When my husband read an early draft of this essay, he asked, "Why doesn't her partner have to support our daughter? After all, they agreed to raise children as Jews." What does it mean to raise a Jewish child?
When our celebrity columnist, Nate Bloom, wrote about the engagement of Chely Wright to Lauren Blitzer, he posited, in an earlier draft, that theirs was the first celebrity, lesbian, interfaith wedding. I wasn’t certain. Much to the amusement of my friend and colleague over at Jewish Boston, David Levy, I started googling for proof. I tweeted,
This is not what feminism looks like:  (“Why are so many famous Jewish women lesbians?”)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, googling failed to be helpful. The Google results ranged from highly amusing to pornographic to conspiracy theory meets anti-Semitism and homophobia (the latter can be seen, at your own discretion, by following the link in the above tweet), so I turned to some twitter buddies for help.
Both David and I asked questions to our followers at large, and to specific twitter buddies like Jewish musician Julie Silver and the folks at Keshet and Jewish Womens’ Archive, if they knew of other celebrity lesbian interfaith couples. (I believe Julie’s answer included her and her beloved wife…)
Unable to prove with certainty whether or not Chely and Lauren would be the first lesbian, interfaith, celebrity couple to be wed, the assertion was cut from the celeb column.
Although few details of the big day have been revealed thus far, Chely dished that it will be an outdoor ceremony with both a reverend and rabbi officiating, as the singer is Christian and her fiancée is Jewish. The reception will have a deejay, and guests would be wise to bring their dancing shoes!
And we, at IFF headquarters, are curious: which rabbi is co-officiating the ceremony? Lauren and Chely, if you’d recommend her/his officiating prowess to others, please recommend that they join our free Jewish Clergy Referral Service. We’re always looking out for rabbis who will officiate for interfaith couples, will co-officiate with clergy of other religions, and are LGBTQ friendly!
Mazal tov to the brides (kallot), whether they’re the first or amongst other happy couples!
I’ll admit it. I was watching an old episode of Felicity a few nights ago on DVD, and it tackled the issue of interfaith relationships. The episode, entitled “Kissing Mr. Covington,” included a back story about a couple, Sean and Meghan, who were an interfaith couple.
Sean has to have cancer surgery and he turns to his Jewish roots for solace. His girlfriend, Meghan, is not Jewish, and Sean breaks up with her because they don’t observe the same religion. Little did he know that the man sharing his hospital room was Rabbi Morgenstern, who says that Sean is a fool for breaking it off with a loving woman like Meghan. Sean reacts by proposing to Meghan, and, while she turns him down, she does say that she’s open to learning more about Judaism. Sean is thrilled. The episode concludes with a loving embrace by the couple.
I’ve seen this episode before, when it first aired in 2000, but watching it now had a more profound effect on me. The writers were quite progressive in bringing interfaith relationships out in the open. It begins to open a dialogue on the show about budding interfaith relationships, and why it could be important to have this discussion early on (a position we at InterfaithFamily.com fully endorse!).
Despite the frequency with which I blog about them, I actually have little care about celebrities’ lives. But they keep coming up in the news, saying things of relevance to intermarriage, interfaith families, so I guess I’ll have to keep blogging…
‘It was such a nice way to grow up,’ she said, but later added: ‘I don’t believe in religion. I believe in spirituality. Religion is the cause of all the problems in the world.’
I was reviewing my Google Reader before leaving the office this evening, when something caught my eye. Now, at first I thought it was a joke. After all, I’d previously poked fun at the names celebrities give their babies.
UPDATE: June 20 Feeling a little cheeky, Crushable offers up some name suggestions for Li’l Portman. The bris is scheduled for June 22. We’ll have to wait until then to find out his name…
If you haven’t yet, click that Crushable link for some, uh, interesting celebrity names.
True story: A friend recently came home from visiting her boyfriend’s family and told us about this docu-reality show, Pregnant In Heels, that she’d watched with his mom. We all kind of laughed at the premise (Rosie Pope, a “maternity concierge, fashion designer, and pregnancy guru” coaches women through pregnancy in style). But we were assured that Rosie often makes fun of the women (and their partners) who are far-too-often completely clueless about what having a baby will mean. Next thing we knew, six of us were glued to the TV for the full hour, watching the show (which is now on the DVR recording list).
So I was pleased to hear that interfaith issues were tackled on this week’s episode, “Clueless” (which is still saved for me on my friend’s DVR). I was not impressed to hear that the couple was nearing their due date and had never discussed religion. One person on a message board summarized the couple’s stance succinctly with, “Neither one of us cares about our faith so we had a non-religious wedding ceremony but I’m going to flip [out] if you try to take MY daughter to temple/mass.”
