Raising Jewish Children

[beevol]

It seems like there are a number of us who are raising Jewish children in inter-faith marriages and I wanted a place to talk about the ish that comes with that. America is the land of assimilation after all and a big part of Jewish cultural identity is wrapped up in not assimilating. Oy! 

What issues have come up in your family? How do you handle it? Do you go to synagogue or church or neither or both? How do you navigate Torah learning? 

[beevol]

I'll go first because I'm having a lot of shpilkes.

A quick recap of my intro from the intro post is that I'm a mixed Persian/Israeli/American Jew who was raised Chasidic (super orthodox) until I was 8 or so. I currently prefer Israeli style secular Judaism which is hard to balance in the US and though I live in a very Jewish medium sized midwestern city (I can, off the top of my head, name 14 different active synagogues here, so that's good) I've not found a "religious home." My husband was raised Lutheran but came out as an atheist to his parents shortly before we got married. We agreed to raise our children Jewish and he likes to consider himself 'culturally Jewish.'

DD1 is almost 3 and starting to ask questions and express herself culturally and... I'm afraid that I'm not doing a good enough job of raising her to be a Jew. We make Shabbat sometimes on Friday nights (light candles, say prayers, etc) and my Ashkenazi reform family is in town and we do most holiday dinners with them, but that side are totally the Reform people who serve ham at the seder (but "only second seder, so it's OK"). We are also hooked up with PJ Library which I love and serious recommend! But I sometimes feel guilty because I am so the family that organization is trying to reach - the ones that Judaism is in danger of loosing.

Yesterday DD1 asked for a Christmas tree and I told her that we couldn't have one because 1. it was almost Spring and those are for December, and 2. we are Jews and Jews don't have Christmas trees (over simplifying, I know - especially since my mom is sort of Wiccan and yule trees are totally a thing). She then asked if Mommy and Daddy were also Jews, and DH, bless his heart, just went with it and said yes. I swear, my blood pressure was lower when she asked me how her baby sister got into my belly in the first place!

It's going to keep coming up, especially since we go up to visit my out of town ILs over Christmas break... I don't even know where to start.

[meggyski]

Hi Beevol, woah these are some serious questions that you're grappling with. I don't have a ton of advice to offer as my daughter is only 6 months old and these identity questions are still a ways away. I will probably be asking the same question in 2.5 yrs! Based on my experiences growing up in a small Jewish community, though, I'd say you are doing good things by having some celebrating traditions in your home and with extended family. Are any of the synagogues in your town offering programs for young children like tot shabbat/ family shabbat, or family oriented holiday celebrations? If so maybe try going to those? I think it's important for young children to see that they are a part of a larger community beyond just family, plus it will probably be fun for your daughter. I think early positive associations do a lot to strengthen religious and cultural identity. What is the PJ library?

[pittpurple]

This is so, so hard for me too. I was raised in a religious conservative household - synagogue several times a week for various reasons, kosher home, etc, etc, etc. My entire social life growing up was around the Jewish community and to be honest, that kind of drove me away from it. I haven't been religious since I had a choice and am married to an Atheist-Catholic. I am really, really struggling to keep any sense of Judaism in the home. We live in Scotland where there are practically no Jews (the closest synagogue is 2 hours away and I just can't work that into my day-to-day life) so it's all on me to create an atmosphere at home. We do have a Christmas tree (the only thing DH insisted on) but also lots of Chanukkah decorations and mezzuzah's.

I think it's important to figure out what's important to you. I don't think 'Jewish' means one specific thing though I also think it means more than what I'm offering at the moment. I never had to really think about this or put any effort in (I grew up on Long Island, there was never a situation where I couldn't find a Jewish community!) so this has been really hard for me. My daughter is getting old enough now that she'll notice and I'm going to need to start visiting her daycare to do presentations and stuff like that (they don't even try to be multicultural here, it's all Christmas) so I'm going to need to think about how to approach all this.

