This week, I am celebrating the 5th anniversary of the publication of The Interfaith Family Journal. I am so proud of this little workbook. There is no other book anything like it. It provides support to couples and families of any or every religion, or none. I created the journal as a resource for therapists, clergy, and interfaith families. It encourages you to engage with family history, practices, and beliefs, from birth to death. And it seems to be appreciated by everyone who uses the writing prompts, the conversation guides, and the creative projects.
But don’t take my word for it! Read the reviews posted after publication:
“The questions asked get you to dig deep and make connections. “
“As I got deeper into the material, I learned that this wasn’t just a book that could help interfaith families, but ALL families.”
“This generous book invites all of us to dwell in the richness of life’s most enduring and meaningful questions.”
“The Interfaith Family Journal would be a perfect gift to any engaged couple!’
“It will make such a positive difference in the lives of so many families – of all configurations.”
The last five years have been frankly terrifying as we navigated the pandemic. And with the state of the world, and the national election looming, it may feel difficult to remain optimistic. In these times, we all need hope and inspiration. For me, our ability to build relationships across boundaries of religion and culture can still provide that inspiration.
So, I encourage you to share my sense of hope, and give the gift of this affirming resource to your therapist, your clergy, and friends and relatives entering interfaith relationships. And if you’ve already read it, please do help the book reach more people by posting a review. Thank you!
This was another long, hard winter, with the pandemic continuing, and too much isolation for all of us. Today, on Valentine’s Day, we had flurries of snow here in DC, but the delicate snowdrops are already blooming with the promise of spring.
Valentine’s Day, for me, always means remembering the epic interfaith marriage of my parents. They got married on February 13th, 1960, in a snowstorm in upstate New York. When they woke up the next morning, they ate a one-pound chocolate heart for breakfast on Valentine’s Day together in bed. And every year, for Valentine’s Day, my father drew awkward and hilarious valentines for my mother, and for each of his four children, on the cardboard that came from the dry cleaners with his folded business shirts.
Valentine drawn by William Emanuel Katz
So Valentine’s Day has always been a family tradition for us. Every day for over 50 years of marriage, until death parted them, my parents demonstrated for me the idea that you can have a successful interfaith marriage. All of my work is a tribute to their joy, their creativity, their way of accentuating the positive.
And as a result, I look forward to the fact that I get to retell a bit of their story every year, when I get calls from media wanting to talk about interfaith love stories as Valentine’s Day approaches. This year, I was honored to be part of an hour-long show this weekend about interfaith families, on Interfaith Voices, the radio show broadcast on 90 radio stations across the country. And I have more podcast appearances coming up, so stay tuned.
I am also appearing at more than one interfaith couples workshop this season. My parents taught me that being in an interfaith relationship depends on deep communication skills. So I am always eager to talk to couples just starting out on their journeys together, and to provide them with the tools and advice built into The Interfaith Family Journal.
Even after more than a decade of talking about interfaith families professionally, I am finding new ways to see the world through the lens that is my legacy. Right now, I am putting together a new talk for college students on Complex Identities and Interfaith Relationships, after an invitation to return to Lafayette College this spring. I look forward to bringing that talk to more colleges, universities, and seminaries, so contact me now for 2022 bookings.
And coming up soon, on Sunday February 27th, I have the honor of co-facilitating a completely new interactive workshop with Rabbi Mark Sameth, entitled “Non-Binary God, Non-Binary Spirituality.” Watch this video, in which we get excited about the workshop. And register now to join us. I know my father, the grandson and nephew of rabbis, would have been proud of this new work. He wanted me to be an engineer, like him, but I know he also understood why making space for interfaith families became my calling.
And I have to admit, this little interactive book has brought me nothing but joy. It brings me joy to help interfaith couples find their best pathways. But also, with this second book, I feel lighter. I do not stress as much as I did about the people, and institutions, opposing interfaith marriage. My focus is entirely on the people I am supporting and inspiring, helping them to see how you can claim joy in your interfaith family.
So, I was determined to have fun with this book. And that started with making my own book trailer, with a rock and roll soundtrack from my kid’s band:
And then when the pandemic hit, I decided to make a video featuring the coloring pages I commissioned for my website, in conjunction with the release of the book. (Again, I was lucky to have a musician kid to create an original soundtrack for me).
