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Interfaith family process and the negotiation of identity and difference

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Interfaith family process and the negotiation of identity and difference

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Content INTERFAITH FAMILY PROCESS
AND
THE NEGOTIATION OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE
by
Marianne Husby Callahan
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SOCIOLOGY / CLINICAL MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPY)
May 2001
Copyright 2001 Marianne Husby Callahan
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UM I Number: 3027698
Copyright 2001 by
Callahan, Marianne Husby
All rights reserved.
___ ®
UMI
UMI Microform 3027698
Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company.
Ail rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90007
This dissertation, written by
Marianne Husby Callahan
under the direction of her Dissertation
Committee, and approved by all its members,
has been presented to and accepted by The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of
requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Dean of Graduate Studies
Date fe.3 -U .X Q Q 3 -.
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairperson
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project could not have been done without the support and cooperation of
many individuals who helped to make it possible.
First and foremost, I wish to thank the interfaith couples who welcomed me
into their homes and told me their stories. Without their willingness to participate,
there would be no study. I am deeply grateful to them for their openness, and for the
delight they gave me in the research process.
Thanks and acknowledgement go to Rabbi Allen Mailer and Dr. Barbara
Lazarus of the University of Judaism's Making Marriage Work program. Thanks are
also due to Rabbi Steven Carr Rueben, Dr. Bruce Phillips, Dr. Don Miller and the
members of my committee - Dr. Constance Ahrons, Dr. Elaine Bell Kaplan, and
Dr. John Crossley - for their good ideas, support and direction. The many friends
and acquaintances who referred me to couples for the study provided invaluable
assistance, for which I am also very appreciative.
To my proofreading team, Jonathen Shell and John Thomas, I thank you from
the bottom of my heart. And for the endless cheering, the early morning walks, the
coffee and bagels, and all the other things that kept me sane during a tremendously
stressful time, thank you, Ann Thomas. Your support made all the difference.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION ....................................... 1
2. LITERATURE REVIEW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
KggjjMsejBdjEgactioagiejtotgfaitkMagiagg............................... 9
A. Opposition to Interfaith Marriage .......... 11
B. Guidance for Interfaith Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
C. Additional Resources for Interfaith Families. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Premarital Education ...................... 17
A Closer,Look , .IM tnjagAfTejms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
A. Defining "Interfaith" .................. 18
B. Typologies of Interfaith Fam ilies......................................... 20
C. The Interfaith Marriage as "High Risk" 22
Mitel, . •............. — ... . . . . .. . . . . .. . 24
A. Family Process Theory ............................. 24
B. The Interfaith Family Life Cycle and the Ongoing Negotiation of
Differences . . . . . . ........ ........ 25
C. The Larger Family System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
D. Children of Interfaith Families and Issues of Identity..................... 30
Chapter Summary ......................................... 32
3. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY... . .. . . . . .. . . . 34
A. Sample Criteria .......... 35
B. Sample Recruitment ............ 37
C. Research Procedures: Collecting the Data ............ 38
D. Sample Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
E. Research Procedures: Analyzing the Data ............ 46
F. Research Procedures: Presenting the Data .......... 48
G. Limitations of the Sample and Method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4. CREATING AN INTERFAITH FAMILY: BEGINNING
STAGES ........... 53
A M jcipitiBg^ 59
A. Managing Parents' Negative Reactions .............. 62
B. Appreciating Inclusion and Realizing Distance .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
The,M,ddui.g ................. 67
A. Non-Religious Weddings .......... 68
B. Clergy Officiated Weddings .......................... 69
C. Co-Officiated and Unitarian Weddings .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
D. Roadblocks on the Way to the Wedding ................ 74
E. The Use of Wedding Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Chapter .Summary, ••••••*•••• — ...........- — .............. 79
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5. CREATING AND MAINTAINING AN INTERFAITH
FAMILY IDENTITY ................................................................. 80
A. Planning for Children - How Will They Be Raised? ............. 83
B. Factors in Decision Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ 90
i. Choosing one faith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
ii. Choosing to do both. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
iii. Choosing to have no religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
iv. Other choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
IteligigasjB lC M tU ai^ the,CMMyen.areRaised. . . . . 101
A. Team Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
B. Delegated Leadership ........... 105
C. Secular Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ill
D. Families Without Clear Leadership. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Isspes ofldjgntity:,, What Are, the, , Children? . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . . 114
A. "This is Such a Jewish Kid". . . . . . . ........ 114
B. "Half and H alf .................... 116
C. Is the Mother Jewish? .......... 120
Chapter Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .---- . . . . . . ------........... 122
6. PERMEABLE BOUNDARIES: REGULATING RELIGION
IN INTERFAITH FAMILY LIFE ............. 124
Formal Influences ......................... . . . . . . . .-............ 126
A. Church and Temple Participation .......... 126
B. Deciding Against Religious Education ................................ 129
C. Providing Children with Religious Education. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
D. Who Decides? ..................... 137
E. Parochial Schools / Jewish Day Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Itf o m d lafluences....................... 143
A. Parents and In-Laws ........... 143
B. Peers and Community ................ 149
Chapter Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ 151
7. HOLIDAYS, RITUALS, AND RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS ........ 153
A. Christmas ............ 154
B. Passover .............. 161
C Baptism and Bris .......................... 162
D. Negotiating Religious Symbols .......... 166
i. Christian symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
ii. Jewish symbols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Chaptet Sungimary . . . . . . ....... . . . ------- 170
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8. CONCLUSIONS . . . . . ........... 172
A. Clinical Implications and Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
B. Directions for Future Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1®
% APPENDICES .......... 192
A. Recruitment Letter .......... 193
B. Recruitment Flyer ........................................ 195
C. Information Sheet for Interviewees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
D. Cover Sheet for Interview .................... 198
E. Household Income Chart .............. 199
F. Interview Guide ................ 200
G. Profile of the Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
I#. BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
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ABSTRACT
The current rate of intermarriage among American Jews now stands at 50%,
and this has raised fears among Jewish leaders that children from these marriages
will “be lost to Judaism.” Interfaith marriage is generally viewed as problematic and
conflict-ridden, and likely to leave children without a solid identity. These
speculations are not supported in this study.
Data were collected from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 32
Jewish/Christian couples. The sample splits evenly: 16 Jewish wife/Christian
husband couples, and 16 Christian wife/Jewish husband couples. All have at least
one child age seven or older. No spouses have converted. Seventeen couples are
raising children as Jewish, three are raising children as Christian, five are raising
children as “neither” (no religion), six are raising children as “both,” and one is
raising children as “other.”
Utilizing family process theory, three styles of religious leadership are
identified. This model examines how interfaith spouses create and sustain religious
identity for their family. Spouses with a team leadership style are equally committed
to and involved in the religious upbringing of their children. Families with a
delegated leadership style have one spouse who is the designated religious leader.
Non-designated spouses vary in the degree of support they offer. Secular leadership
describes couples who have chosen to raise children without formal religion.
Interfaith couples regulate the influence of religion in their families to
maintain an optimal environment of interfaith harmony. This involves agreements
and arrangements for home observance, holidays, involvement in organized religion,
and the management of grandparental and community influences. While Jewish/
Christian couples have several viable options for the organization of religion in their
families, these findings suggest that it is easier for Christian spouses—when they
hold moderate to weak Christian views—to embrace Judaism and raise Jewish
children than for Jewish spouses—no matter how committed to Judaism—to
embrace Christianity and raise Christian children.
Attention is paid to the role of gender and social context, and how these
influence the decisions couples make about religion. Guidelines for family therapists
working with interfaith families are discussed.
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This project is designed to study family process within interfaith marriage.
Specifically, it seeks to better understand the experiences of married couples—one
spouse Jewish and the other Christian—who are raising children. The focus is upon
how interfaith parents determine and create the religious, cultural and ethnic
identities of their children.
The rate of intermarriage between Jews and Christians in the United States
has steadily increased in the past several decades. American Jews are now marrying
non-Jews at a rate of over 50%. It has become apparent that social barriers between
the major American religious groups—Protestant, Catholic, and Jew—have
diminished significantly, and perhaps now hold limited salience in mate selection.
But the increasing prevalence of Jewish/Christian intermarriage has become a
lightning rod in the American Jewish community and has ignited a furor amongst its
leadership.
Intermarriage is considered by many Jewish leaders to be one of the most
critical issues facing the Jewish people today. There is tremendous concern (and
research findings to support) that when a Jew and Christian marry and raise a family,
the likelihood of their children growing up to identify as Jewish greatly diminishes.
The consequence of increasing intermarriage rates, it is feared, is the eventual
assimilation of American Jews into the Christian majority group.
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The 2000 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion indicates that 42% of
Jews disapprove of or are “disappointed by” interfaith marriage. But on an
organizational level tremendous effort continues to be put into addressing the
“problem” of interfaith marriage. Literature, conferences, and demographic analyses
seek to understand intermarriage trends, and to dissuade Jews from “marrying out.”
Extensive strategies for outreach are developed to encourage Jews who have
intermarried to raise their children Jewish. These efforts are viewed as critical to the
continuity of the Jewish people. While the impact of Jewish/Christian marriage has
been noted primarily within the Jewish community, few interfaith couples are
untouched by the controversial backdrop these debates present.
Regardless of the degree of religiosity of each member of an interfaith
couple, issues of difference loom large. Some couples are raising their children with
a dual heritage, exposing them to each parent’s respective faith. Other couples
choose to identify their family with one faith of the two. And “no religion” is the
preferred identification for some. But no matter how secular their respective
identities, interfaith couples of Christian and Jewish heritage must come to terms
with group difference, ethnic tradition, and the pervasiveness of minority/majority
issues. Nothing more readily brings these issues to the fore than the responsibilities
of parenthood, and interfaith families are presented with unique, ongoing challenges
and negotiations throughout the family life cycle. The higher divorce statistics
among the intermarried may be one testament to the difficulties of doing so.
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Interfaith marriages are considered to be at higher risk for dissolution, particularly
after children have been bom.
A Jewish/Christian couple is more than a partnership of two faiths. As a
couple they represent an intersection of belief and identity, of culture and ethnicity,
and the ways in which Judaism and Christianity encompass these differently. To be
Jewish may be to have a cultural or ethnic identity, but not necessarily religious
conviction. Identification as a Jew does not require a belief in the religious tenants
of Judaism. This can be confusing for a Christian, whose understanding of
religiosity emphasizes individual beliefs and participation in organized worship.
An intermarried Christian may be bewildered when his or her non-religious
Jewish spouse, who does not attend synagogue or believe in God, places great
importance upon raising their children as Jews. Christian spouses may be further
stunned to discover that their husband or wife is uncomfortable with a Christmas tree
in the home. But as members of the majority group, even intermarried Christians
may have limited awareness of how Christian tradition and American culture meld
together to be almost indistinguishable. And the relinquishment of Christian
holidays may feel intolerable, no matter how minimally one identifies with Christian
beliefs.
Parents must make choices about the level of religious influence they want in
their children’s lives. They also have the responsibility of giving their young
offspring a sense of identity—who they are, what they believe, and how the world
sees them. Interfaith couples, however, cannot draw upon assumed similarities in
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background to help them through these developmental tasks. Regardless of how
much effort is exerted to acknowledge or avoid their differences, these couples are
faced with tough decisions each step of the way. Issues of identity, “symbolic
ethnicity,” and choice are ever present.
Despite great concerns and debates about “what to do” for the
intermarried—be it outreach, condemnation, pleas for conversion, or “how to”
guidelines—we know very little about the experiences of life within an interfaith
family. Yet as arguments and worry rage in academic and rabbinical circles,
Christians and Jews continue to intermarry and go about the business of raising a
family.
The existing interfaith literature offers little beyond impressionistic accounts,
testimonials, and the opinions of “experts.” We have limited data on how interfaith
couples manage their respective differences, their larger family ties, and the matter
of spiritual guidance for their children. We know less about how they view their
family identity, and how they feel they differ from same faith couples. What
challenges do intermarried couples consider to be the greatest? How do they
negotiate their way through holidays, rituals, and religious observance? How do
they answer the persistent curiosity of their children about their identities, beliefs and
values? What resources do they rely upon? What influences from their respective
backgrounds have taken them by surprise? What is longed for, what is avoided, and
what do they wish could be different? And how do they go about the process of
determining, creating and sustaining the religious, cultural, and ethnic identities of
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their children? There has been minimal investigation from a sociological, analytical
perspective into an understanding of interfaith family process. The purpose of this
project is to fill the gap in our current knowledge.
With a qualitative investigation into the experiences of interfaith parents, this
project will strive to shed light upon the experience, meaning and processes that
comprise an interfaith partnership and family. This study also presents an
opportunity to better understand minority/majority issues within the most intimate
context of the family. It will address the evolving nature of personal religiosity and
how an individual’s sense of the importance or relevance of religion changes across
the lifecycle, specifically with the advent of parenthood.
By studying their decision-making and negotiation processes, and the
struggles and successes these families experience, we delve into a rich resource for
our knowledge on couple dynamics and family development, both sociologically and
clinically. A study of interfaith families also offers insight into the social
construction of ethnicity and identity.
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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Intermarriage amongst religious and ethnic groups has often been considered by
sociologists to represent the final stages of assimilation by minority groups into the
culture’s majority (Judd, 1990). American Jews, who make up less that three percent
of the total U.S. population (Lazerwitz, Winter, Dashefsky, & Tabory, 1998), have
strong indicators of acceptance by, and integration into, the majority culture today.