My mom is a Jewish educator and my brother teaches music in a conservative religious school so I have lots of resources fortunately, it's just hard to do it all by myself.

meggyski, www.pjlibrary.org/, you definitely should sign up if you're not on it. My mom gets the books for me and there are some really fantastic ones - my daughter is obsessed with the one she got for Chanukkah last year. It's a great, great resource.

[toratoratori]

meggyski PJ Library is amazing! We got C's first book a few weeks back and I read it to her that evening. It's Todah, the first one on this page: www.kyrateis.com/books.html You should definitely sign A up for it

[toratoratori]

beevol It sounds like you're doing a great job meeting your daughter's cultural needs on a day-to-day basis. Just keep doing what you're doing - have Shabbat at home, celebrate the holidays with your family (even if there's ham involved - it's not ideal, but like PPs have said, there's no one way to be a Jew), and keep reading those PJ Library books!

One of the things that was important to me in raising my kids Jewish in an interfaith relationship was to make sure she was getting Jewish messaging at daycare as well as at home. That was one of the big reasons we opted for a Jewish daycare center. It's reform, so there are lots of non-Jewish kids at the center, but they don't celebrate any non-Jewish holidays and do Shabbat every week.

I also love meggyski's suggestion to find Jewish community events for kids for your daughter. So much of Judaism is the community, and feeling at home in it. And the earlier you can start fostering those feelings, the better!

[beevol]

toratoratori we seriously considered Jewish daycare options but they were either *way* too expensive (like $2,000-2,500 per month, whereas the going rate and what we pay at our awesome DC in our neighborhood is more like $1,000-1,500 per month) or had a really long waiting list. :/ I'm still sad that we didn't get a spot at the more affordable (though still on the expensive side) Jewish DC in our area, but we've been at our current Center long enough to fall in love with it. We're also pretty committed to sending our kids to public schools (I'm a bit of a socialist and public education is important to me, plus we bought our home in one of the top 100 public districts in the country so the educational quality is better than what we would get at the religious day schools, all but one of which I attended and know how miserable they can be for a gifted kid).

pittpurple I cannot imagine how bizarre it must be to live in a European country as a Jew. I studied abroad in Germany for a semester and that was absolutely surreal for the added Shoah related reasons, but also because I was the first (and only) Jew folks had ever met. It was a trip. With everything going on in some of the continental Jewish communities right now, do you feel safe there?

meggyski tot Shabbat is a really good idea! I will have to look into that. And, just to be sure, definitely sign up for PJ Library. The books are free, high quality, fun, and not overly pushy with the G-d stuff which my atheist husband likes. We got an English translation of Dayenu two Pesachs ago. It is gold. ("When the Jews came out of Egypt, that was enough to make us happy. Sing a song and show you're happy, Dayenu!")

[pittpurple]

beevol,It is a strange situation to be honest. I am regularly the only Jewish person people here have ever met (which actually has happened in my DH's family as well) which means I feel all this pressure to 'represent' Judaism. My inlaws and people here do things like ask me what 'Jews fell about this' and 'how do the Jews do that' to which there's literally no answer!

I certainly feel safe in Edinburgh (there are no Jews so no anti-semitism!) but I'm not sure how I feel in the rest of Europe. I tend to wear my Jewish star necklace a lot, purposefully whenever I'm in Germany/Poland/etc. In the next few months I'll be in Barcelona and Copenhagen so I'll just see what happens.

[incir]

You all have some great insights. I am the Christian (Protestant) half of a Jewish/Christian couple. DH was raised conservative in a home that kept kosher. We live in the Boston area so there is no shortage of Jewish community and we are about 10 minutes from the in-laws. DH doesn't believe in God and finds synagogue boring, but strongly wants his kids to have a Jewish identity so we are raising them Jewish. We do Shabbat every Friday night (and DS loves it!) and celebrate the holidays with my in-laws. We are also PJ library members and members of the JCC, although we only use it for a gym at the moment. Christian holidays are all celebrated at my parent's house not in our house at all.