Just in the last few months, I’ve had joyous new experiences, including giving a keynote at an academic conference on multiple religious belonging in England (on zoom), sharing a keynote slot with an expert on multiracial families (on zoom), and giving a dvar (a reflection on a Torah reading) at a zoom Shabbat with the Wandering Jews of Astoria. And tomorrow, I will speak on a panel at an event in England with Jewish and Muslim women telling their interfaith family stories.
This has been a terrible year for humanity.
But the very idea of interfaith families continues to bring me joy.
And it brings me joy that this little book continues to bring joy to more of those families.
After weeks confined at home, I felt a brief surge of creativity, and decided to make a speed coloring video. I had created the coloring pages a year ago to celebrate the publication of The Interfaith Family Journal. But I had never made time to actually color the pages myself. I found it did create peace and joy to color the detailed drawing of a hamsa. Speeding up the video means you can watch me color the whole page in less than 15 minutes, and I found watching the page fill up with color is indeed mesmerizing.
I commissioned the hamsa coloring page from a local artist friend, along with two other drawings. I encourage you to download the coloring pages for free on my website, and color along with the video. Both adults and kids seem to be enjoying coloring while , along with baking, doing jigsaw puzzles, reading, singing with family, and making videos!
While researching coloring videos, I discovered that some people watch coloring videos as a way to reduce stress, create calm, and even induce sleep, whether or not they enjoy coloring themselves. My musician son, 23, recorded an original soundtrack for the video on guitar, with a peaceful vibe. I hope it will bring you moments of pleasure.
For my coloring pages, I chose three images. Each image (a nature scene, a mandala, and the hamsa) resonates with more than one religion or worldview. The hamsa, an image of a hand or open palm, originated in ancient Mesopotamia and Carthage. It was retained as a symbol of protection throughout the Middle East, in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The hamsa goes by many names, including the Hand of Fatima (Islam), the Hand of Mary (Christianity), the Hand of Miriam (Judaism), and the Hand of the Goddess. For my hamsa coloring page, I asked artist Emily Ettlinger to incorporate Islamic tile designs, and the pomegranate, a sacred symbol in Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism.
If there was ever a moment when we needed the protection of a Mesopotamian goddess, this would be that moment. So if you are searching for ways to engage your kids at home, or to calm your own spirit in these difficult times, take a look at the new video. And then I hope you will be inspired to print out the coloring page and give it a try. Choose your own color scheme, and post the result as a comment on my facebook page. Share the beauty! And stay home. And stay well.
We are living through strange, dark times. To keep anxiety and depression at bay, we need to remember what is good in the world, and to celebrate what we can, while we can, with those we love most. We also need to feel we can help others.
Today is the first birthday of The Interfaith Family Journal. I like to think that this little book is still in its infancy–that it is just starting to make its mark on the world. The Journal is just beginning to help couples, families, clergy and therapists across the county and the globe. I hope that every minister and rabbi and imam, every friend asked to officiate a wedding, every family and couples therapist, every worried parent and in-law, will discover the power of the Journal to help people figure out their own unique way to honor family traditions.
In the fall, if the world returns to some semblance of normalcy, I have an exciting line-up of speaking events. I’ll be keynoting at a Multiple Religious Belonging Conference in England, sponsored by the University of Birmingham and the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Center. I’ll be keynoting at a conference in Pasadena CA. And I will continue speaking at synagogues and churches, and for interfaith dialogue groups, including in Massachusetts, and Maryland.
In the meantime, if you are staying away from large gatherings at the moment, consider inviting a group to get on Skype or Zoom (clergy friends, therapist friends, book club, parents with adult children getting married, or young partners or parents). I would be glad to appear by the miracle of the internet and do a Q&A with people whether or not they are quarantined! For a group appearance, I ask only for a receipt for sale of ten books.
If you need to engage with your hands and try to turn off your worrying mind, download the free interfaith coloring pages I commissioned for my website in conjunction with the launch of the Journal. If you have children who will be home with you for weeks, they might enjoy coloring with you, or on their own. And the designs (by artist friend Emily Ettlinger) are crafted to spark conversations about religious, spiritual, and secular symbols and ways of thinking about the world.