Anti-Semitism has by no means disappeared, but economic and educational
attainment attests to “Jewish success” as an ethnic group (Steinberg, 1989). “With
each successive generation, American Jewry has become more upwardly mobile and
more assimilated, and therefore more acceptable for, and more accepting of,
intermarriage” (Phillips, 1997).
Intermarriage between Christians and Jews is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Jews have historically been a highly endogamous people, and in fact are required to
be so by traditional Jewish law. Before the 1960’s, marriage among American Jews
and Christians was uncommon. The influence of traditional culture among Jewish
immigrants and the “ghettoization” of immigrant Jews from Eastern Europe have
been attributed to an out-marriage rate peaking at less than 6% in the first half of the
century (Mayer, 1985). But beginning in the 1960’s, the rates of intermarriage began
to increase dramatically. By 1990, the percentage of American Jews marrying non-
Jews was four times greater than it was in 1970 (Lazerwitz et at, 1998).
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Phillips points out that “marriage is the result of both opportunity and
willingness. In order for marriages to take place between Jews and non-Jews, there
must be opportunities for them to meet in a climate of social tolerance, equality and
mutual acceptance” (1997, p. 3). Opportunity for intermarriage has increased as
other traditional barriers have come down. By 1970, the Catholic Church had lifted
its “historically rigorous opposition to mixed marriages,” (Mayer, 1985, p. 49) and
no longer required a signed promise from an intermarrying couple to raise their
children Catholic. Opinion polls taken almost twenty years ago indicate an
overwhelming acceptance by non-Jews of the prospect of their own child marrying a
Jew (Bayme, 1992). As a marital determinant, it has been argued that religion is
less important now than educational attainment. The boundary once separating
religious groups has shifted to emphasize different educational levels, and interfaith
marriages have become increasingly homogeneous with respect to education
(Kalmijn, 1991).
It has also been suggested by Kalmijn that the influence of tradition, particularly
that which is passed on by parents, has a greatly diminished role in shaping the
norms and values of children. “In the past, religious socialization has traditionally
been considered a crucial mechanism by which religious groups maintained their
internal cohesion and group identity. . . . fTjhis mechanism has lost some of its
significance,” he states (1991, p. 798). Or perhaps, as noted by McClain, “[a]s Jews
have become more and more comfortable as Americans, many Jewish parents have
found it increasingly difficult to tell their children that they shouldn’t marry non-
Jews, and many aren’t so sure intermarriage is all that bad” (1995, p. 18).
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While marriage is a highly personal event, the crossing of social, religious, or
cultural boundaries can have larger implications for groups and institutions. The fact
that Jews have assimilated so successfully leads inevitably to social integration, and
the opportunity to meet and marry the “right person,” who might not happen to be
Jewish. According to Judd (1990) this freedom also presents a major dilemma to
American Jews.
American Jewry has long believed that the twin goals of integration
with the dominant society and survival of the Jewish group are
compatible. However, some believe the growing incidence of
intermarriage raises grave doubts. They ask, in the face of rising rates
of intermarriage, will there be sufficient numbers to maintain a viable
Jewish community in the next and subsequent generations? (Judd,
1990, p. 254)
In 1990, the Council of Jewish Federations conducted a sweeping study of the
Jewish American population, termed the National Jewish Population Study (NIPS).
The data from this study provide the most comprehensive and current profile of
marriages between Christians and Jews in the U.S. and have had a powerful impact
on the current interest within the Jewish community on interfaith marriage. In this
survey it was revealed that American Jews, both male and female, are now marrying
non-Jews at a rate of over 50% (Lazerwitz, 1971). Findings from this study also
demonstrated that few interfaith marriages were producing children who identify
unambiguously as Jews (McClain, 1995).
“The social, political and religious implications of individuals exercising their
choice to many across frontiers are particularly marked when communities feel their
resources are at risk, their belief systems are under attack and then security is at
stake,” notes Clulow (1993, p. 83). It is thus unsurprising that the numbers
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uncovered by the 1990 NJPS set off a flurry of response to the modem phenomenon
of marriage between Christians and Jews.
Response and Reactions to Interfaith Marriage
The Council of Jewish Federations 1990 National Jewish Population Survey
(NJPS) provides the most current and comprehensive data on American Jewish
demographics. It contains much data, but the one statistic which stood out to
immediate attention, and has received the most citation since, was the finding that
the rate of interfaith marriage had reached 52% among Jews who married between
1985 and 1990 (Phillips, 1997).
The literature which has been generated in the wake of this finding, and in the
years preceding it, has largely reflected the agendas and concerns of those who
envision interfaith marriage as a threat to Jewish American continuity (Bayme, 1992;
Mayer, 1985; Prager, 1993; Shrage, 1992; Silversteln, 1995a; Silverstein, 1995b), as
well those who encourage acceptance of interfaith marriage, and hold hope that
American Judaism can respond to the trends with outreach and flexibility (Gruzen,
1990; King, 1993; McClain, 1995; Rosenberg, Meehan, & Payne, 1988).
Bayme and Gordis (1997) describe the response from Jewish leadership as
“polarized.” Some leaders have concluded that the all-time high rate of
intermarriage is the inevitable result of modem life within an open society. The
battle has been lost, so to speak, and the appropriate response from the Jewish
community should be that of “outreach” to intermarried couples and families.
Opponents argue that to accept interfaith marriage as an inevitability, and to focus
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exclusively on outreach, is a dire mistake which would in effect validate (and
encourage?) intermarriage. Instead, a vigorous course of action to lower the rates of
intermarriage and promote Jewish endogamy should be pursued.
In the popular press there are currently a number of “how to” books for interfaith
families, with specific emphasis on raising children in an interfaith home. These are
primarily written by authors who themselves are intermarried (Gruzen, 1990; King,
1993; Levin, 1991; Rosenberg et ah, 1988). The better ones emphasize cultural
issues in the larger social context, as well as thorough exercises and guidelines to
facilitate preparation for and evaluation of important life decisions (Crohn, 1995;
Petsonk & Remsen, 1988).
Family therapy clinicians also have focused attention on interfaith marriages.
Recognizing that interfaith couples face complex and unique challenges, and are
considered to be, as a group, at higher risk for marital instability, clinical guidelines
have been developed to help both interfaith couples and their larger family systems
when troubles arise (Alper, 1992; Clamar, 1991; Eaton, 1994; Gleckman &
Streicher, 1990; Greenstein, Carlson, & Howell, 1993; Sousa, 1995).
The majority of books and opinion articles on the topic of interfaith marriage
(with the exception of the clinical articles) are published by Jewish organizations or
in Jewish journals. It becomes clear that the ongoing debates and impassioned
dialogue about marriage between Christians and Jews, and the resulting upbringing
of their children, is lodged firmly within the larger American Jewish community.
There simply is not a comparable literature reflecting the “Christian position” on
interfaith marriage. As noted by Silverstein (1995a), Jewish/Christian marriage does
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not pose an assimilationist “threat” to the vast Christian majority, and is not
perceived as a crisis by clergy or lay people. In her search for literature on the topic,
Gruzen reported, “[t]he few Catholic writings didn’t associate interfaith marriage
with ‘fear’ or ‘threat,’ because, understandably, extinction wasn’t a concern for an
American Catholic population of 52 million that didn’t have to recover from a Nazi
holocaust fewer than fifty years earlier. . . . The Protestant literature was no help at
all. I couldn’t find a contemporary word on the subject”(1990, p.6).
For any given interfaith family, this literature may be of limited interest.
However, it is part of the backdrop of “the issue of interfaith marriage,” and serves
as part of the larger context in which these families exist.
A. Opposition to Interfaith Marriage
‘The first step in our battle in the fight for Jewish continuity is the fight
against interfaith marriage,” writes Rabbi Alan Silverstein (1995a, p.4), International
President of the Rabbinical Assembly, an association of 1400 rabbis affiliated with
Conservative Jewish institutions. The Conservative branch of Judaism in particular
has focused intently upon trying to stem the tide of marriage between Jews and
Christians, both by encouraging conversion into Judaism by existing non-Jewish
spouses and by trying to be as influential as possible in the dating habits of single
Jews. In 1991, the Conservative movement’s United Synagogue Youth adopted a
resolution to bar interfaith dating by officers of the organization. Members are urged
to follow by example (Bayme & Gordis, 1997). Parents are encouraged to take an
active role in their teen and adult children’s dating lives, making clear to them their
expectations that they will date and marry within the faith. Parents are advised to
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make every effort to encourage their children’s participation in Jewish singles events
and otherwise facilitate their meeting of an appropriate Jewish partner. “One cause
of interdating and ultimately intermarriage is parental silence in verbalizing the
ground for their concerns about the Jewishness of their family’s future,” states
Silverstein (1995a, p.71).
The numbers from the 1990 NJPS, and follow-up work with that data, show
that in fact, when a Jew marries a Christian, there is a greatly reduced likelihood that
children bom to them will be raised as Jews. Based on parental report, only 18% of
children in interfaith families are raised exclusively as Jews. 25% are raised as both
Jewish and Christian, 33% are raised “Christian only,” and 24% are raised in neither
(the “no religion” category) (Phillips, 1997). It should be noted here that these
statistics do not include families in which the non-Jewish spouse has converted to
Judaism (conversionary marriages are no longer considered “interfaith”).
The specter of Jews continuing to “marry out” at such high rates raises
tremendous anxiety about the viability of the American Jewish population. “In all
likelihood, within three generations, the descendents of intermarriage will disappear
within the undifferentiated mass of American Cbristianity”(Silverstein, 1995a, p.4).
Or, in a slightly less apocalyptic vision: “The danger posed by intermarriage is not
that the Jewish people will die out. We will never die out. The danger is that the
Jewish people will become so small and isolated that we will become irrelevant.
And if we become irrelevant, our survival won’ t matter” (Prager, 1993, p. 18).
The Conservative movement in particular stands much to lose when members
intermarry. Unlike the Reform movement, which in 1983 issued a resolution
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validating “patrilineal descent” as sufficient for identification as a Jew, and has
welcomed interfaith families into congregations, the Conservative (and Orthodox)
movement has held to the traditional requirement of a child being bom from a Jewish
mother to claim the identity of “Jew.” Conversion by the non-Jewish spouse is
expected before the marriage takes place. And any children bom to non-Jewish
mothers must themselves go through a conversion process to be full members of a
synagogue. Membership in the synagogue is reserved for bom or converted Jews.
B. . Guidame forJnte?MthF_mdties
A number of books have been published in recent years to provide advice,
assistance and support to interfaith couples. The emphasis is primarily focused on
how to raise their children and manage relationships with in-laws. Generally written
by intermarried individuals who present a “how to” model, these books are
frequently supported with a preface by a rabbi or Christian clergy member (or both).
The advice to interfaith couples generally falls along two lines concerning the
religious upbringing of their children. The first is the strongly supported position
that parents need to make a choice between Judaism and Christianity for their
children, and pick one to serve as the “family faith.” This does not necessarily mean
conversion by one partner. However, the household as a unit participates in and
identifies with one faith. Children are given formal religious education in that
chosen faith, and are told a clear message that, as a family, “we are Jewish,” or “we
are Catholic.” This position firmly attacks the “expose them to both and let them
decide for themselves” line of thinking that may feel tempting for parents uncertain
as to what to do. Rabbis, parents, and other child experts have advocated this
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approach based on children’s needs to have a clear and understandable religious
identity. To ask children to manage the profound contradictions between Judaism
and Christianity is an inappropriate assignment. Furthermore, to deny them the
opportunity to have a solid religious background is to shortchange them (Petsonk &
Remsen, 1988).
Advocates of the “choose one faith” position direct their criticism at parents
who have opted for the second position: to raise their children as “both.” Aside
from the theological challenges of embracing both Judaism and Christianity, they
contend that children who are raised as “both” may in fact feel alienated and
marginalized; that they are “nothing.” The parents who pursue the course of “both”
more often than not present their children with “fragments of two faiths” which do
not offer them “the sense of identity, the emotional security, and the consistent moral
code that a single positive religious affiliation provides” (King, 1993, p.9). “Jews
who intermarry and think that they can give their children no religion or two
religions are cheating their children of an authentic religious experience,” states
Prager (1993, p. 18). Parents in dual-religion households are criticized for offering
their children nothing more than “a patchwork pattern of family rituals” (King,
1993), numerous holiday celebrations which hold little religious significance. They
are accused of not wanting to confront the difficult topic of their own religious
differences, and of deferring the problem to their children. Silverstein calls it “a
parental cop-out.” . “Such passing of responsibility onto the shoulders of the
youngsters is unfair” (1995b, p. 15).
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Those who have taken the second position claim that a family can, in fact,
raise children in both faiths (Gruzen, 1990; Rosenberg et al., 1988). They propose
that children can grow up healthy, happy and enriched in a home in which two
religions peacefully coexist; a home in which tolerance, diversity, and the richness
of a dual heritage is emphasized. The commonalties between Judaism and
Christianity are emphasized, and differences are minimized.
Rosenberg, Meehan and Payne (1988) state, “in today’s world there is more
that unites Jews and Christians than divides them” (p.186). These authors do admit
that it is too confusing for children to receive religious education in both faiths, and
that parents should choose one for their children to formally identify with. However,
if parents are undecided about which faith they will choose when the baby is bom,
they are advised to baptize the child and also perform the Jewish rituals of
circumcision and a naming ceremony. These rituals are not seen as incompatible.
