my life when I lived on the equator in Senegal and Brazil, I missed the snow (and Valentine’s Day). But in the Brazil years, the joy of Carnaval in February was the highlight of the cultural calendar, and a peak life experience for me, creating a new layer of love for February.

This year, February feels grey and icy cold indeed, as our isolation from each other goes on, and on. We are marking our first pandemic February, closing in on a full year living with masks, and distancing, and the loss of almost 2.5 million lives to COVID-19 worldwide (and almost half a million lives in the US). All of us are mourning. All of us are traumatized. And I wonder at times whether it is relevant, or appropriate, to carry on with my work making space for interfaith families and interfaith identities, or any other kind of “non-essential” work.

But the light is returning, more people are getting vaccinated, and we have hope that we will emerge eventually into a new normal. The story of my parents teaches me that love, combined with persistence and empathy, is essential. And so, I still get joy from supporting interfaith couples and families. So here is an update on what I’ve been up to during these pandemic times.

My work with interfaith families now takes place entirely on zoom, podcasts, telephone, and the internet, which has created the ability to support people anywhere, in any time zone. I have acted as a resource this year for undergraduate students, graduate students, and divinity students, all studying interfaith families, on several countries. This gives me great hope that there will be more academic literature soon, telling the diverse stories of interfaith families, across the globe.

I can zoom into religious studies classrooms anywhere now, without the travel expense. I am honored to be the guest this week, talking about interfaith families and interfaith identities, on Array of Faith. I am interviewed on this podcast by J. Dana Trent, who wrote The Saffron Cross, a book describing her own Christian and Hindu interfaith marriage. Now she has taken pandemic classroom guests to the next level. For the students in her Introduction to World Religions course, she and her husband created the Array of Faith podcast to host speakers with various religious identities.

And in honor of Valentine’s Day this week, I was invited back to State of Belief, the long-running radio show hosted by Rev. Welton Gaddy and the Interfaith Alliance. You can hear me there this week, chatting about interfaith love, interfaith families, and what has changed since I last appeared on the show eight years ago. Welton hosts the show from Monroe, Louisiana, which is one of the towns my rabbi great-grandfather served as he made his way up and down the Mississippi in the 19th century.

Another highlight of my professional year in the pandemic was a zoom keynote at The Guibord Center in LA, in conjunction with an expert on mixed race families, in which we addressed the intersection of these two rich and complex worlds. There is a significant overlap of interfaith families, interracial families, and LGBTQ+ families, and I hope to engage more with these synergies, going forward.

Meanwhile, the support networks I created online have become a refuge, where we can engage with each other without masks or fear of contagion. For interfaith families practicing two religions (any two or more religions or secular identities), join the private Network of Interfaith Family Groups (NIFG) on facebook. And for adult interfaith kids, I recently started up the People of Interfaith Family Heritage private group on facebook. More on that project soon!

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is an interfaith families speaker, consultant, and coach, and author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on twitter @susankatzmiller.

Spring Quilt of Interfaith Connections (2017)

Glorious Color quilts by my cousin, Liza Prior Lucy

 

 

(Last year, many people found this guide to spring celebrations helpful. So, I have updated the post with dates for 2017).

In eight years of writing this interfaith blog, I have posted multiple essays on many of the spring Jewish and Christian holidays: Purim, St Patrick’s Day, Passover, Easter. But the complex, interlocking quilt squares of #GenerationInterfaith now go far beyond Judaism and Christianity. Speaking in Chicago last year, I met a woman from a Jewish and Christian interfaith family with a Hindu partner, and a man from a Jewish and Christian interfaith family with a Muslim partner. Increasingly, I see the world of interfaith families, not as a Jewish/Christian binary, but as vibrant squares of many colors bound together into a greater design, and traced with embroidery that winds across the pieces.

My book Being Both is devoted to the idea that interfaith children, in particular, benefit from exploring that whole quilt through interfaith education. But actually, all of us in extended interfaith families (and increasingly, that is most of us) benefit from interfaith education. Meanwhile, with political demagogues busy stirring up ugly religious intolerance, now is the time for every American (and every world citizen), whether or not we have extended interfaith families, to do a better job of educating ourselves about the religions around us.

Just in the coming weeks, we have a dense schedule of religious holidays, providing many opportunities to celebrate with interfaith family, and interfaith friends. If you don’t have family and friends who will invite you over, check out my Beacon Press colleague Linda K. Wertheimer‘s suggestions on how to get out and visit local houses of worship. And if you don’t live near any temples or mosques, there is always the free online courses from Harvard’s Religious Literacy Project.