I am very cautious about getting more involved in the larger Jewish community since I feel like DH heard a lot growing up about how it was bad/wrong to marry a non-Jew and we still found that message pretty prevalent when trying to find an officiant for our wedding. I am very concerned about someone telling my young sons that their parents essentially shouldn't have gotten married. We will eventually join a synagogue because DH wants kids to have bar mitzvahs, but, honestly, I'm dreading it. First, its expensive for something that neither of us really are interested in and, second, I've always felt that organized Judaism really was not welcoming to me. I think I'm a little unusual for a non-Jewish spouse of a Jew who is raising their kids Jewish in that I'm actually more religious in lots of ways than DH -- I believe in God and still pray. So I feel like a lot of efforts to be inclusive of non-Jewish spouses don't work for me since I'm not totally their target. I will have to move past it and luckily we have lots of synagogues to chose from when the time comes, but I'm certainly not pushing DH to get moving on that issue. How are your spouses dealing with organized Judaism or are they avoiding it?

[beevol]

Most people who know us are surprised to learn that MH isn't Jewish. He's of Central/Eastern European descent and looks Ashkenazi and he likes Judaism and with me having been raised Chadidic, he often knows more about Judaism than the American Jews we know (eg he knows about Tu b'Shevat and can accurately identify almost all of the kosher food symbols at the grocery store). So... We sort of pass as a homoreligious couple in the community.

Plus, since I'm a woman, our kids are "legally" Jewish. I'm guessing there are people who would be way less accepting if our genders were reversed.

[crinita]

I love PJ Library too, toratoratori!

Beevol, I am in that reversed situation, so a lot of people don't recognize DD as Jewish even though that is how she is being raised. We can't pass by how we look either. It is so complicated sometimes! DH is Reform, so with that things are a lot more relaxed, thank goodness. A lot of his relatives are Conservative though and he has one cousin who is Chabad.

Incir, my spouse definitely avoids organized religion. Sometimes I think I am participating more than he is!

[toratoratori]

Feb 27, 2015 13:21:57 GMT -5 incir said:

I am very cautious about getting more involved in the larger Jewish community since I feel like DH heard a lot growing up about how it was bad/wrong to marry a non-Jew and we still found that message pretty prevalent when trying to find an officiant for our wedding. I am very concerned about someone telling my young sons that their parents essentially shouldn't have gotten married. We will eventually join a synagogue because DH wants kids to have bar mitzvahs, but, honestly, I'm dreading it. First, its expensive for something that neither of us really are interested in and, second, I've always felt that organized Judaism really was not welcoming to me. I think I'm a little unusual for a non-Jewish spouse of a Jew who is raising their kids Jewish in that I'm actually more religious in lots of ways than DH -- I believe in God and still pray. So I feel like a lot of efforts to be inclusive of non-Jewish spouses don't work for me since I'm not totally their target. I will have to move past it and luckily we have lots of synagogues to chose from when the time comes, but I'm certainly not pushing DH to get moving on that issue. How are your spouses dealing with organized Judaism or are they avoiding it?

I'm so sorry to hear that this is the experience you're having being part of an interfaith couple We started synagogue-shopping as soon as we moved to Seattle, and our focus was to find a temple that was welcoming to interfaith families. We really lucked out with our temple - they estimate that about half of their membership are interfaith families, or families in which one of the parents is a convert.

I never dated Jews growing up, and my parents were never really worried about it. I think there was some disappointment that I married out, but I also know they've defended my husband (and even lost friends because of it). They wish he was Jewish, but I haven't lost my ties to the community, and he's helping to raise C Jewish, so that was really all they cared about. (Plus, I think they secretly like not having to share Jewish holidays with in-laws!)