In their view, the “way to happiness” for an interfaith family is for both spouses to
support and participate in each other’s ceremonies and holidays, and to “not feel
uncomfortable” doing so. ‘The purpose of religion. . . is to bring people together in
mutual respect and concern” (p.2).
Gruzen claims that the interfaith offspring she interviewed evinced great self
confidence and a sense of “worldliness” that was due to “the strengths they’ve
inherited as a result of the differences between their parents. . . . [BJecause of their
love of such disparate people, they’re not likely to succumb to the parochialism and
prejudice that limit the lives of many people they see around them” (1990, p.63).
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Not surprisingly, Gruzen’s book is written in part as a defense of the choices she and
her husband have made in raising their daughters as “both.”
C. Additional Resources for Interfaith Families
Many resources are now available to interfaith families who are trying to
maintain a dual religion household. Dovetail Publishing produces books directed at
interfaith families who are attempting to participate in both religions. They offer a
newsletter/journal, a web site with online resources (www.dovetailpublishing.com),
and the Dovetail Institute for Interfaith Family Resources which sponsors
conferences for interfaith families. Jewish Family & Life!, a non-profit multimedia
publishing firm, offers similar resources online (www.interfaithfamily.com), as does
the Jewish Outreach Institute based at the Center for Jewish Studies at City
University of New York (www.joi.org). Their web sites feature an interactive
bulletin board, announcements of interfaith programs, testimonials, and links to other
resources all specifically addressing the concerns of intermarried couples and their
children.
The growing influence of the Internet is being utilized in outreach efforts
sponsored by Jewish organizations. A good example is the “Outreach Department”
of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (Reform Judaism) web page
(www.uahc.org/outreach) which lists suggested readings and information on
Introduction to Judaism classes, aimed specifically at connecting and re-connecting
Jews and their non-Jewish spouses with organized Judaism.
Interfaith couples wishing to be married by a rabbi can obtain online a
national list of rabbis willing to perform an interfaith ceremony from the Rabbinic
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Center for Research and Counseling (www.rcrconline.org). Also at this site, couples
may purchase a Ketubah, an artistic rendering of the traditional Hebrew marriage
contract, with the text adapted by a rabbi to serve appropriately for interfaith couples.
A series of “Interfaith Survival Kits” available for purchase by credit card, “available
in electronic format for immediate delivery via e-mail,” is offered by Jewish lifeline
to Interfaith Families (www .ssmartco.com/interfaith/index.htm).
The small companies Mishpucha and Mixed Blessings, Inc. both offer a line
of holiday cards depicting symbols of both the Jewish and Christian faith, available
online as well as in mainstream bookstores. While specialized greeting cards and
other resources represent a commercial response to a market niche, they also
represent a recognition of the unique challenges and needs of interfaith couples and
families.
D. Premarital Education
Another response to interfaith marriage, sponsored primarily by Jewish
organizations, is the availability of premarital education courses specifically
designed for interfaith couples. Many synagogues offer an Introduction to Judaism
course that is considered an integral part of preparation for conversion. However,
there are also courses available that are not designed to convert the non-Jewish
spouse-to-be, but to raise awareness and help the couple think through the complex
choices facing them when they decide to have a family. One such course is held at
the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. The “Making Marriage Work” program
has lad its own special interfaith track since the early -1980s,- Hundreds of couples
have participated in the 10-week course which features instruction on general
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relationship skills with a marriage and family therapist, and on the profound
distinctions in theology and culture between Christians and Jews, taught by a rabbi.
The goal of the course is to help couples decide if, in fact, they are willing and able
to take on the challenges ahead of them. Prevention of marriages entered into
without thought or a full appreciation of the issues—religious, cultural, ethnic,
familial, and parental—is an implicit goal.
A Closer Look—Defining the Terms
A. Defining “ Interfaith”
To this point in my discussion, the term “interfaith marriage” has been used to
describe a marriage between a Christian and Jew. These are broad categorizations,
however, and a better understanding of Jewish/Christian intermarriage requires a
more detailed description.
The question of “who is a Jew?” is profoundly complex, encompassing issues of
religiosity, ethnicity, culture and identity politics. As there is no agreement amongst
Jewish scholars and leaders, a definitive answer to that question is well beyond the
scope of this discussion. Researchers struggle instead to arrive at measurable
indicators of “Jewishness.”
Christians may be identified as believers in the Christian faith. But a more broad
definition would include the vast majority of Americans who are raised in and
recognize the “Christian tradition,” with or without a conscious self-identification as
“Christian.”
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In a recent study, Horowitz (1999) operationalized interfaith couples as follows:
The Jewish partner is the spouse who has defined his or her birth religion or
upbringing as “Jewish.” The Christian spouse defines his or her birth religion or
upbringing as “Christian,” or more specifically, “Catholic,” “Protestant,” or another
identification, such as “Unitarian.” In Horowitz’s schema, the “Christian” spouse
also may report a secular upbringing, but one which included the observance of
Christmas either as a holy day or a non-religious holiday. No religious belief system
per se is required to qualify as an interfaith marriage, but each member identifies
with an upbringing in the Jewish or Christian tradition, respectively.
Bruce Phillips (1998; 1997) has conducted several recent studies re-examining
and following up on the 1990 NJPS data, offering us the most current profile of
interfaith families. His description of “mixed marriage” also begins with the self-
identification of each spouse. According to his data findings, the Jewish partner may
be categorized as: 1) Jewish by birth as well as Jewish by religion, 2) Jewish by
birth but not religious, or 3) Jewish by birth but of an “other” religion (usually
Christianity). The non-Jewish spouse (“Gentile,” in Phillips’ terminology) can be
categorized as 1) Gentile, religiously Christian, or as 2) “Gentile, No Religion.” The
third category of Gentiles, those who have converted to another religion, were in this
case converts to Judaism and thus no longer considered part of a “mixed marriage”
(conversionary marriages are. considered In-marriages and thus drop out of the
statistics on interfaith families).
Phillips points to the fact that intermarriage tends to “run in families.” Many of
the “Jews” in mixed marriages are themselves the adult children of an intermarriage,
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further blurring the lines of definitive identity. “Group identity in modem America,
and Jewish identity in particular, is a complex and imperfectly defined construct of
such elements as religion, cultural practices, and social ties,” he notes (1997, p.43).
B. Typologies of Interfaith Families
Just as interfaith couples cannot be characterized solely on the basis of Jewish or
Christian religious beliefs, Phillips (1997) notes that it is not useful to consider
interfaith families as an undifferentiated group. Most interfaith families feature a
mixture of Jewish and Christian practices and traditions; however, there is a wide
range of difference in the degree to which one faith is emphasized over the other. A
more insightful approach is to look at how these couples balance their religious
commitments, and the various degrees of importance placed upon Judaism and
Christianity in their homes.
Interfaith families may identify primarily as Christian, as Jewish, as “both” or as
“neither.” Using a typology that draws upon these four categories to closely
examine the 1990 NJPS data, Phillips (1998) found that 44% of intermarried families
are “Christian,” in that they contain “at least one identified Christian and no
religiously identified Jew.” In these families, Christian traditions and holidays
predominate throughout the year, and the household is clearly identifiable to
outsiders as Christian. However, many of these families also acknowledge and
expose their children to Judaism with the inclusion of Jewish symbols and
celebrations in the home and other informal practices (e.g., telling children stories
with Jewish content, teaching them about their family history). In an interesting
twist, Phillips found that this family category includes the possibility that the
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“identified Christian” might, in fact, be the ethnically Jewish spouse—a Jew by birth
who now identifies as Christian, or more likely, an adult child of an intermarriage
who was raised primarily as Christian.
“Dual-religion” interfaith families are the second most common type,
representing 32% of intermarried spouses with children, and consisting of “a self
identified Jew and a self-identified Christian.” In these families, a conscious effort
is made to raise children with both faiths. “Respondents in dual-religion families
were the most likely to agree that having two religions ‘gives the children the best of
both worlds’. . . . In accordance with the value placed on religion in American
society, dual-religion families believe that if one religion is good, then two religions
are even better” (Phillips, 1998, p.93). Approximately two thirds of these families
celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah, but 24% of them celebrate Christmas
exclusively.
“Judaic” interfaith marriages are composed of a religious Jew and a “secular
Gentile,” and these families make up 15% of intermarried families with children.
These families place more emphasis upon the celebration of Jewish holidays and
observances, and on teaching their children about Judaism. However, the influence
of Christian practices—although defined in secular terms—are evident. None of the
Judaic families report attending church on Easter, for example. But 93% of the
Judaic families celebrated Christmas. 63% of Judaic families reported attending a
seder in the previous year (compared with 93% of endogamous Jewish couples).
Again, it is to be noted that when a non-Jewish spouse converts to Judaism, they n o"
longer are represented in interfaith statistics. Those families which place the greatest
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emphasis upon Jewish observance may be have dropped out of the intermarriage
category by way of conversion by the non-Jewish-bom spouse.
The fourth group, termed “secular” families, represents 9% of intermarried
couples with children, and consists of those in which neither spouse identifies with
any religion. These families may celebrate some Jewish and Christian holidays, but
overwhelmingly consider them to be secular, seasonal observances, and a time to
gather with family—not religiously meaningful.
C. The Interfaith Marriage as “ High Risk”
Research gathered in the late 1980’s on shared religious identity and marital
stability indicates that when a couple has dissimilar religious beliefs at the time of
marriage, they are significantly more likely to divorce. Religious intermarriage was
found to have a large impact on the probability of marital dissolution. The more
dissimilar the spouses’ religious beliefs and practices, the higher that probability.
Religiously homogenous marriages tend to have similar divorce rates across various
religious groups (with the exception of Mormons, who have much lower divorce
rates). But couples who claim to have “no religion” (i.e., secular couples), have the
highest statistical risk of divorce, demonstrating the importance of religion per se as
a factor in marital stability (Lehrer & Chiswick, 1993). Others have noted research
comparing Jews who marry other Jews and Jews who marry non-Jews, which have
found that the divorce rates are approximately double in the latter group (Clamar,
1991; Eaton, 1994).
A recent study, however, challenges the assertion that religious or ethnic
differences between marriage partners compromise their marital quality. Heller and
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Wood (2000) compared iewish-Christian couples with intramarried Jewish couples
on measures of couple intimacy. Via the administration of an intimacy assessment
tool and further in-depth interviews, they determined that these two groups of
couples - all of whom were childless and married for less than 5 years - had no
significant differences on measures of intimacy. While both the intermarried and the
intramarried couples had varying levels of couple intimacy, there was no significant
difference between the two groups.
Heller and Wood determined that, while intimacy levels may be similar for
the interfaith and the same faith couples, those levels of intimacy may have been
reached by different “pathways.” Same faith couples, they posit, may find their
religious and ethnic similarity serves “as a useful resource and frame of reference”
which helps “provide a strong foundation for marriage.” “Intramarried couples also
may experience greater intimacy because their common religious and ethnic
backgrounds provide a ‘language’ for communicating and negotiating their
differences with less conflict” ( p.242). For interfaith couples, however, the
“pathway” to intimacy may be through the negotiation process itself as they address
the differences and challenges they face due to their interfaith or interethnic status.
“Such discussions, conducted in a mutually respectful manner, can lead to greater
understanding of each other’s views on very emotionally and spiritually charged
issues, thus leading to greater levels of trust and intimacy” ( p.250).
They conclude that we “should not assume that intermarriage constrains levels of
intimacy. Nor should it be assumed that intramarriage assures high intimacy”
( p.241). It is critical to note, however, that this study was conducted with couples
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who are relatively newly married (less than five years), and more importantly, have
not yet had children. But these findings raise the possibility that couples who do
have children—as those interviewed in this dissertation—may have found the
process of negotiating their family identity and the religious upbringing of their
children to be something which has strengthened, rather than impaired, their marital
bond.
Within die Interfaith Family
As mentioned, the focus of this study is on life within interfaith families. This is
also the area in which we have the least amount of research data to enhance our
understanding of interfaith family processes. Because the focus of this study is on
the processes by which intermarried couples negotiate their way through marriage
and childrearing, the following section will address a theoretical perspective by
which to understand these families.
A. Family Process Theory
Also known as family systems theory, family process theory provides a
framework for analyzing how interfaith families function. Families are living, open
systems moving through time. Family units are reinforced by a boundary which
defines membership in the system. The system is governed by rules which regulate
patterns of behavior within the family unit. Some family rules serve as guidelines
for maintaining family relationships to either “bond” members together or to
“buffer” them from each other. An interfaith couple’s decision to raise their children
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in a single faith, and to practice only that faith as a family, would be an example of a
rule that serves to bond members together.
Family boundaries are permeable. They allow in the flow of information,
energy and matter from the outside environment, and they allow members access to
resources beyond the immediate family. Accordingly, families have rules which
regulate relationships between the family system and the surrounding environment.
The decision to participate in a church or temple is an example of a rule which
governs a “bridging” process between family members and the outside world.
Blocking grandparents from imposing their religious practices on grandchildren
exemplifies a rule which maintains family boundaries (Broderick, 1993).
Family rules are determined by those who hold power in the system—usually
the parents. However, it cannot be assumed that spouses share the same opinions,
assumptions, or needs. “Consensus on any matter (including family goals) can never
be taken for granted and may be achieved only through conscious, purposeful
negotiation among members” (Broderick, 1993 p.69). Particularly when coming
from very different frames of reference, interfaith couples must negotiate to come to
workable solutions for their children and family as a whole.