Below, I have written up a quick list of just some of the spring religious holidays (for a more complete list go here). Note the ancient connections many of them have to the spring equinox, and possibly, to each other. And notice how many of these spring festivals are now celebrated by people of multiple religions. My belief is that we are all religious syncretists, tied to the religions that came before us, and the religions that surround us. And so as part of #GenerationInterfaith, I celebrate these connections:

Feb 28, Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras. In many cultures, including in Europe, the Caribbean, Brazil, and New Orleans, this Christian celebration incorporates the masquerades and role reversals of Carnival, drawing on various historical pagan roots.

Feb 29, Ash Wednesday/Start of Lent. Christian observance of fasting and prayer, marking the start of the period leading up to Easter.

March 17, St Patrick’s Day. Catholic commemoration of the Feast Day of St Patrick, primarily celebrated by Irish-Americans with parades, drinking, and the wearing of the green, as a way to connect with Irish culture. Now celebrated in America by people of many religions. Possible historical connection to Ostara.

March 12, Magha Puja Day. Buddhist commemoration of Buddha delivering the principles of Buddhism, on the full moon. Celebrated in Southeast Asia with temple visits, processions, and good works.

March 12, Purim. Jewish commemoration of the Biblical story of Esther in ancient Persia, celebrated with costumed reenactments, three-cornered pastry (hamantaschen), drinking, and charity. There may be a historical connection between Norooz and Purim.

March 13, Holi. Hindu commemoration of the arrival of spring and love, celebrated with bonfires, throwing powdered color pigments and water on each other, music, feasting, forgiving debts, repairing relationships, and visiting. Popular even with non-Hindus in Asia, and increasingly throughout the world.

March 13, Hola Mohalla. Sikh celebration including processions, mock battles, poetry reading, music. There is a historical connection between Holi and Hola Mohalla.

March 20, Ostara. Modern Pagan and Wiccan commemoration of the spring equinox and Eostre, the Saxon lunar goddess of fertility. Celebrated with planting of seeds and nature walks. Possible historical connections between Eostre, Easter, Passover, and Norooz.

March 21, Norooz. Zoroastrian/Bahai/Persian celebration of the New Year on the spring equinox. With roots in ancient Iran, it is celebrated by many people of all religions throughout the Balkans, Caucasus, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East with spring cleaning, flowers, picnics, feasting, and family visits. Possible historical connection between Norooz and Purim.

April 9, Palm Sunday. Christian commemoration of the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem, celebrated with church services and processions with palm fronds. Among Indian Christians, the Hindu practice of strewing flowers such as marigolds has been adapted for Palm Sunday.

April 10, Mahavir Jayanti. Jain commemoration of the birth of Mahavira, celebrated with temple visits for meditation and prayer, decoration with flags and flowers, and charitable acts.

April 10, Passover (first evening). Jewish commemoration of the flight from Egypt described in the book of Exodus. Primarily a home-based celebration with a festive Seder meal of ritual foods, songs, and prayer. Incorporates (presumably pagan) spring equinox (fertility) symbolism (eggs, spring greens).

April 13, Maundy Thursday – Christian commemoration of The Last Supper. There may be a historical connection between The Last Supper and Passover.

April 14, Good Friday. Christian commemoration of the Crucifixion of Jesus, with church services and fasting.

April 16, Easter. Christian commemoration of the Resurrection of Jesus, celebrated with church services, family dinners, and baskets of candy for children. Fertility imagery including bunnies and eggs may have a historical connection to Eostre, and the spring equinox.

Glorious Color quilts by my cousin, Liza Prior Lucy

 

 

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

Mardi Gras and Carnival: Joyful Interfaith Syncretism

We have arrived at my favorite moment in what I think of as the syncretic calendar:  the cycle of celebrations around the world acknowledging that religions collide, intertwine, hybridize, just as human beings in interfaith families do. This moment is called Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Carnaval in Brazil, and Carnival in Haiti and many parts of the Catholic world. Pre-Lenten revelry has roots in Christian Europe, nourished by pre-Christian pagan traditions, and then by indigenous and African religions in the Americas. I find particular resonance in the inclusive nature of Carnival, a time for playing with and vaulting over traditional boundaries of gender, race, and religion.

Experiencing Carnaval in Brazil contributed to my own fluid religious identity. I was born into an interfaith Jewish/Christian family with roots in New Orleans, predisposed to noticing religious interplay. As a young adult, I spent three formative years in Senegal, a progressive Muslim country built on African religious traditions and Catholic colonial history. Then, as a young mother, I spent three crucial years in Brazil,  a progressive Catholic country built on African and Amerindian traditions.

Brazil’s population is just as wildly diverse as ours: indigenous cultures, Africans, Japanese farmers, Germans and Italians and Arabs, Jews who arrived with the first European explorers. The entire country (except for disapproving evangelical Protestant sects) feels the right to celebrate together during Carnaval.

