I’m a big fan of On Being Both, the blog by Susan Katz Miller. it’s helped me feel like my children aren’t going to hate me for choosing not to convert. Which is, shockingly, a real fear I have. I love reading other people’s interfaith stories. It’s amazing how what seems like a similar experience ends up so different for everyone. She wrote a great piece about the phrase intermarriage in Forward. I largely don’t take issue with non-Jew, but I know a…
With the mikvah postponed until our schedules matched I had time to think and I made a bigger decision than to convert. I decided to not finish my conversion. So close to the finish line, so close to finally being the same. Here’s the truth, the wedding suddenly was coming in under a year. And I started to think about all the changes that were expected of me as a wife. And suddenly, changing my last name to his AND changing…
It really happened because of a wedding invitation. It was beautiful. With their Hebrew names printed below their English ones and the script of Ani L’Dodi, v’Dodi Li on the top. I realized something in that. When J and I got married, I’d be taking that opportunity away from him. His childhood rabbi wouldn’t be able to perform the service, he’d never have his Hebrew name on his wedding invitation. And it was because of me. Since we had already found…
It all started back in 2011, when he first proposed. We were in college, barely knew each other, post house party Taco Bell proposal kinda night. Fast forward six years later and he’s proposed for real this time and we’re just four short months away from our wedding. J is Jewish. I was raised a Catholic in an Irish-Italian household. I noticed something in the past six years. There’s a lot of articles out there for interfaith couples, particularly Christian-Jewish…