B. The Interfaith Family Life Cycle and the Onmins. Negotiation of Differences
Throughout the life cycle, families are faced with transitional points and
crises that are traditionally acknowledged or attended to with religious ritual.
Whether the interfaith family has decided on one faith or two, or neither, for their
home, their choices are likely to be a source of antagonism either between the
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couple, or within their extended kin and friendship network (Gleckman & Streicher,
1990; Sousa, 1995).
From the beginning, typically joyous or comforting ceremonies can be rife
with difficulty for the interfaith couple. The first realization of how complicated
things may become typically arises when arrangements are sought for the wedding.
Hopes for a ceremony which reflects the religious heritage of both may be dashed,
for example, if the couple wishes for a church wedding that revises the wording of
the ceremony to omit any reference to Christ, or if they want a rabbi as well as a
priest or minister to preside. More likely, any request to a rabbi to perform an
interfaith marriage will be denied.
Based in halachah, the body of traditional Jewish laws, marriage between a
Jew and non-Jew is forbidden, “Most rabbis will not perform a marriage ceremony
between a Jew and a Christian because to do so would be to violate not only
halachah . . . but also the firm resolutions of all major rabbinic associations. Jewish
law simply does not recognize marriages between Jews and Christians as religiously
valid, no matter who performs them” (Mayer, 1985, p.192-193). The sting of
rejection by religious institutions may have a profound impact on the couple just
starting their life together. Lisa Schiffman (1999), in an autobiographical account of
coming to terms with her Jewishness, recalls the moment she told her husband—a
non-Jew—that her close rabbi friend would not perform their wedding ceremony:
We faced each other, embarrassed. In some sort of mute recognition
of the moment, we embraced clumsily, then stepped apart. My
religion had just rejected a man who wanted to live the rest of his life
with a Jew .... No matter that I’d spent more than two decades
rejecting Judaism. I wanted to be met with open arms (p. 18).
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Parenthood presents interfaith couples with complicated choices. ‘The birth
of children exposes whatever religious or cultural loyalties have been minimized for
the sake of new love,” states Crohn (1995, p.4). Parents who were calm and resolved
when children where hypothetical may be unexpectedly emotional once a child has
actually arrived. Depending upon how resolved they are on how they will be raising
their children, tension may arise over the pressing need for circumcision or baptism.
As has already been discussed, the religious identification and upbringing of children
continues throughout the childrearing years. The older children become, the more
ready parents must be to answer their questions about identity and beliefs. When a
grandparent dies, explanations must be offered to help the child make sense of loss.
The outside world exerts an influence, and even children who are not given a formal
religious education may have the opportunity to attend services or celebrations with
a friend, or more likely, a relative.
It is easy to speculate that the less resolved the parents are on what they wish
to provide religiously for their children, or the less agreement they have, the more
fraught with tension the family will be. The annual cycle of holiday observance can
be a source of intense negotiation. “When the home embodies two religious and
cultural backgrounds, and partners experience different emotional and cognitive
responses to Christmas, the stage is set for conflict.. .’’ (Horowitz, 1999, p.306).
How much of each tradition should be celebrated? To what extent? What if
Christmas and Hanukkah overlap? To what degree should traditions be modified
and transformed into a new meaning (e.g., placing a fir tree in the living room in
December, but decorating it with Jewish symbols and calling it a “Hanukkah bush”)?
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“Any observance of Christmas may be experienced by the Jewish partner as a
cultural betrayal. Any change in the usual Christmas observance by the non-Jewish
or Christian partner may be experienced as a profound loss” (Horowitz, 1999,
p.306).
Each of these points in family life is a potential “time bomb,” according to
Paul and Rachel Cowan (1987). They are unexpected moments when intermarried
couples come to a realization that they hold powerful feelings about the importance
of their own religious heritage. The couple’s willingness to marry may have
required a minimization of their differences and an emphasis on their love for each
other. Disapproval from either set of parents, or the larger religious community, may
have been a source of pain or outrage, but also a distraction from their own
disagreements. Later, in the midst of creating their own families, they are taken
completely off guard by the intensity of their feelings, and the pull of their pasts.
‘Time bombs” explode.
Further complicating the picture is the realization that religiosity is not static.
Beliefs can change or develop, and the degree and importance placed on religious
practice for any individual may shift over the life span. Recent research shows that
religiosity increases with age (Argue, Johnson, & White, 1999). The advent of
parenthood in particular may enhance the importance of religion. Certainly,
“marriage sets in train a sequence of social roles that encourages religiosity” (Argue
et al., 1999, p. 434).
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C. The Larger Family System
Notably missing from the discussion thus far, but far from being a minor
factor, is the influence of the larger family system on interfaith families. The role of
grandparents in particular can play an integral role throughout the family life cycle.
“Particularly in homes with little or no religion, or homes with mixed messages
about religion, grandparents can be an important spiritual influence (Petsonk &
Remsen, 1988, p. 189). How each spouse in the intermarried couple feels about or
reacts to influence from grandparents is another matter, and another source of
struggle.
The level of acceptance or disapproval the couple experiences from their
larger kin network can be highly influential in their ability to function as a healthy
family. Traditional Judaism is not accepting of interfaith marriage, and traditional
Jewish parents may be unsupportive of it as well. Particularly for a generation who
was touched directly or indirectly by the Holocaust, fear that the Jewish people will
die out through intermarriage may be a great impediment to the acceptance of a
Gentile son- or daughter-in-law. “For many Jewish parents, the intermarriage of an
adult child is viewed as an event of crisis proportions, threatening family
homeostasis and clouding the future with uncertainty,” writes Alper (1992).
Edwin Freidman, a family therapist who has extensive clinical experience
working with Jewish families and intermarriage issues, challenges the idea that
Jewish parents who have “past exposure to threats to the Jewish people” (i.e,
Holocaust survivors) are more likely to be upset than parents who are highly
assimilated. “A history of cultural commitment simply was not sufficient to create
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this reaction, and in some cases it did not even seem necessary”(1982 p.504), he
states. He argues that strong, negative reactions to a child intermarrying are much
more likely reflect the emotional process of the family system. A focus on cultural
difference and cultural values serves to avoid a focus on members’ emotions and
anxieties.
Whatever their source, negative reactions from parents and potential in-laws
to an intermarriage may come as a shock to the couple. It can create tremendous
guilt, resentment, and internal conflict Lack of family support weakens a couple’s
ability to manage relationship or parenting troubles when they inevitably arise
(Eaton, 1994). ‘This lack of validation and acceptance can create unbearable stress
upon the marriage throughout the course of the life cycle, beginning with the union
of the new couple” (Sousa, 1995, p.99). An effort to please both sets of grandparents
by attending various holiday celebrations or ensuring that children are sufficiently
exposed to their respective heritages can wear down even the most resilient young
families.
g . Children of Interfaith Famlies_md IssMs o JJdentity^
As has been addressed by many authors arguing the “choose one” position,
the religious and cultural identity of children in an interfaith family is a central focus
of concern. Those who feel strongly that a child cannot be both a Christian and a
Jew emphasize the fundamental contradictions of theology, the risk of divided
loyalties, and the likelihood that the child will be confused, marginalized, or come
out with “nothing.”
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Yet identity is a flexible thing, and particularly among Caucasian ethnicities,
affords a great deal of choice (Waters, 1990). Unlike race, which has a visible
element that identifies an individual to others, whites have considerable freedom to
emphasize or downplay their ethnic identity. Because Judaism incorporates religion
as well as ethnic culture, there may be less sense of freedom to “choose” how to
identify. However, there may be a great deal of flexibility in how to choose for your
child when you are intermarried.
Roof (1999) argues that, while survey results demonstrate that 90 % of
Americans claim a religious identity—primarily that in which they were raised—the
importance of holding a traditional religious label is diminishing.
Inherited religious traditions face severe challenges. Tradition as
memory and authority, or as a means of organizing the past in relation
to the present, is eroding in a secular world; religious scripts that
once communicated deep meanings, symbolic frames of reference,
and defined modes of action must now compete with other stories in a
pluralistic and media-saturated society that encourages a mixing of
religious themes (p.41).
This freedom to mix religious themes, and to pick and choose from various religious
traditions, is particularly relevant for interfaith families. The identity of a child in an
interfaith marriage may not be limited to either “Jewish” or “Christian”; they may be
identified by parents as “both” or “half and half.” The ability to accommodate a
third identity option may reflect the current religious ethos of our culture.
Particularly among the Baby Boomer generation—today’s parents—“boundaries
separating one faith tradition from another that once seemed fixed are now often
blurred; religious identities are malleable and multifaceted, often overlapping
several traditions ...” (Roof, 1999, p.4).
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In their light-hearted popular press book, Klein and Vuijst (2000) address the
question: Is it possible to be half-Jewish? They argue that not only is it possible, the
half-Jewish Identity is a unique entity. “Being half-Jewish is a quality unto itself,”
they state. “Half-Jewishness is a cultural, intellectual, and aesthetic mix that is, in a
variety of ways, greater than the sum of its parts (2000, p.xvii). The half-Jewish
identity springs from interfaith marriages that raise their children in both Christian
and Jewish traditions. They devote their book to a “celebration” of great half-Jewish
thinkers, writers, beauties and celebrities. They identify the “half-Jewish perspec
tive” and character traits. Above all, they champion the right, and rightfulness, of
being “both.”
Summary
We have seen from the above review that there is no shortage of literature on
marriage between Christians and Jews as a problematic issue. It is a topic that
generates tremendous emotion within the Jewish community. On the other hand, it
has received scant attention outside of the Jewish community.
While it is clear that interfaith families face challenges that are unique in nature
and daunting in scope, those couples who feel they have been successful in raising
their families may have much to offer in sharing their experiences. ‘The ultimate
advantage of a successful interfaith marriage lies in its ability to give the partners a
broader range of options for action and meaning-making than those learned in the
family of origin,” Eaton writes. “Because automatic assumptions about meaning in
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life are less easy to maintain in an interfaith marriage, partners are more likely to
consciously develop a sense of core values and purposes” (Eaton, 1994, p.213).
Utilizing a family systems perspective, the processes by which interfaith couples
develop and maintain a family identity will be explored in detail in this study.
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CHAPTERS
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
Data for this study were collected between May and October of 2000. The
sample consists of 32 Jewish/Christian married couples who live throughout Los
Angeles County. Because the goal of this research is to understand the process by
which interfaith couples negotiate their differences, come to the decisions they have
made regarding religious and cultural identity for their children, and the feelings and
meanings attached to these issues, in-depth interviews were chosen as the best
method for accessing the data. The questions guiding this research are led with
“how?” and “why?,” and require the respondent’s explanation, clarification,
reflection, and meaning.
Because the nuances of religious and cultural identity are complex and
because raising children in an interfaith family can require creativity and understand
ing, the ability to elaborate on even the most straightforward questions is of
particular value here. For example, at the onset of each interview I gathered a small
amount of closed-response demographic information from each couple, including
“are the children being raised as Jewish, Christian, both or neither?” Seven of the
32 couples were unable to give a one-word response to this question. They required
some variation or elaboration, such as “culturally both, religiously neither,” or
“exposed to Judaism, not organized religion.” It is later in the interview, when they
are able to offer details as they tell their story, that a more comprehensive under
standing of their response is obtained.
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Storytelling is crucial to both religion and the human condition: it is a
creative act, an exercise in making meaning, the constructing of
personal identity. By focusing on people’s own accounts of their
lives, we begin to appreciate the complex, multifaceted face of
religion, as symbol, belief, practice, experience, identity, community,
institution, and how these various aspects fluctuate in importance in
an individual’s own religious world over time (Roof, 1999, p.33).
I followed a “semi-structured” interview format, using an interview guide to
ensure certain topics were covered, but allowing for spontaneous dialogue, follow-up
and probing. This approach proved to be well suited for gathering an “in-depth
understanding that is best communicated through detailed examples and rich
narratives” (Rubin & Rubin, 1995, p.51).
In-depth interviews capture the current thoughts and feelings of participants
while in the process of our discussion. However, the method also allows for
reflection on change over time.
Qualitative interviewing is appropriate when the purpose of the
research is to unravel complicated relationships and slowly evolving
events. It is also suitable when you want to learn how present
situations resulted from past decisions or incidents (Rubin & Rubin,
1995, p.51).
A. Sample Criteria
There were four basic criteria used as a basis for selecting participants for the study:
1 The couple is married.
2 One spouse identifies as “Jewish” (either religiously or culturally) and the other
spouse identifies as “Christian.” Level of religious observance, practice or belief
was not a qualifying criterion.
3 The couple has at least one child (biologically theirs) that has reached the age of
seven years.
4 Neither spouse has converted to the faith of the other.
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The most complicated of these criteria to define is the meaning of “Jewish”
and “Christian”. As discussed in detail in the literature review, there are no easily
agreed-upon definitions for these terms. For purposes of this project, I chose to
follow the operationalization determined by Horowitz (1999), which does not
require a specific belief system on the part of either parent to qualify their marriage
as an interfaith marriage. The partner is “Jewish” or “Christian” if they identify that
as their birth religion or upbringing. Both Jews and Christians may report a secular
upbringing, but one which still observed traditions of those religions (e.g., celebrated
Christmas). The couples I recruited for this study often wished to clarify ahead of
time that they were “not really religious.” If, however, they still identified
themselves as a Jewish/Christian interfaith couple, they were included regardless of
how religiously observant they were.