The time of revelry comes to a peak this week with Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. In Brazil, each day of this week entails a vast, complex, and region-specific universe of rituals, songs, dances, stories and costumes melding Catholicism, Yoruba rites from West Africa, and indigenous traditions. In my beloved city of Recife, there is a night of drumming, frevo dancing with umbrellas, spangled Afro-Brazilian Maracatu dancers clenching flowers in their teeth, masked revelers recalling the origins of Carnival in Europe.

Living in the cold (dare I say frigid?) north, we are deprived of Carnival, and I feel weltzschmertz, a world-sadness, when, instead, I am trapped in a March landscape of ice and dormant grey trees. On Fat Tuesday, our children go to school as if it were any other day (in Brazil they would have the week off). Perhaps on Ash Wednesday they notice ashes on the forehead of a Catholic friend or two, or perhaps not. Our culture seems only vaguely aware that Lent is upon us. I miss the warmth and daring of Carnival. I miss the feeling of a whole country celebrating together for a week, reveling in the joyful syncretism of Mardi Gras.

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is an interfaith families speaker, consultant, and coach, and author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on twitter @susankatzmiller.

Mardi Gras, New Orleans, Yellow Fever, and Jewish Orphans

Lent is fast approaching, and my teenage daughter must come up with a craft activity relating to this season in the Christian calendar, for the kindergarteners in her interfaith Sunday School class. I was trying to help, but I had trouble thinking of a craft activity related to not eating candy. Then, because we lived for three years in Brazil, my thoughts turned to Carnival, or the New Orleans equivalent: Mardi Gras. How about a craft activity relating to the festivals that celebrate the final days before Lent? Perhaps, making Mardi Gras beads?

So I was already thinking about New Orleans when a message arrived this week, as if straight out of my ancestral past. Ironically, my daughter knows that she has ancestors who lived in New Orleans. I presume they did not celebrate Lent because they were Jewish, though they may have, indeed, celebrated Mardi Gras. Apparently the first Rex, or King of Carnival, was a Jewish businessman named Louis Solomon.

Anyway, I often describe to my children how my great-grandfather, Rabbi Emanuel Michael Rosenfelder, met my great-grandmother, Sarah Adler, when she was an orphan in New Orleans, and he was the Hebrew teacher at the orphanage. This is not quite as scandalous as it sounds. The Hebrew Benevolent Society supported orphans until adulthood, even paying dowries for the girls in their care. We know that Sarah was orphaned when her parents, Neuman and Augusta Adler, both died in New Orleans in one of the great yellow fever epidemics of the 1860s. My grandmother used to recount how her mother remembered being removed from the mosquito netting around her mother’s deathbed.

All I knew was this fragment of the story of my great-great-grandparents, until my cousin Sig took a trip to Mississippi and Louisiana this year, and stopped in Natchez, where Rabbi Rosenfelder once served the local congregation. A local history researcher named Teri Tillman gave Sig a tour of the Natchez synagogue. Later, Teri’s expert research skills turned up a newspaper clipping describing the deaths of Sarah Adler’s parents. This week she sent us this poignant story, the purple prose transcribed from the pages of the  New Orleans Daily Picayune, from September 7th, 1867.

Afflicted Family

The yellow fever, in its ravages, often, in a few brief hours, darkens and makes desolate many hitherto happy homes. Heart-rending incidents of this kind we hear of daily.

A few days ago, Newton [sic] Adler, an humble and industrious tailor, with a happy and cheerful wife and seven daughters, the oldest barely ten years of age, resided and pursued his avocation on Lafayette street, near the City Hall. Within a moment, both husband and wife were stricken down with the yellow scourge; the shop was closed, and the little ones seemed to run about uncared for by any one, and ignorant of the great affliction of their parents, who side by side, rested in the dark room in the rear of the tailor shop.

 

 

Several days passed and yesterday the wife was relieved from her suffering by the cold embrace of death. The body was quietly removed by a few friends, and the husband in mental and physical agony lingered until 2 o’clock this morning, when he also died. This morning, the seven little ones thus suddenly thrown upon the cold charity of the world, were taken charge of by the Hebrew Benevolent Society, the small stock of goods belonging to the deceased packed up and the store closed.

 

 

Unaware of the fate awaiting them, the tailor and his wife peer out from these oval-framed photos, passed down through four generations of my family. Augusta and her three oldest girls wear gingham dresses I imagine they sewed themselves. A few short years later, the couple had perished together, and my great-grandmother Sarah was living in the first Jewish Children’s Home, at the corner of Jackson and Chippewa Streets in New Orleans. There, she met the Rabbi who would marry her, and take her north, up the river, away from the perils of tropical disease. When they reached Louisville, Kentucky, they settled down and raised eight children, including my grandmother.

 

 

 

Susan Katz Miller is an interfaith families speaker, consultant, and coach, and author of The Interfaith Family Journal, and Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family.