It kind of remains to be seen how my husband will handle organized Judaism. He comes to temple and participates sparingly, but that's mostly because he doesn't like religious services. (He never has, even when he was a practicing Christian.) I caught him swaying back and forth at Havdalah a couple of weeks ago, though He may have a breakthrough yet.

[meggyski]

incir I'm also sorry to hear you've had this experience so far! While that old school attitude is still around in some communities, I think you'll find that it is changing rapidly, particularly in Reform circles and in more liberal Conservative communities too. There really seems to have been a shift in the last 10 years to so as Jewish educators/ organizers realize that many interfaith families are interested in discovering/ rediscovering Jewish traditions but have felt alienated by more rigid approaches to this issue. Have you checked out the Interfaith Family Network? They have a great list of resources in Boston that may be helpful for you: www.interfaithfamily.com/elgg/pg/groups/52069/greater-boston/

By and large I think you can expect to be warmly welcomed by this movement in particular, as well as by most Reform communities, if you can get your H interested in going (I was also raised Conservative and I know Conservative Jews can sometimes be a bit snobbish about Reform, which is silly but is still a thing). You may also find a fit with some more experimental/ non traditional communities in terms of structure- havurot, Jewish cooperatives, etc- something a little different than a traditional synagogue model of community. I'm a member of a Jewish cooperative here in Seattle, Kavana (kavana.org if you are interested in seeing what I'm talking about). Our Rabbi was ordained conservatively but she has gone out of her way to ensure that the community is warm and welcoming to people from all backgrounds, especially to interfaith couples, same sex couples, etc. Maybe there is something similar near you!

Re spouses and how they handle stuff- my H will come to events (services, tot play groups, holiday celebrations, etc) if I ask him to and he generally enjoys them. That being said, he'd never go on his own. Also, Rosh Hashanah/ Yom Kippur are a lot for him, and I"m not sure if he will be willing to take days off of work to go with me in future years (this year he did because our daughter was only about a month old for the high holy days and he was not back at work yet).

Thank you ALL for the PJ Library info, I had no idea this existed! I really appreciate it. I'm off to sign up now. Gotta love the Jewish Federation!

What are you all doing for Purim/ Pesach? Any fun plans? Should I start a separate thread?

[anakah]

This thread has inspired me to delurk. I am Taiwanese and DH is jewish. We dated for seven years before getting married so I had gradually assimilated into keeping kosher and observing Jewish holidays, traditions, etc. it was really important to my husband that our kids were considered Jewish by the conservative movement so I converted when we were expecting our twins. It was honestly just a formality since I was already committed to observing Judaism and raising our kids Jewish.

Right now we keep kosher in the house but have been a bit more lax separating milk and meat for the kids. The twins are 3.5 now so we recently started talking to them about what we eat, why we can't have cheese with our meat and have separate plates for each. We our members of a synagogue that had monthly tot Shabbats and family services so we try to go to those two services each month. We read the pj library books here and there but we don't discuss it asuch as I feel like we should for it to be helpful.

DH is crazy about pesach so we pack the kids lunches and snacks for daycare that week. the kids learn about Christmas at daycare but in the Santa and reindeer sense and not the religious aspects. They have their own little menorahs to light for Hanukkah. I stress over not engaging them enough about Judaism but we gauge howi much the kids understand as they grow and just talk about what we are doing and why as it comes up. I think it will help a lot once they are old enough for religious school classes.

Sorry for the novel but I look forward to getting to know you ladies better as we travel this road.

[bonzo2012]

So far I've only lurked on this board, but since this is something we've already started figuring out pre-kids, I thought I would jump in!