Couples who had previously been interfaith until one of the spouses
converted were not included in the study; neither were couples who were technically
still interfaith but in which one member was in the process of converting. As noted
by Phillips (1997), conversionary marriage becomes an in-marriage and is no longer
“counted” as interfaith.
The requirement of having at least one child that had reached the age of
seven years was determined for several reasons. I found, in informal discussions
(prior to the data collection) with interfaith couples who had only very young
children, that many of the issues pertaining to a religious upbringing or identity for
the child had not been addressed. The parents could speak in hypothetical terms
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about what they planned to do, but not report on what they had done. Also, I felt it
important to include the influence of the children’s peers, and the children’s
cognitive ability to make sense of the religious and cultural identities around them. I
felt it would be most informative to interview parents who have, for the most part,
been forced by the age of at least one child to make decisions about what to do
regarding the child’s religious or cultural upbringing, and how to answer his or her
questions.
. B. Sample Recruitment
A variety of tactics were employed to recruit the sample, and the couples
whose reports are the basis of this study were identified from a broad variety of
sources.
The majority of the couples were referred informally to me by my own
network of friends and acquaintances, who directed me to interfaith couples among
their friends and acquaintances. Eighteen couples were gathered in this manner. In a
more typical “snowball sampling” procedure, seven additional couples were referred
to me by study participants. Four couples were referred by rabbis. A recruitment
letter was mailed to 22 couples who were past participants in the University of
Judaism’s premarital course, “Making Marriage Work” (see APPENDIX A). Two
couples replied to this request, and were interviewed. One couple contacted me after
seeing a posted flyer (APPENDIX B) about the study. However, announcements of
the study and an appeal for participants placed in two Los Angeles based
publications (The Jewish Journal and LA Parent) failed to produce any response:
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from qualified families. In general, direct requests to individual parents became the
most successful tactic for recruitment.
Following the principles of “theoretical sampling.” an effort was made to
maintain an equal gender balance (i.e., the same number of Jewish wives and
Christian wives). Care was also taken to not rely solely upon referrals that were
attached to religious institutions, because I felt it important to include families that
are not affiliated with either churches or synagogues.
This reflected initial theoretical concepts which I hoped to develop in the
analysis, such as the role of gender in interfaith marriage, and the degree of family
religiosity and participation. As Corbin and Strauss describe in their description of
“grounded theory,” “sampling in grounded theory proceeds... in terms of concepts,
their properties, dimensions, and variations” (1990, p.8).
C. Research Procedures: Collecting the Data
With the exception of the two couples who were recruited by letter (sent to
the past participants of “Making Marriage Work”), my initial contact with
participants was by telephone. Most frequently I made an initial call to them, gave
the name of the individual who referred me, and briefly described the nature of the
project
Couples varied in the amount of information they wanted before consenting
to participate. Some asked a number -of.-questions regarding tile purpose of the
project, and what the data would he used for. Often I was asked why or how I
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became interested in the topic. Was I myself in an interfaith marriage? Sometimes I
was asked about my own religious affiliation. These questions arose so frequently,
either in the initial contact or in the course of an interview, it became apparent to me
that I would need to make decisions regarding the amount of self-disclosure I would
make, and how to best explain the purpose of my project. All of this contributed to
building rapport, or as noted by Rubin and Rubin (1995), the development of a
“conversational partnership.”
1 felt it important, if I sensed there was hesitation about my intentions, to
emphasize to potential participants that I was not entering into this study with an
agenda. In other words, my goal was not to determine whether or not interfaith
marriages “work,” or are good or bad. Rather, I was turning to them as
informants/experts who have found a way to be an interfaith family. It is their
experiences, thoughts, and reflections on being a Jewish/Christian couple with
children which I am seeking.
If asked specific questions about my interest in the topic and my own
situation, I answered in a brief and straight-forward manner. “No, I’m not married,”
or, “I was raised Episcopalian.” Although I am aware that interviewees may attempt
to shape their responses based on the assumptions they hold about the person asking
the questions, the benefits of developing a comfortable and open rapport with the
couples outweighed any potential benefit of my attempting to remain “neutral.” It
was clear that to do so would not be possible anyhow; several times (incorrect)
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assumptions were made by participants that I was Catholic, based solely on my Irish
surname.
For those who asked, I explained that I became interested in the topic of
Jewish/Christian interfaith marriage after being exposed to the University of
Judaism’s premarital class, “Making Marriage Work.” I had entered into that with
an interest in premarital education, but became intrigued with the specific issues of
interfaith marriage. Thus, I decided to pursue it further. This explanation, both
accurate and brief, seemed to relieve concerns that I might have some bias or
judgement regarding the viability of interfaith family life.
Most interviews took place in the couple’s homes. Two couples requested
that we meet at a restaurant, and one arranged for us to meet at the wife’s office.
Husband and wife were both present for the interview.
At the onset of the interview, I gave each spouse an information sheet which
detailed the nature of the project, the use of tape recording, their rights as research
participants, and other issues related to informed consent (see APPENDIX C).
Basic demographic information—age, occupation, education, religious affiliation,
length of marriage, ages and gender of children, and the religious identity of the
children—was then gathered from the couple (see APPENDIX D). This constituted
the cover sheet for the interview. To gather household income, I gave the couple a
sheet of income categories (see APPENDIX E), and asked them to indicate their
best estimate of the income category they fell into. Two couples declined to respond
to this question.
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At this point, the interview followed a semi-structured format which was
organized around an interview guide (see APPENDIX F). The guide was developed
prior to the data collection phase of the study, based upon my own initial curiosity,
issues reflected in the literature, and some theoretical guesswork regarding gender,
negotiation between couples, and family development. Interviews lasted from
approximately one and a half to two and a half hours, and were tape recorded.
As is the nature of semi-structured interviews, specific questions were
presented, but spontaneous follow-up was also allowed and pursued. As the
interviewer, I guided the couple through various topics with specific questions, but
the flow of the interview was conversational. I frequently encouraged them to “say
more about that,” or tell me “what does that mean?” Sometimes the couples would
ask each other questions, or respond to each others’ statements. Often, things I had
not anticipated came up.
Each interview covered approximately the same topics, although questions
were not asked in an identical order or covered with equal thoroughness with each
couple. The early interviews—in addition to generating data—provided feedback
about the interview guide, which in turn shaped the research questions. Certain
questions that became superfluous were dropped, and new topics of inquiry which
became apparent were incorporated into the guide. In this manner, the interview
became more succinct and enhanced over time.
For example, one of the final questions I would ask each couple was, “is
there anything you thought I might ask that we didn’t cover?” In most eases, the
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response was “no, you touched on everything.” However, one wife in an early
interview pointed out that I had not addressed questions about death and funeral
plans. Once I began including the topic in future interviews, I uncovered a very rich
arena of inquiry. I began to ask couples what they would do about their children's
religious upbringing if they were unexpectedly widowed and left to raise the children
alone. This offered another dimension into the agreement couples make about how
to raise their children in terms of religion—has the task been delegated to one parent,
or is the commitment to a religious upbringing held by only one? If so, how will that
play out if the other spouse is left to do it on their own? Would a Jewish parent feel
able or willing to continue to raise a Christian child without a Christian spouse, or
vice versa?
As can be the nature of qualitative research, the interview settings and
conditions were as varied as the families themselves. Almost all of the interviews
took place in the couple’s homes, and were not immune to the distractions of family
life. Children, telephones, doorbells and dogs were frequent intruders into the
interview environment. However, the vast majority of participants were pleased to
share their stories, and gave thoughtful, focused, and insightful answers to the
questions they were posed.
In keeping with the principles of confidentiality, each couple was assigned a
code. All audio tapes and interview materials were identified with that code, rather
than their names. Tapes and other interview materials were kept in a secure location.
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D. Sample Description
The 32 couples that comprise the sample share the basic qualifications for
participation in the study as described above. In general, they can also be
characterized as well-educated, racially homogenous (white), financially well off,
busy, and family-oriented. Most are actively raising children; only three of the
couples have “launched” their children and are living as a twosome once again. The
women range in age from 36 to 58 (median age 45 years), and the men from 37 to 69
(median age also 45 years).
The marriages themselves are well established, ranging from 5 to 33 years.
Two of the couples in the study married after the birth of their first child, and in
those cases, the age of the child is greater than the number of years married. Only
four of the couples have been married less than 10 years. The median length of
marriage is 15 years. For more than 80% of the sample, the current marriage is their
first. Of the 64 parents, twelve (six women and six men) had been previously
married. Three of those women and one of those men reported that their previous
marriage was also interfaith (Jewish/Christian). Two of the men in the sample have
children from a previous marriage. None of those children are currently living in the
home of the parent in the study, and those children have not been included in the
counts or analysis.
All of the men are currently employed — many within the legal, medical, or
financial sectors — with the exception of one, who is retired. Twenty of the women
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are currently employed. Both the men and the women are well educated, as
indicated by the table following.
EDUCATION LEVEL Wives Husbands
Some college /
Certificate course
5 (15.5%) 5 (15.5%)
Bachelor’s / 4 year
degree
10 (31.5%) 8 (25%)
Master’s / MBA 9 (28%) 5 (15.5%)
Ph.D. / Professional
degree
8 (25%) 14 (44%)
N = 32 N = 32
The reported household incomes of the sample are all above the national
median income of $56,827 for married households, and well above the median
household (all types) income of California, reported at $42,791. In addition, over
50% of the families reported household incomes well within the nationally defined
top 5% of households, which are characterized by an annual income of above
$142,020 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000).
HOUSEHOLD INCOME # of families in category
under $ 25,000
-
$ 25,000 - $ 49,999 -
$ 50,000 - $ 74,999 -
$ 75,000 - $ 99,999 2 (6%)
$ 100,000 - $ 124,999 5 (15.5%)
$ 125,000 - $ 149,999 6 (19%)
$ 150,000 - $ 174,999 3 (9.5%)
$ 175,000 -$ 199,999 -
$ 200,000 or above 14 (44%)
Declined to answer 2
N - 32
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A total of 69 children are represented as family members in this study. They
range in age from three to twenty-nine. The median age is 10. It is significant to
note that more than two thirds (47) of the children are prior to the traditional age for
Bar or Bat Mitzvah (13). Twenty couples have two children. Seven of the couples
have three, four have one child, and one couple has four.
Half of the couples have a Jewish husband /Christian wife, and the other half
a Christian husband/Jewish wife. However, the religious identity of the households
and their children are not as evenly distributed. As indicated below, just over half
(17) of these families are raising their children as “Jewish.” Only three families are
raising the children as “Christian.” Six of the families are raising their children as
“both,” although in the discussion chapters to come, I will explain how four of these
six form a subgroup I have labeled “both/neither.” Five couples state that they are
not raising their children with a religion or religious identification. Two families felt
that “other” best described their situation (one family was later re-categorized as
“both/neither”). This information is summarized in APPENDIX G,
PARENTS’ CLOSED-OPTION
RESPONSE TO “How are you
raising the children?
Wife Jewish /
Husband
Christian
Wife Christian /
Husband
Jewish
Jewish 8(50%) 9(56%)
Christian
—
3(19%)
Both 3 (19%) 2(13%)
Neither 4(25%) 1 (6%)
Other 1 (6%) 1(6%)
N=16 100% N=16 100%
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Not all families—even among those who indicate that their children have a
religious identity—participate in organized religion, or claim an affiliation or
denomination. Twenty-two families are currently participating, or have held a
family membership previously in an organized religious institution. Of the Jewish
institutions, 10 families belong to Reform temples, four to Conservative temples, and
four to Reconstructionist temples. Four families belong to Catholic churches, and
one to a Unitarian church. Two of the families doing “both” belong to both a temple
and a church.
E. Research Procedures: Analyzing Data
Upon completion of an interview, the tape was transcribed and reviewed.
While reviewing the transcripts, a preliminary coding “start sheet” was developed.
This was an informal method of noting repetitive topics or points of interest that
stood out from the interviews. Once the transcriptions were reviewed, the coding
process began.
The coding process was assisted by the use of HyperRESEARCH 2.0, a
qualitative data analysis computer software developed by ResearchWare, Inc.
Following the principles of “open coding” events, feelings, outcomes and conditions
were all given conceptual labels, and if appropriate, sub-labels (Corbin & Strauss,
1990). Examples of codes applied are “bris -no” (event), “Xmas tree—feelings of
Jew” (feelings), “Christian raises kids Jewish” (outcomes), and “extended family not
around” (conditions).
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Sometimes more than one code would apply to a particular “chunk” of data,
For example, when a Christian husband is describing his frustration with how much
time his son must devote to Hebrew school, and how he would rather have that time
to spend together with his son, the data are coded as “Hebrew school,” with the sub
code “Hebrew school as family drain.” In this case, the data would also be coded
“resentments,” and depending on the content, “outsider status.”
The coding process is informed by the literature already reviewed on related
subject matter, and the development of new ideas generated by the interview
material. As the coding process progressed toward completion, the development of
themes emerged. These themes are conceptual groupings that organize the data.
Eleven such themes were identified, plus a residual “Miscellaneous” grouping.
These eleven themes are “Creation and Maintenance of Family and Children’s
Identity,” “Negotiation and Compromise,” “In-Laws, Parents, Extended Family,”
“Outside Influences—Kid’s Peers, School, Etc,” “Religiosity and Its Importance or
Role,” “Reactions and Feelings,” “Events,” “Holidays,” “Gender,” “Yet to Come,”
and “On Being an Interfaith Family.” These themes led the direction of the analysis.