And if the Journal, has been helpful to you, and you have a moment right now, please help spread the word by posting a review on Amazon or Goodreads. And request that your local bookstore stock the Journal. This is tremendously helpful in reaching the people who would most benefit from this book.
Finally, even when the world seems frightening, we can still get pleasure, and spread peace and understanding, by speaking to each other about our traditions and beliefs, and listening to each other as we share the wisdom of our families, our histories, our cultures. Now is the time to make a quiet space to untangle thorny interactions with your partner. Now is the time to call a great-aunt or mother-in-law and ask them to tell you family stories about their heritage or culture.
I wrote The Interfaith Family Journal to help us all to move in this direction, to see and hear each other more deeply, as we move through uncertain times.
This post has become an annual tradition! In ten 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 #GenInterfaith now go far beyond Judaism and Christianity.
My new 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 multi-sensory interfaith experiences with extended family, neighbors, and co-workers.
Just in the coming weeks, we have a dense schedule of holidays (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 do as individual members of interfaith families.
Feb 21, Mahashivaratri, the Hindu festival honoring Lord Shiva, includes staying up all night to meditate, chant, and dance, in the darkest season. Check out the twitter hashtag #DontYawnTillDawn.
Feb 25, 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.
Feb 26, Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent, the period of fasting before Easter, for Roman Catholics and some Protestants.
March 9, 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 10, 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 10, Purim. Jewish commemoration of the Biblical story of Esther in ancient Persia, celebrated with costumed reenactments, three-cornered pastry (hamantaschen) that may reference the ancient fertility goddess Ishtar, drinking, and charity. There may be a historical connection between Norooz and Purim.
March 10, Hola Mohalla. Sikh celebration including processions, mock battles, poetry reading, music. There is a historical connection between Hinduism’s 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 culture. Now celebrated in America by people of many religions. Possible historical connection to Ostara.
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, Easter, Passover, and Norooz.
March 21, Norooz (Naw-Ruz). 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 together, 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, 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 10, Good Friday. Protestant and Roman Catholic commemoration of the Crucifixion of Jesus, with church services and fasting.
April 12, 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.
Sundown on April 8 to April 15, 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 19, 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 (connected to more ancient fertility traditions).
April 24, 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.
How do those of us who form families across religious (or secular/humanist/atheist) differences find other families like us?
How do we share resources and support each other?
How do we talk about our identities, advocate for our right to exist, create space at all the tables, and encourage the academic study of our experiences?
To search, google, connect to each other, and join relevant conversations, we use the term interfaith families.
I have been using that term since I was born into an interfaith family in 1961. I have been using that term for more than a decade of blogging, writing books, and posting on social media on this topic. And I used it in founding the Network of Interfaith Family Groups.
As I have acknowledged in the past, the term is imperfect. For instance, “faith” is more central for Christians and Muslims than it is for Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, or (obviously) atheists. But the alternative often used in Jewish contexts, intermarriage, is loaded with all kinds of problematic linguistic baggage, as I wrote here.
So, why write about this now?
Today, the longtime Jewish organization doing outreach to interfaith families, interfaithfamily.com, unveiled a rebranding, moving away from the term “interfaith family” in their title. They are now “18Doors: Unlocking Jewish.” Of course, to explain the purpose of the organization, the “About” section refers to interfaith couples, families, and “Jewish interfaith relationships.” To my point, interfaith families looking for help are not going to find this organization, or understand that it is meant for them, without explicit use of the term “interfaith families.”
Interfaithfamily.com has always encouraged Jewish institutions to be more welcoming and inclusive, and has always supported interfaith families practicing Judaism. Thus, they play an important progressive role in Jewish institutional spaces. That is why I have worked on occasion with interfaithfamily.com since its inception, providing essays and reviews, and most recently, speaking to their rabbinic fellows.
On the other hand, it has been awkward, at times, having a Jewish organization devoted to a relatively narrow slice of interfaith families (those “making Jewish choices”) claim all rights to the language “interfaith family.” Interfaith families include families that don’t make Jewish choices–or any religious choices at all. Interfaith families also include Hindu and Muslim families, and Pagan and atheist families, and families celebrating Catholicism and spiritual practices of the African diaspora, and many more permutations. My work now is to support all interfaith families, of any or all religions or none. The Interfaith Family Journal takes this expansive and global approach to the interfaith family landscape. This approach, my approach, is more about creating and leading, and less about hoping for inclusion or to be welcomed, or hoping for any particular religious outcome.
