My Interfaith Family

My mom was raised Catholic, my dad was raised Jewish, and my brother and I are Jewish. Many of you may have just gone, what? This tends to confuse people since many people are under the impression that in the Jewish religion, along with many others, the child's religion is based off the mother's religion.

Photo by Joseph Saraceno

While this is true in many religions, let me explain how it worked for my family. Before my parents were even married, they decided to attend a few courses about being an interfaith family and how to decide how to raise their children from a religious standpoint. After taking the course, they decided they would raise any potential future children as both Jewish and Catholic and then let their children decide when they got older how they wanted to continue either faith. My parents ended up getting married and before my mom got pregnant with me, she decided she was no longer comfortable raising any kids in both religions - she wanted them to choose one or the other. She felt that her kids needed an identity along with something to relate with, and she wanted religion to provide this for them. At this point, my mom attended a weekly introduction to Judaism class because she had a feeling it would be easier for her to accept raising her children Jewish than my dad to raise his children Catholic. After all, Judaism is the basis with which Catholicism is based off of, since it is the Old Testament. While taking the class, she decided she was comfortable raising any child as Jewish. However, she was not comfortable enough with the decision to let my grandparents, both quite religious in their own ways, know until she was 8 months pregnant with me. When she finally told them, both her parents and my dad's parents were accepting and happy with the decision. Since then, my family on both sides has always been accepting of the fact that my brother and I are being raised Jewish.

I will get more into how this has impacted our traditions in just a moment.

To make sure there were no religious issues later on, such as when my brother and I went to have our b'nai mitzvot or get married, our entire family participated in a Mikvah when we were both young. This is pretty much a conversion for the children so we would be considered fully Jewish. However, my mother has not converted and I'm not sure if she ever will. She always said she wouldn't convert while her parents were alive since they were devout Catholics and raised her to be one her entire young adult life. We have recently lost both of my grandparents on her side, but either way, I respect her decision to either remain Catholic or convert to Judaism. She has been very involved in our Jewish lives and has always pushed us to seek out the faith more. I cannot think of any time she made me feel like I wasn't Jewish or should consider not being Jewish. I respect the choice she made to raise us Jewish even when it was not her tradition, and I am grateful she made the choice to do so and follow through with it all these years.

Now that you know my history of being raised Jewish in an interfaith family, let me briefly explain how being interfaith has formed my traditions- don't worry, you will hear about the traditions in more detail when the holidays roll around in the blog in later posts!

Photo by: SpiffyArmbrooster

For the most part, my immediate family follows Jewish traditions and celebrates the Jewish holidays. An exception is around Christmas when we decorate our house with both Christmas and Hanukkah decorations and host our annual Glatzer Family Holiday Party. There will be a post dedicated to this event- it is one of my favorite things we do during the year, so keep your eyes peeled!

With my extended family, we celebrate holidays with both sides of the family, depending on the time of the year. The Jewish holidays are with my dad's side of the family and Christmas and Easter are with my mom's side of the family. Sometimes the holidays of one religion overlap with the other, but we make it work. For example, one year Passover and Easter overlapped. We went to my cousins' house on my mom's side to paint Easter eggs and brought along kosher for Passover snacks so we would have something to eat and still be able to celebrate Easter. Also, we would go to my grandfather's for Easter Brunch so my immediate family would be very careful about what we chose to eat, to make sure there was no bread, and we were still able to enjoy a fabulous meal with my grandfather. Other times, Christmas and Hanukkah overlapped so we either lit the Menorah before going to my cousins for Christmas Eve or just brought the Menorah with us.

Easter Dinner Without Bread

There are also certain times where both sides of my family join together,  such as the surprise 50th Birthday Party I threw for my parents, our holiday party, my brother's Bar Mitzvah and my Bat Mitzvah.

I would like to end by talking briefly about my Bat Mitzvah. This event is very important in the Jewish religion because it is when a child becomes an adult in the eyes of Judaism. It meant a lot to me that all of my extended family that could make it from both sides of my family were present at this very special event. It meant so much to me that I made sure to include my family from my mom's side in ways they would feel comfortable during the service, such as opening the Ark, in addition to the honors my dad's side of the family had, which often included Hebrew. I had my one cousin read from the New Testament a section that tied into my Torah portion for the day. It was a wonderful way to be able to connect both sides of my family and both religions.

The pride I saw in everyone's eyes that day will stay with me and always remind me of how lucky I am to have such a loving, supporting interfaith family.

Although not from my Bat Mitzvah, here is a video from my cousin's Bar Mitzvah of my grandfather, the cantor, singing " If I were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof. I decided to include this video to give you an idea of the spirit of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah for those of you who have not been to one.

Please feel free to share, in the comments, any interesting circumstances you may have within your family that help form your traditions- they don't have to be religious.