Where have you been? Welcome to January 2019. I haven’t written on here for 11 months. Which isn’t surprising; a lot has changed in that time. I have a new job, we’re working on our house, and we traveled to the other side of the globe. But I’ve mostly come up with excuses on why I’m too busy to write. Isn’t that easier than writing? Making excuses for not writing. In the course of the past 11 months Jason and…
I last wrote about an event at our local JCC where we discussed the state of interfaith families in the Jewish community. Which was eye opening and all around a great night. It actually helped us to create a new interfaith group. After that night I had one on one meetings with leaders of the Jewish community. We talked about the ways to get interfaith couples and families involved and how to make the community more welcoming. From those I learned…
As I mentioned earlier this week, I went to an Interfaith Community Conversation last month. JMAP did a study of our area, those in the Jewish community. There were some pretty interesting results from the survey. There were a ton of really interesting topics: family, Israel, synagogues. One of the areas that they looked into was interfaith families. The conversation was in response to some of the results the survey showed. Read the full interfaith findings here. Overwhelmingly respondents felt that…
I haven’t written in a while. I feel like I’ve been totally missing from this blog. Which is funny because if there’s ever a time someone who writes an interfaith blog has a lot to say it’s December. And I did so many things that are a part of our interfaith story. I went to events, took part in conversations, finally spoke to J’s family about me, hosted a Hanukkah party and a Christmas party! I could sit down and…
Someone once asked me if J was religious. I said, not particularly, probably is more culturally Jewish. This person (who is against interfaith relationships) immediately went on a tirade about my in-laws as parents raising a Jew. If only they had been more involved in the synagogue. If only they had made him go to a Jewish day school or a Jewish summer camp. They should have fostered more of a Jewish identity in their home. If they had been clear intermarriage was…
It’s that time of year to be thankful. And this year, we have a lot more to be thankful for than I could have ever imagined. We got our wedding video back this week. It came almost six months to the day after we got married, but it was so worth the wait. Yesterday we spent time watching our ketubah signing and ceremony. The whole thing was better than I remembered. Our rabbi incorporated language familiar to Christian viewers, our…
It’s November, which means I’m in December-mode! I’m putting away the pumpkins and breaking out my garlands and snowmen! I’m kidding — Pumpkins will stay up through November. I’ll wait to start actually decorating for the winter holidays. Though it did snow last night, so it’s looking like we’ve hit the cold stretch! Growing up we had a number of expressly Christmas decorations but most of ours were more winter themed. It was a combination of efficiency and business…
J and I married four months ago and we are not ready for a child. Even though J and I are not having children now, we felt that we could still be prepared by doing genetic testing. I actually did my test through JScreen before our wedding. I won my test through the Jewish parenting website Kveller. Not all of their articles apply to me right now, there are great writers and really great content overall on that site. JScreen mailed me a full kit. I…
I had a whole post written about this year’s Yom Kippur experience — how I assumed it would go. Spoiler alert: it was rough. I went to Kol Nidre services. Then I went to work where I had the hardest Yom Kippur of my life since I was, you know, actually working and not eating or drinking. Broke fast in the comfort of an edit room with all my coworkers during a last-minute meeting. None of them were fasting. All…
When I had lunch with a clergy spouse, it lead to an interfaith conversation. I can’t say I agreed with his feelings, but I understood them. New England is a weird place to move to. Especially if you move to a place that’s kind of far from a big city. J and I are lucky — we’ve made friends here because everyone we work with is a transplant. Those who aren’t in the same boat, struggle. This is how…