Themes eventually were organized into broad categories, and those categories
comprise the four discussion chapters.
As the findings were further developed into the organization of chapters,
cases could be grouped by similarity or cross-examined for differences. For
example, within 'the-category/chapiter “Creating and Maintaining Interfaith Family
Identity,” typologies of leadership styles were developed to compare and analyze the
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way in which couples raise their children religiously. The report-generating function
of HyperRESEARCH ensured that all instances of particular codes were culled for
such summaries and comparisons. This facilitated hypothesis testing and an accurate
sample description.
F. Research Procedures; Presenting the Data
An important goal in the presentation of findings is to maintain the
confidentiality promised to participants in this study. In an effort to do so, several
steps have been taken to ensure their anonymity. All names have been replaced with
pseudonyms. The ages and gender of children, or in some cases the exact number of
children, have also been changed. It is not anticipated that these alterations will
impact the accuracy of the interpretations or the validity of the findings; these
procedures are followed to protect the research subjects.
APPENDIX G is a summary profile of each of the couples quoted
throughout the study.
G. Limitations of the Sample and Method
While the findings of this study enable a better understanding of Jewish/
Christian inteifaith family life, there are limitations that must be acknowledged.
These limitations relate to both the sample and the methodology.
The sample in this study may not be representative of all Jewish/Christian
inteifaith households. First, there is the issue of self-selection. The couples who
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participated are those who were willing to sit down and speak to me about issues that
could potentially be difficult and conflictual. It may be speculated that there are
other couples who would not be willing to do so (and I encountered a number who
declined). I have undoubtedly over-sampled families who perceive minimal
difficulty with their interfaith issues. It nothing else, these couples are willing to
acknowledge them to each other, and to me.
Because of the age requirement of the children, I was interviewing couples
who have been together for some time. Couples who had divorced or separated
—perhaps because of these very challenges—were not included. It was not
uncommon for the couples I interviewed to relate a story of another interfaith couple
they knew who had split up, specifically due to interfaith struggles.
Location may also be a factor in interpreting the findings. Los Angeles
County, particularly in certain regions, has a visible and vital Jewish community.
This may be a factor in the number of families who are raising their children as
Jewish. The availability of many different synagogues and other Jewish institutions
allows interfaith families to pick and choose a place where they feel comfortable.
Many of the parents also reported that their children are surrounded by neighborhood
playmates who are Jewish, and that that influences their children’s willingness to
identify as Jewish. Had this study been conducted in another part of the country,
where Jews are a much smaller minority group, the outcomes could be different.
As discussed previously, these families are concentrated heavily in the upper
income brackets, and enjoy a standard of living substantially higher than average.
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The parents as a group are also very well educated. It is not possible, then, to draw
conclusions about how interfaith issues play out in families who do not share a
similar socioeconomic status. A similar limitation is that of racial minority status.
All participants in this study are Caucasian, and thus have a racially homogeneous
marriage as well as membership in the racial majority.
In selecting a method for this study, I decided to interview the husbands and
wives together, as opposed to separately. This decision was partly based on the
desire to include as many family units as possible, given limited time and resources.
Interviews with each spouse separately would have been logistically challenging, and
would have meant that fewer families could have been included.
Also, because I am interested in family negotiation and process, I wanted to
observe the couple together as they talked through the issues. Being there with the
two of them allowed me to sense conflict that was not spoken, to observe shifts in
body language through the course of the interview, and to probe for shared or
different understandings between them.
The choice to interview the couple only together of course means that
anything that would or could not be said in front of one’s spouse may go unspoken.
The format could be influenced by a desire to present to me, as well as to each other,
a happy, united front, or to avoid hurting each other’s feelings. The couple may have
an implicit agreement between them that interfaith issues are “not a problem” for
them, while one or both may in fact hold unexpressed discontent. Whether or not
they would be willing to admit such “secrets” in an individual interview that would
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not emerge in a conjoint one is a matter of conjecture, although it is probably likely
that the content would be different. Not unlike the dilemma faced by marital
therapists, research on couples requires weighing the benefits and drawbacks of
restricting contact with the couple to meetings with both members present. In an
ideal scenario, these couples would be interviewed both separately and together. If
each interview were spaced apart in time, this would have the added benefit of
collecting thoughts that had arisen since the previous interview. Even then, however,
it would be impossible to know how and what was being influenced by the
awareness that secrets may or may not be being told.
Another methodological limitation is that “interview data do not give us
direct access to the details of naturally occurring interaction” (Coffey & Atkinson,
1996, p. 19). Because these couples are not being observed directly, or monitored
over time, the responses they give are shaped by memory and current perception.
However, it is my opinion that a spouse’s current perception of whether or not they
fought about having a baptism is as valid (perhaps more so) as whether there “really”
was a fight. If one spouse remembers the fight and the other does not, that adds even
more depth to the analysis. “Objects and events are understood by different people
differently,” note Rubin and Rubin, “and those perceptions are the reality—or
realities—that social science should focus on” (1995, p.35).
Becker and Geer (1957), in their critique of interviewing without concurrent
participant observation, argue that an account given in an interview may be given
through a “distorting lens” which the interviewer will not be able to recognize. A
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benefit of interviewing spouses together is that they jog each other’s memories, and
by corroborating or disputing shared events, provide a source of consistency for the
data.
This study reflects an in-depth look at how this group of relatively long-
married, interfaith parents perceive their family life and the identity of their children.
Another study might add dimension to this arena by interviewing the children, and
comparing their perceptions. That was not the focus of this project.
Generalizability to “all interfaith couples,” or even “all Jewish/Christian
couples,” is hampered by the characteristics of this non-random sample. Broad
generalizability is rarely the point of qualitative data, however, and this study offers
instead depth and insight into how these interfaith couples have negotiated their way
to working solutions.
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CHAPTER 4
CREATING AN INTERFAITH FAMILY? BEGINNING STAGES
The interfaith families that are the subjects of this research formed years ago,
when the couples first met, courted and married. The circumstances under which
these men and women met were typical of late twentieth century single life, and
largely unremarkable. They met in college or graduate school, in the workplace, or
through mutual friends. Some were set up on blind dates; one couple had been high
school sweethearts. A few couples met by chance in a public place; another met on a
vacation.
For some, marriage and a future was far from their minds when they began to
date their spouse-to-be. Joe, now married to Frances for 11 years, remembers that
“we met in college but it was really like just a ‘college relationship’ and . . . we
didn’t think we’d really ever see each other after college.” Dena had similar
thoughts upon meeting Al: “I actually kind of thought, ‘this isn’t really going to go
anywhere ’ We were, like, from completely different backgrounds. And just
having gotten out of school, you know, I wasn’t like husband hunting or anything.”
“We never really thought about being, you know, serious and falling in love and
getting married,” says Amy, who met Matthew as an undergraduate. “It just...
worked out that way.”
To a lesser or greater degree, religious and cultural differences played a role
in early thoughts about how well suited these prospective spouses felt they were for
each other. The perceived importance of their inteifaith status was influenced by
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each member’s own level of religiosity, their familiarity and comfort with the other’s
religion and culture, and also by the feelings they anticipated their parents would
have about marriage outside of their faith.
Most of the men and women in the study were not actively participating in
organized religion at the time that they met. Typically, they remember that their
religious difference was not a significant consideration as they contemplated
marriage. Often this was attributed to the lack of importance they placed on religion.
“See, I wasn’t very religious,” explains Scott, a Jew. “It wasn’t anything I’d thought
about because I never practiced my religion so it wasn’t anything that really came
up.” Dean, raised Catholic, felt similarly: “I was happy to be with her, and it didn’t
matter to me ‘cause I was not very religious.” “It never really crossed my mind as
something that was important,” states Marsha, who is Jewish. “The important thing
was, you know, friendship, love, these two people should be together___
Obviously, we’re both not really religious.” Scott’s wife, Heather, echoes that
sentiment:
You know, I don’t remember religion really playing into it heavily for
me at the time, because I—even though I was raised in a very
religious home, you know we went to church every Sunday and I did
the youth fellowship. . . when I was in high school—I had really
grown away from that, and hadn’t been to church since I left home
which, you know, was after high school. So what was important to
me was the person that I loved and the qualities that they had, and I
was basically willing to take whatever religion came along with that.
In general, respondents were comfortable when they felt they and their
partner held a similar level of interest, or disinterest, in religion. Janice, who is
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Jewish, liked that she and Paul shared a mutual interest in world religions and
spirituality. It also felt congruent with the times in which they were courting—
“you know, hippie era, ‘peace, love and dove’; it was like ‘anything goes, it’s fine.’
Because I was also very much into checking out other religions and other faiths and
other ways of encountering spirituality, more so than religion,” Janice explains.
Phyllis, also a Jew, remembers that that she found it “comforting” that Mark was not
religious—as well as the fact that he was not Jewish. “I never really saw myself as
being a Jewish wife or living in a Jewish home,” she says. A non-religious, non-
Jewish spouse offers her the freedom to enjoy the cultural aspects of her Judaism
without the traditional expectations which might arise in a Jewish family. “I
definitely had my own ideas about spirituality, and you know, where we are and
where we came from . . . but culturally, Pm very much Jewish. I mean, I am a
Jewish woman.”
Respondents who viewed religion negatively recognized they would be
poorly matched with someone who valued it highly, even if it was the same faith as
that in which they themselves had been raised. Statements were made such as, “I
don’t think I could get along with a very religious person, even Catholic [like me],”
and “it certainly would have been a concern for me if he were practicing, you know,
if he were religious.” They tended to look at the level of practice exhibited by their
partner as a gauge of how religious they were. “Neither of us were that devout, you
know. It wasn’t like I was showing up to church every Sunday and trying to drag her
along, or that she was going to temple every week and dragging me along.”
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For some couples, however, one or both partners was well aware from the
beginning that the religious difference was a major point of consideration and could
potentially be too large an obstacle to overcome. This was particularly notable
among the Christian wives who were religiously observant Ann Marie describes:
As we thought about marriage, more of the issues of how we would
raise the children [came up].... I definitely was a practicing
Catholic, so I think that one was a little tricky. Even my going to
Mass on a regular basis was a little daunting for Joel because you
have such a different kind of practice and experience. So that was
probably—initially that was one of the issues ....
Two couples actually broke off their relationship at one point because of religious
incompatibility. “I was very religious,” states Joan. “1 was Catholic and I wanted
my children to be raised Catholic. That was important to me.... That’s why we
broke up, essentially—because I felt we were never going to get married. Because
we talked about it and he didn’t want his children to be Catholic.” Denise also
broke things off when she considered the prospect of an interfaith marriage: “I
believe that in that first year and a half that we had talked a little about, um, getting
serious. But in my heart of hearts I could not, because he was Jewish. And I didn’t
know how I would raise the children Christian, married to a Jewish man ”
Despite their cautiousness, the desire to be together ultimately prevailed, and these
women eventually married their Jewish spouse. Their early concerns, however,
played a critical role in decisions about the children’s upbringing. They were not
brushed aside.
While none of the respondents indicated that they were specifically seeking a
partner of & particular faith, a few mentioned that they were not interested in dating
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or marrying someone from their own religious/cultural background. In some cases,
this reflected a departure they had made from their own religious upbringing, and an
awareness that they had no interest in reconnecting with it. Lisa, who was raised
Mormon, had left that religion before meeting her husband-to-be, Dennis.
I had never intended on marrying someone from my faith. That’s a
whole different life and a whole different commitment that I had
already decided was not the way my life was going to go. So it
wasn’t a big struggle about meeting someone Jewish and being
serious about having a life with them for me.
Mitch, a Jew, describes his feelings of wanting distance from the practice of
Judaism:
I rarely dated a Jewish girl. I was not particularly interested. I would
probably be less interested in someone who was Jewish because I
kind of rejected Judaism at one point as a religious practice. . . so I
didn’t want somebody who would want to have Judaism as a religious
practice. I prefer no practice .... You know, I feel somewhat
culturally Jewish and I feel somewhat, um, I guess—you know, I like
my friends. I like Jewish friends. But I don’t want to marry one,
A small group of Jewish respondents (two men and two women) stated that
they did not find Jews attractive as romantic partners. “I had dated my share of
Jewish women,” remembers Scott, “and, um, if you had to stereotype them, I didn’t
particularly like most of the Jewish women I had met.” Sam had been married once
before. “To be absolutely truthful about it, when I married the first time it was to a
Jewish girl, who turned out to be a Jewish princess. So I started discriminating
against Jewish women.” “I had never really gone out with Jewish men because I
didn’t like them,” says Mindy. “You know, there was a certain characteristic that
most of them had that I just didn’t—wasn’t attracted to.” At the same time, Scott,
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Sam and Mindy were all well aware of their discomfort with Christianity, and did not
by any means welcome the idea of creating a Christian family. “I knew it was
important that the person, even though he wasn’t Jewish, was open to Judaism,”
explains Mindy. “I knew that... he would have to be more open than I would be
open to Christianity because that wasn’t an option for me.”
In contrast, a few of the Christian women reported that they had become
attracted to Jewish men as a preferred type. “I very frequently dated Jewish guys
long before Dan,” said Kirsten, “because I just thought they were, ah, more
egalitarian towards women. They didn’t come with all this baggage of manhood that
some of the WASP boys I knew and dated and stuff, and frankly, they weren’t
boring....” “The men I met who were interesting and intellectual and so forth just
also happened to be Jewish,” notes Nina.