With the change to 18Doors, the organization formerly known as interfaithfamily.com claims a hip, clever, and more explicitly Jewish title, leaving more space for all of the rest of us from the kaleidoscope of interfaith families worldwide to use the “interfaith family” language as the term of art.
This was a big decade for me. Both personally and professionally, the past ten years have featured dizzying highs and devastating lows, interwoven achievements and heartbreak. I am, frankly, exhausted just thinking back on it. And yet, it seems important to do just that–to try to gain perspective and a sure footing as I gaze out at the horizon of the next decade.
I have been laid low. I experienced more personal loss in this decade than in my whole previous half-century. The big, gorgeous, three-generation interfaith family I depicted in my first book, Being Both, changed dramatically. I lost my father, my mother, and my mother-in-law. I lost my teenage nephew. My husband and I each had to empty and sell multigenerational family homes, severing ties to two formative places in our entwined family history. And this year, we lost our 17-year-old dog.
And yet I wrote, and spoke, and advocated. Somehow, in this same decade, my experience as a journalist on three continents, and my lifetime in an interfaith family, all culminated in a new body of work. I felt called to document interfaith family life, and to speak up and speak out to defend the full diversity of our experiences. In this spirit, I published two books, including The Interfaith Family Journalthis year, and ten years worth of essays (368 of them) on this blog. I published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and a dozen other media outlets. I was invited to speak in more than 30 cities in more than 15 different states and countries. And I founded the Network of Interfaith Family Groups, a national support hub for interfaith families celebrating two or more religions.
This work, making space for interfaith families, has often felt risky. I have received threats from organizations and individuals, and nasty attacks in the press. I have had people refuse to share a stage with me. At least one brave non-profit lost a funder because they invited me to speak. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that all of this tsuris (Yiddish for troubles) is over families that insist on loving across boundaries.
At the same time, this work continues to feel essential. And the work is not done. Interfaith families around the world are still in danger. Interfaith families in the US still face exclusion, misunderstanding, and intolerance. Meanwhile, many of us, interfaith and monofaith, are reevaluating traditional religious systems and institutions, seeking meaningful connections to carry forward.
I do see progress. After a decade of writing and speaking about the joys of being part of an interfaith family, about embracing each other, and about the benefits of interfaith education for all adults and children, I see these ideas catching on. Or at least they are now deemed worthy of debate. I see this progress in the Jewish institutional world, and in other religious, spiritual and humanist contexts.
And I do have hope. I see interfaith families inspiring and innovating new ways of being religious, spiritual, and humanist, going forward. In this decade, I have witnessed interfaith families coming together to create our own communities, use our own voices, and tell our own stories. As we begin to take on leadership roles in religious, spiritual, and secular arenas, it will become harder to talk about us, without us. May the skills and insights we have gained living as interfaith families benefit everyone, in all of our cultures, in all of our countries, as together we navigate 2020 and beyond.
We are heading into a new decade (and the second decade for this blog). So I thought I would pause to think about the top interfaith family themes from 2009 to 2019, as represented by the most popular posts on this blog.
Muslim and Jewish: Interfaith on “Shahs of Sunset“ (24,879 views). This post gets a lot of hits because of the success of the frothy long-running reality show, with all its fake scripted scenes and whipped-up melodrama. But I like to think there is something valuable, and future forward, about what I describe as the “unusual depiction of a close circle of Jewish and Muslim (and Christian) friends.”
Ten Reasons to Teach Interfaith Children Both Religions (20,336 views). This is probably the foundational post on this blog, distilling the philosophy of interfaith families who want to give their children interfaith literacy. So I am glad it has remained a perennial top post, ever since 2010.
Life of Pi: Hindu, Christian and Muslim (17,890 views). As with half the posts on this top hits list, this one goes beyond the familiar Christian-and-Jewish binary. Life of Pi reflects the global reality in which multiple religious practice is common. And the popularity of the book, and movie, has introduced many people in the United States to theological and philosophical ideas raised by the complex forms of religious identity in Asia and elsewhere around the globe.