I am Jewish, and was raised Reform. DH was supposedly baptized Methodist, but grew up with Santa and the Easter Bunny and no church/Jesus exposure. He's basically agnostic. When we were still dating and starting to talk about the future of our relationship, I made it clear that it is very important that my future children be raised Jewish. While he has always been supportive, at first he thought he would take a more passive role. But over the years as he has learned more and gotten more culturally involved, he has started to get more active. My little cousin's Bat Mitzvah is coming up, and it will be the first one DH has gone to, so I was explaining everything. He started asking questions about how the family participates, thinking about our future kids, and when I mentioned how the parents typically do one of the aliyot, but I would do it and he would likely just stand with me, he actually said "well, I might convert by the time our kid is 13." So, we will see!

When it comes to holidays, we essentially only celebrate the Jewish holidays in our home. However, we do have some more Christmas-inspired decor like a silver ornament tree, garland and a wreath. But I mostly keep to a blue and silver palette, and put dreidels and Stars on everything! We've also made interfaith holiday cookies -- Chanukah cookie cutters decorated with red and green sprinkles.

We used to live very close to both sets of parents, so it was easy to just go to the ILs for Christmas. Easter was trickier because we keep kosher for Pesach, but his parents have been great about making sure we can be included because family is really what is important to them. Now though, we live in a different state and we are really still figuring out how we want to handle DH's Christmas traditions. My opinion is that we will always celebrate Chanukah, but I also don't want DH to feel miserable in December because he misses XYZ. I read a great piece on interfaithfamily.com about the so-called confusion people are always worried about if kids in interfaith families grow up with trees. The rabbi writing it basically said if you're giving your kids a Jewish upbringing year round, then having a tree for a couple weeks out of the year isn't going to negate that, and in fact it may be more important to have that tree if it's the only thing the non-Jewish spouse really wants.

All that to say, we don't have kids yet but we do talk about it a lot. And one thing we completely agree on is that we are willing to adapt and change our approach if we need to!

[purpleroses]

I haven't visited the board in a few weeks and just saw this, but was interested to see this discussion. I am the Christian half of an interfaith couple; DH was raised in a Conservative home by a dad who was mostly culturally Jewish and a mom he describes as "Conservadox." Because of his mom's influence, he is fairly observant, especially with respect to holidays, but not at all with respect to dietary restrictions. In fact, I annoyed DH and some of my ILs by banning pork and shellfish at our wedding, since I didn't want our Jewish guests to think I was being insensitive or clueless.

We are members of a great Reform Temple. Reform traditions have been a bit of an adjustment for DH, but it's really an accommodation he makes for me since I feel more comfortable and welcomed there than in a Conservative Synagogue. We took two pre-conversion classes at our Temple so that I could learn about Jewish teachings and traditions and it helped him learn more about Reform Judaism. I also currently participate in a mother's group for non-Jewish women attempting to raise kids in a Jewish home. I can relate to some of what was said above, since I'd say one difficult thing for me is that, outside of Reform Judaism, our kids aren't considered Jewish and I feel like some people view me as having spoiled our family since I didn't convert. I actually have no problems understanding that there are rules in Conservative and Orthodox Judaism and we don't fit within them -- I was raised Southern Baptist, so I'm pretty familiar with people having set stances on things. But, it really hit me when we were looking for a mohel for DS' bris and the first one we contacted said he wouldn't do a Bris for a child who wasn't actually Jewish. Again, I get it, it was just the first time it hit me that, no matter what we do in our home and how dedicated we are to raising our kids in Jewish traditions, it will be viewed as a bunch of hooey (and basically meaningless) by a lot of people. Thankfully, although they are not Reform, most of DH's family has always been very supportive and welcoming towards me.

DS has been with a nanny since I went back to work, mostly for personal reasons related to DH's work travel and the fact I work from home, but we recently found out he was accepted to start at our Temple's preschool in the Fall (yay!) and he will go to Summer camp there in July as well. There's a weekly Shabbat service and group for babies and young toddlers who aren't in their school or daycare that our nanny or my Baptist mom (!) have taken him to since he was around 9 months old. Oddly enough, I'm more into the idea of going to services other than on the High Holidays and incorporating Judaism into our every day lives than DH, I guess because I grew up going to church 3x a week and religion was a daily party of our lives. I think DH's view is more that all of that is for religious fanatics. So, I try to follow his lead, but am usually the one who reads the Temple newsletter and suggests we go to special events, etc. we are also signed up for PJ Library and attend some of their local events.