Familiarity with Jews and Judaism was a factor often mentioned by Christian
respondents when they reflected upon early thoughts about their spouse-to-be. They
described growing up or living in Jewish areas, having many Jewish friends, a
history of previous dating relationships with Jews and having had considerable
exposure to Jewish holidays and celebrations. This familiarity was cited as a reason
for being comfortable with an interfaith relationship.
Familiarity was certainly not a requisite for being open to an interfaith
relationship, however. Five of the Christian women and seven of the Christian men
reported growing up without any exposure to Judaism, a factor of the regions in
which they lived. Until leaving their home towns, these Christian respondents had '
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no more than fleeting contact with Jewish people. “Where I grew up, certainly I
knew about Protestant stuff,” said Nina. “But there were no Jews in Arkansas . . .
other than my pediatrician.”
While at least six of the Christian women spoke specifically of previous
dating relationships with Jewish men, only one of the Christian men reported
previous involvement with Jewish women. The Jewish respondents were more
likely to have dated non-Jews. Only one Jewish man indicated that his spouse-to-be
was the first Christian woman he had been involved with. None of the Jewish
women reported that they had had no previous interfaith dating relationships.
Overall, these couples reported minimal personal concern about developing a
serious relationship with someone outside their own faith. Intuitively it makes sense
that all of the individuals in this study hold a degree of openness to others who are
dissimilar. Their willingness to cross over religious or social boundaries in their
selection of a spouse is reflected in the fact that they are intermarried. Even for those
who were concerned about the religious upbringing of future children, intermarriage
was not viewed as a barrier to stand in the way of love. Many respondents were
aware, however, that their willingness to “many out” might not be embraced with
enthusiasm by their parents.
Anticipating the Joining of Two Families
Interviewer: Did you have any thoughts about the fact that you were
not from the same backgrounds?
Sherry: Absolutely.
Interviewer: What kind of thoughts?
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Sherry: “My parents are going to kill me for wanting to marry
someone not Jewish.”
When a protest from parents was anticipated, the couple was presented with
their first thoughts of how the relationship would impact others and be received by
the larger community. Adam was keenly aware of potential problems when he
announced his and Marsha’s engagement to his devoutly Catholic mother:
That was all a little bit of an issue in my mind. You know, at some
point we were going to have to cross over with my Mom. She’s going
to have a little challenge with that.... That was something that
crossed my mind. How much of an impasse would my Mom have
with this whole thing. How concerned would she be? Would she
kidnap the kids and go have them baptized?
Knowing there would be a reaction to getting engaged, Frances and Joe strategized
and developed concrete plans regarding the religious upbringing of future children
before they told their parents. They made this effort to keep negative input and
response to a minimum. “We... decided that we would make our own decisions
and sort of present it to our parents, as opposed to, ‘well, what do you think?’
Because then you are actually asking for their opinion,” explains Frances.
Whether or not it was anticipated, well over half of the couples reported
problems or negative reactions from one or both sets of parents when they became
engaged. Negative reactions predominantly came from the Jewish parents and
extended families. “Yeah, my parents were very upset,” remembers Neil. “Even
though they are not observant. But I think culturally it just really bothered them....
If Joan had been Jewish, it would have been perfect.” “There was resistance,” says
Richard. “From everyone .... Grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins. It was not an
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appreciative bunch.” “My mother was looking for a microwave that was large
enough to drive into,” jokes Josh. “She wasn’t particularly happy.” Amy
remembers the discomfort and shock she experienced with her parents’ response to
Matthew:
I remember very clearly having a talk with my mother, and at the time
she was saying, “as long as he’s not black.” Which offended me as it
was, but she said, you know, whoever you fall in love with, you
know, we’ll support you. And then, when they found out he was
Catholic, I mean, my mother and father wanted to say “he might as
well be black.” And I was just so offended and angry.
Dena suffered tremendous pain when her parents voiced such strong disapproval of
her marriage to A 1 that they sat her down and told her they would “never accept” it
and that they were “never going to love” their future grandchildren. “They actually
said those things,” Dena recalls. ‘They actually said those things to me. Which I
forgive them for, because I know where it was coming from. But I mean, that’s a
very horrible, hurtful thing to say to your child.”
When future in-laws were cool or negative, it was understandably
uncomfortable for the son- or daughter-in-law-to-be. “It wasn’t a warm welcome,”
remembers Keith. Frances noted that it was more than 10 years after the fact that her
Jewish mother-in-law “kind of begrudgingly admitted” that she had been unkind to
Frances in the early years.
[My father-in-law] made this comment, like, “oh, you were so not
nice to Frances when they first got together”, and [she said] “well,
you’re probably right” And I was like, “ probably right?” You were,
like, hateful to me for three years! What do you mean, “probably
right?” It’s just, I was everything she didn’t want I was this non-
Jewish girl from Los Angeles .... You know, she just expected Joe
to end up with this nice little Jewish girl from [their home city] and
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for him to stay [there] forever and live five minutes away. So that’s
what she sort of—you know, I was very much sort of a threat.
Disapproval of the match was not exclusive to Jewish parents, but Christian
respondents reported it in terms of parental dismay, concern, and (in the case of two
highly religious set of parents) the hopes that the Jewish son-in-law-to be might
someday be “saved” and become a Christian. Several respondents said they knew
one or both of their parents were uncomfortable with the match, even though they
did not verbalize a protest. “My family doesn’t talk about anything unpleasant very
openly,” explains Lisa. Walter was the only Christian who described an overtly
negative objection from his parents, which he found to be “pretty shocking.”
Sherry, his wife, speculates that “some of it was their own prejudices, and [Walter’s]
dad was working in Arab countries and so he was, you know, had this negative
image of Jews.... I don’t know how many Jewish people they had encountered
before my family and me.”
A. Mamgmg^PamnMlKegMye,Rmctiom
When a parent responds negatively, the couple must find a way to manage
the problem. When Josh, Jewish, first took Nina home to his parents, she found
herself being ignored and excluded. “They wouldn’t look at me. It was like they
talked to him but they wouldn’t talk to me. It’s like I wasn’t there. Literally. It was
like if they pretended I wasn’t there, maybe I wouldn’t be. It was strange.” Later,
when she discussed this with Josh (who had been oblivious to the situation), he
“became more vigilant about it—tried to, um, you know, intervene.”
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By and large, respondents made it clear to their parents that they were going
to marry the spouse of their choice, with or without their approval. Walter
remembers telling his parents that they were invited to attend his and Sherry’s
wedding, but that if they chose not to attend, that would not impact their plans. “I
think when they realized that it didn’t make any difference to me and frankly I
couldn’t care less what they thought, then it got diffused,” he says. His parents did
come, “and since then it’s been fine.”
David was deeply frustrated with his mother’s exclusion of and aloofness
toward Louise, knowing it was because Louise was not Jewish. He eventually
confronted her, and let her know that her behavior would have consequences.
I just basically explained to my mom that I didn’t appreciate here
attitudes, and that she . . . was making a choice to either be part of my
life or not be part of my life, you know. I wasn’t going to ostracize
her entirely and not speak to her again or do anything drastic or
melodramatic, but it would be simply, you know, that if I did marry
Louise, she would be the last to find out.
Several mediating factors were cited by respondents in terms of how much
negative reaction parents could muster. A plan for the identity of future
grandchildren, remarriage after a previous divorce, and other interfaith marriages in
the family were mentioned. If a clear plan for how the children would be raised
religiously was presented to parents along with the engagement announcement, this
typically satisfied the in-laws whose faith was the chosen one for the grandchildren.
“My parents are religious and they know I am. So we kind of agreed on the fact that
I really wanted the children to be brought up Catholic,” says Joan. “The fact that
Neil was Jewish was not a problem at all. It would be more the children’s faith.” Joe
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and Francis, who made a premarital agreement to raise the children Jewish, still
knew his Jewish parents would be upset. So, when he announced it to them, “I just
said, ‘this is the way it is.’ And they sort of knew that it was the way it is, and also it
was turning out the way they probably would have preferred it to be, so....”
Respondents who were marrying for the second (or third) time tended to feel
that their parents were less concerned about the faith of their new spouse. “Because,
I think, I had been married once before, they just wanted me to be married,”
remembers Marty (whose first wife had been Jewish like him). None of the divorced
respondents reported parental objections to their new marriage. This was the case
even though almost all of those prior marriages had not produced children. The fact
that only parents of those who were marrying for the first time voiced objections to
an interfaith marriage suggests that perhaps some level of hope or expectation the
parents held had been readjusted, or maybe lowered, after their child’s first marriage.
Perhaps other parents felt as Marty’s; that having their child married again was more
important than the religion of their son- or daughter-in-law-to-be.
When other Christian/Jewish marriages had taken place in the family,
particularly by siblings, this was cited as “breaking the ice,” and thus diminishing
parents’ ability to protest. Sally knew that her father’s “right” to object to her
marriage to Chris, an Episcopalian, was restricted by the fact that not only had her
brother married a non-Jew, but her father himself had remarried to a non-Jewish
woman two years prior. Louise remembers, “my sister dated a Jewish man for, gosh,
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five years before I had met David. So I think that like paved the way a little bit,
made it a little easier.”
There are also those—primarily men—whose parents, they felt, had
“basically given up” on either hopes for religious salience in their children’s lives, or
simply having an influence. “I had basically left the church about 4 years before [the
engagement], so 1 was considered to be sacrilegious and a mortal sinner. Going to
hell. I was like a castoff,” states Paul, who was raised Catholic. “I’m the type where
I always do my own thing,” explains Wayne, who comes from a Christian
background. “And I’m going to do what I’m going to do with their blessings or
without, cause I’m used to going my own way. So no one really gave me any
grief....”
B. Appreciating. Inclusion and Realizing Distance
Couples who did not experience negative responses from either sets of
parents were often aware of how lucky they were. Joel remembers that not only his
parents but his grandparents, who were of the Jewish “old school,” embraced and
loved Ann Marie, Ms Catholic wife-to-be, and he felt similarly welcomed by her
family. “We felt very fortunate,” he says. “I think it was an unusual situation in
many ways,” adds Ann Marie.
Certainly, there was a number of respondents who found their future in-laws
to be “very loving” and warm from the beginning. “My father just fell in love with
[Heather], so that made it easy,” remembers Scott. Ruth notes, “my family [was]
very fond of George. Very. I think that really made a difference.” George adds,
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however, that he is sure both sets of parents were “apprehensive” before they met
their son- or daughter-in-law. Once they met, the concerns fell away. Marsha
reports that “my parents... just loved Adam so much, that that was—they kept
telling me, that’s the most important thing. He loves you.”
Stories of early encounters with their in-laws sometimes reflected
awkwardness and misguided efforts at making the new son- or daughter-in-law feel
welcome, but they are remembered and reported by respondents with smiles and
laughter. Phyllis remembers with warmth the first day she met her future mother-in-
law: “’Oh Phyllis [she said], I know you’re Jewish, but Oh, I think you’re so good
for Mark! ’” Mark, for his part, remembers the first time he was invited to Phyllis’
parents’ home to meet them. Phyllis’ mother had inquired about Mark’s
background, and Phyllis had told them he was of Irish heritage.
Mark: Yeah, so all of a sudden I guess they got out all their
stereotypes about Irish and whatever, so I walk in the door and
they’re all standing there. There’s Mom, Dad, Grandma and
Grandpa and all the kids and everything. And they introduced
me, and every one of them has a glass in their hand, and her
dad’s holding a bottle of whiskey—
Phyllis: And my family doesn’t drink.
Mark: - and he walks over to me and says, “would you like a drink?” And
I went, “oh sure, okay”’ So they poured the drink and I didn’t know
what to say. But they were giving me a moment, so I raised my glass
and said, “ Uchaim!”
Phyllis: Don’t forget to tell her about,..
Mark: And yeah, they invited the only other non-Jew in the neighborhood
over—that they didn’t even really know! - so that I would feel
comfortable.
Marsha had a similar experience with her mother-in-law when she was dating Adam:
I remember going to his house and she says, “Oh, I bought you
something that I think you’ll like.” I said, “what?” And she says, “go
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look in the freezer.” And it was frozen cheese blintzes. Because she
had heard—she goes, “well, I had heard that you guys like that.” And
I’m like—I didn’t particularly love cheese blintzes, but I appreciated
the effort. I mean, she had heard from someone that Jewish people
eat blintzes, so that was one of those things.
While recognized as an effort to make a new potential family member feel
comfortable, incidents such as this also serve as reminders that the spouses come
from distinctly different cultural worlds. More common than relying on stereotypes,
however, was the mention of Christian parents who had minimal knowledge of
Judaism. Respondents described Christian parents who “had never heard of
Hanukkah,” who didn’t know that Jews didn’t celebrate Christmas, and who asked
“what do Jews do on Thanksgiving?” As the majority group, Christian Americans
do not need to familiarize themselves with Judaism, particularly if they live in
regions where there is not a significant Jewish population. This lack of familiarity
can only serve to highlight differences—an added stress to the delicate process of
adjusting to new in-laws and forging a sense of connection between families.
The Wedding
Wedding ceremonies are rituals which celebrate the official joining together
of a new couple and their two extended families. And, as noted by McGoldrick,
“one of the best indicators of the family process at the time of couple formation... is
the wedding itself’ (1989, p. 221). While the planning of a wedding can be stressful
and challenging for anyone, interfaith couples are presented with additional issues to
manage.