Successful Interfaith Marriage: Reza Aslan and Jessica Jackley (12,320 views). I was lucky to interview Reza and Jessica about their Muslim and Christian interfaith marriage for my first book. Later, they recorded a popular TED talk on the topic, and have begun writing about their interfaith family, so stay tuned. Muslim and Christian is one of the fastest-growing forms of interfaith family, as demonstrated by the Muslim Christian Interfaith Families group on facebook (which I helped to inspire!).
Advent, Christmas, Hanukkah, Welcome Yule! Interfaith Families Doing the Most (4477 views). I have written dozens of posts on the various “December holidays” and how they overlap and interplay from year to year, but this one touches on them all. It got a spike in views in 2011 when a light-hearted piece I published in Huffington Post resulted in a nasty response in the Forward. I wrote a letter back (and eventually received an apology). For me, this post signifies the fact that much of the institutional Jewish world still cannot accept that somewhere between 25% and 50% of interfaith Jewish families are practicing more than one religion.
Successful Interfaith Marriage: A Jewish and Muslim Wedding (4140 views). I love the fact that two of the posts in the “Successful Interfaith Marriage” series made it into this top eight, and neither actually centers on a Jewish and Christian family. This was the only top post written by a guest blogger, Rorri Geller-Mohammed, a social worker who runs a therapy practice focused on multiracial and multicultural families. I welcome guest bloggers, so contact me if you have anything you want to say to the world about being part of an interfaith family!
Blessing of the Interfaith Babies (3782 views). This is one in an ongoing series of essays that describe moments in the communal life of an interfaith families group–in this case the Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington DC. I think it gets a lot of hits because there is very little out there about how to welcome interfaith children into the family. This post provides some rituals and strategies and thoughts on how to do it.
Interfaith Marriage: A Love Story (3154 views). As I write this, I see another pattern in this list. People are searching for examples of successful, loving interfaith relationships, and finding them on this blog. And it seems fitting that this post, a celebration of my parents on their 50th wedding anniversary, made it into the top eight. Now that they are bothgone, I feel so very grateful that I wrote this post, and my first book, while they were still alive. Their example continues to inspire me as I begin to write about the next decade, from my new perspective as part of the eldest generation in my interfaith family.
Many families that celebrate Hanukkah (including interfaith families) like to focus on Hanukkah gifts other than toys, at least on some of the eight nights. The idea is to differentiate Hanukkah from Christmas, and acknowledge that lavish gifts were not originally part of modest little Hanukkah. So, we have the traditional night-of-giving-socks. Or, games-instead-of-gifts night. Or, giving-to-others night. And, the favorite of authors and readers: the night of giving books!
Whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, both, neither, Yule, or holidays of any of the other religions of the world, wise parents are seeking out books this time of year to help children understand these December celebrations, and understand the many beliefs and practices of classmates and extended family members.
Several years ago, I wrote a round-up of books specifically for interfaith kids focused on Hanukkah and Christmas, with explanatory notes on each book. (It was widely reposted). More recently, I wrote a column on how to access a steady stream of Jewish and other children’s books to support interfaith literacy.
This year, with the publication of The Interfaith Family Journal, I am thinking about the full and glorious diversity of interfaith families, whether Catholic and Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist, Hindu and Humanist, or completely secular. In this spirit, I posted a new resource list on my author website with suggested children’s books on interfaith families, Buddhism, Christianity, God, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam, Judaism, and Paganism. Take a look!
All children, all of us, benefit from increasing our interfaith literacy, understanding, and empathy, especially this time of year when nerves may fray. I am adding to this list of children’s books all the time, and welcome your suggestions for books to help children learn about topics in any of these categories. I especially welcome suggestions for books on underrepresented religions or beliefs or practices including African diasporic and indigenous practices.
If you are stressed about making December work for your interfaith family, sitting down and reading books with kids often has a calming effect, for both kids and adults. Or, take a look at my new advice column posted over on PsychBytes: “8 Ways to a Peaceful December for Interfaith Families (And All of Us).” In this piece, I advocate for the benefits of snuggling in the cold and dark of December. It works, with or without a pile of books. Enjoy!
Being Both 