Last but not least, we only celebrate Jewish holidays in our home, although we do spend Christmas with my mom and her side of my family, in part because its the only time of year they're all together. I'm not sure we plan to do that every year though, and am worried things may get awkward as DS (2) and our baby due in May get older and have lots of questions. DH doesn't seem to worry about it at all, and I guess he has a better perspective on how to respond to a Jewish kid's questions about Christmas, Easter, etc. I guess it's more awkward for me and I don't really know how to respond when people ask whether DS is excited about Santa or the Easter Bunny coming to visit.

As long as that was, I'm sure I forgot something relevant. As with my mother's group, I find it really helpful to hear how other women in similar relationships deal with all of these issues, so I'm thankful for this board and thread!

[bonzo2012]

purpleroses, before we moved to a different state from our parents, DH and I had a lot of conversations about how we might handle the Santa aspect of Christmas. We were in agreement that we would do the family meal, because that's when a huge amount of extended family gets together. But with so many little cousins, and knowing that the ILs will want to do Santa with any kids SILs may someday have, we had already started debating.

One idea DH had was to explain to the kids that normally Santa only visits Christian houses, but because he was already visiting Grandma and Grandpa's house for the cousins, he dropped off some presents for them too. I wasn't a fan of that in the long run, because it plays into a myth that isn't related to my/our beliefs. Would my kid then talk about getting visits from Santa while playing with Hebrew school buddies? And what would anyone gain aside from even more toys for kid?

After moving, and deciding that as long as our schedule allows we will visit the families for Thanksgiving, not Chanukah/Christmas, it was a no brainer to eliminate Santa from the equation. Santa was never going to come to our house anyway, so if we aren't physically with the ILs its not an issue for us.

As for when people ask you more generally about Santa, or ask your LO "what did Santa bring you?" Growing up the easiest answers to give we're the ones that answer the question but also educate. For example, "Santa doesn't come to my house, but I got XYZ from my parents for Chanukah."

[incir]

Sorry, I haven't responded to some people in a while. I suspect that part of my issues with organized Judaism are my own and not really a reflection on any Jewish organization. But like purpleroses, I have come across several times when its been a pretty blatant reminder that my family isn't considered wholly accepted by all the Jewish community. We actually skipped a bris for my older son and just had the circumcision at the hospital and then a baby naming in part for this reason. Anyone who is going to consider my son Jewish won't care about the bris paperwork and if he wants to be more observant later in life he will have to convert anyway. We will do the same for number 2.

I don't know if I just have bad luck with people or if the area where we are is less accepting than many, but, for example when I was pregnant with my first I had a conversation with someone I knew distantly from work. The topic of synagogues came up and it turns out that he attended the main Reform temple in our suburb. I asked him how he liked it since we were considering joining when the baby was a little older. He replied (and clearly this is somewhat of a paraphrase), "we like it a lot, we drive from *other suburb* to *your suburb* so that we can be in a temple with real Jews. All the ones near us are full of intermarried couples." Obviously, he had no idea I wasn't Jewish. I've had a few incidents like that over the years that made me less enthusiastic about pursuing anything with organized Judaism and since my husband doesn't really care about it at this point we are just doing our own thing and waiting until kids are older.

We have also talked some about the Santa thing. We will always be down with my parents for Christmas and in my family Santa brings stockings, but not other presents at all. Up until now the stocking has just sort of appeared with no explanation since DS is so young, but I know the gig is up next year. Although I seem to be more concerned about this than my husband, we sort of have a party line around Christmas in general that, "this is part of mommy's family tradition" and we will try to be as vague as we can on the reality of Santa. Hopefully we won't get any really hard questions for another year or two.