We’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: talk about religion well before your child appears in your lives! Figure out how you’re going to raise them, which role(s) each parent’s religion will play in the lives of your kids and in your home as a whole. And if you’re stuck? Ask us, we’d be happy to pointoutresourcesforyou.
Having recovered from that Shalom Sesame video (or maybe to help you recover?), check out the Passover Martini on the Gloss. (I’m not sure why there’s so much Passover cocktail action this year, but the first post also had cocktails.)
There are great resources for kids on Uncle Eli’s site, but be warned: it hasn’t been updated since the late-90s, so be prepared for frames and music!
For the more social justice inclined, a hodgepodge can’t be complete without mention of two more resources. COEJL (the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life) explains the value of Hunger Seders, “to celebrate the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, introduce the challenges our nation faces in regard to hunger and nutrition, and present opportunities for action and advocacy opportunities to combat hunger.” Then there’s the Uri L’Tzedek Food and Justice Haggadah Supplement, as reviewed on Jewschool. The supplement, featuring 26 articles and insights about food, justice and Pesach, is available via free download.
Ok, so maybe the last Passover Hodgepodge didn’t contain everything-and-the-kitchen-sink Passover, but it had a lot to offer. Still, there was more I could have shared.
On the Reform Judaism blog, Ben Dreyfus approaches a seemingly simple question: how many days is Passover, 7 or 8? “When does Pesach end? Why do some calendars say it ends April 25 and others say April 26? The answer in most Reform Jewish communities is April 25, but the history is complicated….”
It’s been a while since I’ve rounded up some favorite links, but what better excuse than Passover? There’s something for everybody!
Let’s start with Passover and Easter in a Box. For your convenience, you can now get Passover standards (matzah, a seder plate and grape juice) packaged with Easter treats (candy, chocolate bunnies and Easter cookies).
Sweets aren’t your thing? Is that skewed a little young for your tastes? There’s always the Sipping Seder, a seder in cocktail form! If this isn’t a great way to introduce Passover to your friends and family (of legal age), I don’t know what is.
Looking for the 2011 version of the Passover story? Check out this video:
We spend a lot of time talking, writing, thinking about the whole “who is a Jew” debate around here.
It’s important, in the context of an organization that welcomes and advocates for interfaith families in the Jewish community, to encourage inclusivity in the definition.
Because when a Jewish person chooses to marry someone who is not Jewish, it does not mean they are less of a Jew. Let me repeat that: who we marry does not add or detract from our Jewishness. Converting to Catholicism detracts from one’s Jewishness. Marrying a Catholic does not.
In the most recent issue of Moment Magazine, they published a comment about a previous article. The article, “The Best Jewish TV Shows of All Time,” January/February 2011, included The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Should The Daily Show with Jon Stewart have made the list? He is married to a non-Jew, doesn’t belong to a synagogue and doesn’t affiliate with the Jewish community or any Jewish organization. And, as I’m given to understand, his children are not being raised as Jews.
Last time I checked, belonging to a synagogue wasn’t criteria for being a Jew. (If it were, we’d hardly have any Jews in our midst under the age of 40.) And how does the writer know with whom Stewart affiliates?
Allow me to fully own my bias: I’ve been a regular viewer since the early double naughts; there are few episodes I’ve missed. And one of the things I enjoy are Stewart’s Yiddishisms, Jewish jokes and occasional confessions that he doesn’t know much about his religion. (Though his writers clearly do.) His made up Hebrew is fantastic and uber-gutteral. Regardless of the choices he and his wife have made, he is still as much a Jew as any other Jew. And his show certainly deserves to be on a list of great Jewish shows.
But that’s not really the point (or, at least, the main point). My main point is this: The Jewish community owes it to all of us to be welcoming and inclusive, not to belittle or shame another for how they’ve chosen to practice their religion, and certainly not to claim that folks lose their Jew card if they’re “bad.”
I’d like to see the community working together to squash these views, educating one another on just “who is a Jew,” rather than publishing them.
Actor Gwyneth Paltrow’s ancestral search, which will be told in a new episode of the NBC TV program Who Do You Think You Are? (WDYTYA), might not have happened if not for Jewish Records Indexing – Poland (JRI Poland).
Founded by Montrealer Stanley Diamond, JRI-Poland is an online searchable database of 4.2 million records related to Polish Jewry.
The April 1 episode of the celebrity documentary series will feature the Academy Award-winner’s genealogical journey.
The Paltrow roots go back to a long line of rabbis named Paltrowicz from northeastern Poland and the towns of Suwalki, Lomza and nearby shtetls.
“The show’s researchers tapped into into JRI-Poland’s online database as the starting point in documenting Paltrow’s ancestry,” said Diamond.