[crinita]

Just stopped in to read the new posts to this thread. Wow, seriously loving this thread you guys! I feel like I don't have anyone locally to compare our situation to and your experiences really make me feel like we are less alone.

We just had a 'naming' for our daughter. We tried to do it earlier at a 'progressive conservative' temple but it didn't work out (I am sure you can guess why) but we finally managed to travel to DH's family's reform temple where they happily accepted us.

Keep the posts coming!

[sakura0019]

Hi ladies! I was just venturing out and checking out other boards and came across this one.
We have a somewhat unique situation in that I'm in the process of converting to Judaism, but my DH is also not Jewish. He's committed to raiding our children Jewish, even if he never converts himself. We've found a wonderful Reform temple here (Florida). We love the community there, and they've fully embraced us and are so supportive.
It's been a bit overwhelming at times to try and navigate the holidays and festivals because we're simultaneously figuring out what they mean and establishing new family traditions. Our families are supportive of this, but it's evident that they sometimes don't really understand what it means that we are raising our daughter as a Jewish child. It's so fulfilling, though, and I'm so happy to have finally found a spiritual home. And I'm a bit jealous and excited that all of this will be second nature to my daughter, where I'm learning everything from the ground up. I'll probably have so many questions for you all going forward! Also, thanks for the suggestion about PJ library, I just signed us up

[aleeshaloo]

I just read through all the posts and was inspired to share! I have a secular Jewish father and a Catholic mother, and was raised with the culture of Judaism. However, we tended to make a bigger deal for Catholic holidays than Jewish ones. My husband was raised in a non-kosher Conservative Jewish home.

When we married, my husband's family's rabbi refused to marry us unless I converted, which I found somewhat offensive given my background. I know, of course, that tradition/more conservative and orthodox law states that a child is not Jewish unless the mother is Jewish, but having been raised in a more Reform style it was upsetting.

We found a Reform/Humanistic rabbi who was happy to marry us. We decided to raise our children Jewish and have found a Reform temple in Seattle that is inclusive and fits our needs. They have family Shabbat services and Kiddish club and it's been a good situation for us.

It is ironic to me that my son, who is 75% Jewish and will be raised in the faith and culture, might be told that he's not Jewish because my mother is Catholic - but he'll cross that bridge if he needs to do so. We did choose to have a bris for him and while I'm aware he might need to convert at some point if he decides to head into the more conservative side of the spectrum, as a Reform Jew he's good to go. One of the things I love about Judaism is that there is a place for all of us and there are more inclusive congregations. With the amount of interfaith and intercultural marriage going on now, my son hopefully won't experience some of the rejection or be told 'you're not really Jewish' as I did growing up. It is vital for the future of Judaism for there to be more inclusivity - and more and more Jews and congregations are becoming aware of it.

We celebrate Jewish holidays at home, read our PJ Library books, and attend the temple events I mentioned earlier. We have secular Christmas celebration with my parents, but we aren't going to introduce Santa as an element of it. We've actually always celebrated Christmas with my dad's sisters - my Jewish side, because they live close by and it makes sense to get together when everyone is off work.

It works out well to have my in-laws claim the Jewish holidays and my parents claim the Christian ones, because then everyone gets to see us and there isn't any resentment. I think my in-laws were pretty thrilled that my husband ended up marrying a half Jew since all of their friend's children married non-Jews.

Thanks for this thread - it's helpful to hear about other people's stories!

[beevol]

We are probably going to be spending Christmas with my super Christian ILs this year... My preference is to explain that Santa isn't real, mainly because lying to kids kind of squicks me out (I'm also struggling with the tooth fairy), but we there are other little kids on that side and I don't want my toddler to get in trouble for bursting the Santa bubble... Ugh. It is already a scandal that we do not go to Church.