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Although the period in the life cycle in which these couples have lived up to
this point—single adulthood—is typically the time of least participation in organized
religion, a wedding is an event that often draws individuals back to their religious
roots, even if only for a day of ceremony. Once the couple begins to plan the
ceremony, they must contemplate what, if anything, they want from organized
religion. If one has always assumed they would be married by a rabbi, when the
other had visions of a church wedding, they must find a way to reconcile their
competing visions and negotiate a solution.
Weddings are not ceremonies for the couple alone. Parents and extended
family on both sides may have input, rights of refusal (to attend) or financial control.
As already discussed, interfaith issues can ignite strong emotional reactions in
parents. Each couple must determine how much negotiating they are willing to do
with their families, how much influence their parents wishes will play into wedding
plans, and how much disapproval from family they can tolerate.
The ceremony itself encompasses a great deal of symbolism. How interfaith
couples choose to use or understand symbols from each other’s backgrounds, who
they arrange to officiate their marriage, and where the event is held all reflect the
couple’s negotiation. The wedding for interfaith couples, then, offers a window into
early definitions of their life as an interfaith family.
One way in'-which couples can neutralize or avoid* emphasis upon their
interfaith status is to be married in a civil ceremony. Seven couples chose this route
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and were married by a judge as opposed to a clergy person. This choice, although
perhaps not made to consciously avoid conflict between faiths or family, did manage
to minimize conflict over wedding arrangements. Nina and Josh, neither of whom
felt comfortable with organized religion, preferred a judge because they wanted their
ceremony to be “very non-religious.”
Having a judge perform the wedding also allowed couples a degree of
creative control over the ceremony. “We had written what we had wanted our
marriage ceremony to be, together. So he kind of followed the program,” Lisa
describes. Sherry also wrote a ceremony. “I remember going to the library and
getting books and writing it,” she recalls, and it was performed by a judge who was a
neighbor of her parents.
Louise and David simply eloped: “We just decided to go down to City Hall,
and we paid our $15.00 and we got married by a Justice of the Peace.” Although
they had been together for many years, this move to bypass a wedding was likely a
response to David’s mother’s distress about Louise not being Jewish.
In five of the seven couples who were married by a judge, the husband was
Jewish and the wife was Christian.
B. Clergy• Officiated Weddims
If the couple wanted a “traditional” wedding, or if they wanted a religious
component to their ceremony, they were faced with the challenge of how to do so.
The solutions arrived at are as varied as the couples themselves.
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Seven of the couples were married by a rabbi alone (as opposed to a rabbi
co-offxciating with a minister, to be discussed below). In six of those seven couples,
the wife is the member who is Jewish. Whether this reflects a stronger longing for a
traditional Jewish wedding on the part of Jewish women than of Jewish men is
unclear. It is possible that if the bride’s parents were paying for the wedding and
they were strongly invested in their daughter having a Jewish ceremony, that may
have been a contributing factor. Amy acknowledges that this was the case for her
and Matthew: “My parents kind of took a little bit of the control because they were
giving the wedding .... We got married by a rabbi.”
For most of these couples, however, being married by a rabbi reflected the
fact that Judaism had been, or was to become, established as the dominant faith in
their newly formed family—either through conscious planning or simply by default
When Jenny expressed that she wanted to be married by a rabbi, Dean had no
objection— just as he had had no objection to marrying her. Religion simply didn’t
matter to him. When a religious ceremony mattered to one, and didn’t matter to the
other, the ceremony was conducted in the faith of the spouse to whom it mattered.
None of the Christian partners who were married by a rabbi expressed negative
feelings about the wedding, or sentiments of regret that there had not been Christian
components in the ceremony.
A few of the Christians acknowledged that their families may have been
uncomfortable at the wedding because it was strictly a Jewish ceremony. Al, who
had been raised Catholic, knows that for his relatives, his and Dena’s wedding was
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probably “difficult.” “I know from my Dad’s point of view, it was weird. And from
my mom’s family’s point of view . . . I could tell it was ‘different’ But other than
that, I don’t know.” Chris, who was raised an Episcopalian, didn’t tell his
grandmother that his wedding with Sally would be Jewish until the day before
because he wanted to avoid any protests. However, none of the Christian parents
threatened or refused to attend a Jewish wedding.
Joan and Neil had a wedding officiated by a rabbi, and they also had a
Catholic wedding. The Catholic ceremony, held back in Joan’s home state, was the
“legal” event that married them. But they arranged a second ceremony—Jewish, led
by a family friend who was not an “ordained” rabbi—to accommodate Neil’s family.
“We could have just had the party in California but we knew that it would be
important to his parents and his parents’ friends that they be at a Jewish wedding,”
explains Joan. Neil notes that their solution was devised “in part, to make peace.”
Four couples were married in ceremonies which was conducted by a minister
but not held in a church. Janice and Paul had their “hippy wedding” officiated by a
friend of theirs who was a “mail order minister.” They recall with some amusement
that both sets of parents were a bit bewildered by the ceremony. “The pictures of my
mother and his mother are like [makes face of confusion], oh! the two of their
faces!” laughs Janice. Paul smiles. “I remember my [Catholic] dad said, ‘I hope this
isn’t a mail order minister.’ ‘Oh, no, no [I said]. He’s ordained.’” Marty remembers
the officiant of his wedding as being “a minister of some kind.” Yet Jill, his wife,
clarifies that “there was really no religious affiliation.”
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Carol and Mitch were married by a United Church of Christ minister, a dear
friend of Carol’s, “who was very, very ecumenical and broad in his outlook and
familiar with Jewish traditions, and so we integrated [them into the ceremony].”
Apparently, the minister did such a good job with the Jewish traditions that some of
Mitch’s extended family later asked, “’who was that rabbi?”’
Melissa and Ron were married in a hotel by the ombudsman of a local
university—who happened to be a Presbyterian minister—although she was Catholic
and he is a non-religious Jew. This was the result of a complicated negotiation
between the two of them and the wishes of their families. Ron didn’t want a rabbi
because he himself was not religious, his parents refused to attend a ceremony in a
church, the Catholic priest refused to do a ceremony outside of the church (unless it
was with a rabbi) and Melissa’s mother simply wanted them to be wed by “a man of
God.”
C. Co-officiated and Unitarian Weddings
Four couples were able to arrange what several more had originally hoped
for: a co-officiated wedding ceremony with both Christian and Jewish clergy.
Doing a wedding with “both,” however, did not come without modifications.
Arranging a co-officiated wedding was no small feat, and usually required a great
deal of research and a personal connection to one, or both, of the officiants.
“We wanted a priest and a rabbi,” remembers Marsha. “We got a cantor and
a priest. And they walked down the aisle arm in arm.” She also adds, “the cantor’s
son was a friend of mine.” The priest, it turns out “was technically no longer a
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priest. He had been excommunicated . . . because he had married,” explains Adam.
“So he was kind of a really, a cool guy .... A little Italian guy with a funny accent,
and he just was a comedian.... So it was a pretty light wedding.”
Denise remembers it being “very hard” trying to make the plan for her
wedding with Richard to work. The minister she arranged was a former professor of
hers, who had “semi-left the . . . church.” Finding a rabbi was difficult.
Richard: Um, it was a matter of calling around to temples to see
who would marry us, and—
Denise: We were recommended to an open-minded rabbi in
Malibu.
Richard: On our sixth rejection. It was kind of, “call this guy,
he might do it.” And then we had to shlepp all the way
out to Malibu... way out there to his little place, and
you know, $500 bucks later and he was in the fold.
Interviewer: Was it surprising for you to find it was so difficult?
Richard: Not at all.
Although Frances and Joe had agreed before they got engaged that they
would raise their children exclusively Jewish and create a Jewish home, the couple
wanted to please both sides of the family with their wedding. Because the minister
of Frances’ parents’ church had been a close family friend for twenty years, an extra
effort was made to include him in the ceremony. This necessitated having a co-
officiating rabbi who, because of his non-traditional approach, would not have been
their first choice. However, “it made [her parents] very happy,” says Joe. “Right,
exactly,” agrees Frances. “And it was important to them. There was a long family
history with them. So rather than just having not only a total stranger officiating
their daughter’s marriage, but a stranger of a different religion even, it just made it
nice for everyone.”
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Another approach to a more inclusive wedding, which featured religious
elements but “favored” neither the Jewish or the Christian side, was a Unitarian
ceremony. In two cases, one or both members of the couple had been active in
Unitarian churches before they met, and it was a comfortable position to take.
Regina and Barry sought a Unitarian minister when their plans for a Jewish
ceremony fell through. Barry, who had originally hoped they would be married by
the rabbi from the temple of his youth, agreed with Regina that they should both be
comfortable. “I wanted there to be spirituality,” he remembers. “I could not wrap
anything of my mind around a Christian ceremony . . . [but] I had no problem at all
saying okay, let’s figure out something else to do that will be spiritual, be something
more than a civil service .... When we went with the Unitarian minister, I don’t
think it could have gone any better.”
D. Roadblocks On the Way to the Weddim
While all of the couples obviously found a way to marry, the efforts it took to
get to the moment of “I do” were rarely simple. For some couples, this was their
first encounter with formal disapproval of their marriage, in the form of refusals
from rabbis or priests. For those who wanted a Jewish ceremony—not co-officiated
with a minister—many reported having a difficult time finding a rabbi who would
marry them as an interfaith couple. “We had to look reasonably hard,” remembers
Heather. “At that time it wasn’t easy,” says Dena. “But there were like three or four
rabbis that did that at the time, and you just knew—you got names, referrals,
whatever.” This often meant that the rabbi who married the couple was hired based
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on a reputation for performing interfaith marriages, was a stranger to them, and was
perhaps more lion-traditional than they had hoped for. Several Jewish spouses noted
that the rabbi who did their ceremony was “very Reform.” Jenny knew she wanted
to be married by a rabbi, but finding one willing to do it meant “it was a rabbi we
didn’t even know .... Somebody said he would do it. I don’t remember his name.
I don’t remember anything about him.”
In other cases, there were conditions imposed for marrying them. For
example, Sally, who is Jewish, was asked to promise that she would raise her
children as Jews—despite the fact that by Jewish law, they would be. For two other
couples, wedding prerequisites effectively reversed their decision about who would
marry them. Regina agreed to take an Introduction to Judaism class as the rabbi
requested. She was dismayed to discover that the class was not, as she had looked
forward to, an education on Judaism as a faith, but rather a conversion preparation
course for non-Jewish women, with an emphasis on holiday-related domestic tasks
(Barry jokingly referred to it as “Shiksa 101”). Regina found herself becoming
increasingly uncomfortable with the push for conversion, “and as a result, we talked
about it and decided not to go with the Jewish ceremony and to try and find some
non-denominational type ceremony.”
Jill had agreed that she and Marty would have a Jewish wedding, but she
admits she really had very little idea of what Judaism was about. When they met
with the rabbi they were presented with much more inquiry and challenges to their
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plans than they had anticipated. And, the rabbi wanted Jill to sign a ketubah, the
traditional Jewish wedding contract
When we got down to the end it was the ketubah that I said, wait a
minute, I’m not quite there .... Part of the ketubah said “I promise
to be a good Jewish wife, to raise my family Jewish” or whatever, and
we had never even talked about it. And it wasn’t that I was saying
“absolutely no” to it; I just hadn’t thought about it y et Now that
I look back on it, I see she was right; that these are important issues
to think about, typically before you get married .... [But] we
weren’t in that frame of mind, so we decided it just wasn’t going to
work out to sign this piece of paper yet So we ended up with [an
officiant] who wasn’t religious.
E. The Use ofWeddine Symbols
When these couples describe their weddings, a clear discrepancy appears
between the acceptability of Jewish and Christian symbolism. For the most part,
Jewish wedding symbols were embraced by Christian spouses, even when the
weddings were non-religious. There is a quality of delight in their memories as they
recall the husband “stepping on the glass,” or standing under a chuppa. Christian
husbands were just as likely to stomp glasses as were Jewish men. The use of such
symbols seemed to add flavor and embellishment to civil ceremonies, but were not
interpreted by the couple as a statement of religious allegiance.
Randy, who was raised Catholic, married Joanne in a civil ceremony “which
was not religious. But at the end of it we took a glass and wrapped it in a thing and I
stepped on it, so a little Judaism. . . . ” The employment of glass stomping and the
use of a chuppa were not protested, and were not reported as being problematic
issues for the Christian spouses. The symbolism was taken lightly by some of the
Jewish spouses as well.
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Nina: We got married in his parents’ backyard .... A really
beautiful place. And there was nothing religious about it at
all, except—
Josh: Except at the end. Except at the end.
Interviewer: What happened at the end?
Josh: At the end of the ceremony, she [the judge]. . . basically said,
she said, “and now we put the glass on the floor so Josh can
break it so he can feel Jewish.” Was that it? Something like
that. It was very funny. It was very funny at the time.
Nina: It was like a joke.
Christian symbols, however, did not bring forth the same level of comfort
and lightheartedness. Even when an agreement had been made between the couple
to be married by a minister, symbols were an issue to be negotiated. Joel agreed that
he and Ann Marie, a Catholic, would have elements of both faiths in their wedding,
as this was how they planned to live their future lives together. But Joel drew the
line at a church wedding that would present him with religious symbols that made
him uncomfortable: “There was no way I was going to be married under a cross.
You know, that was—I was very clear on that I just couldn’t do it. Or John the
Baptist. . . . For me it was like—it was offensive.”
Carol remembers that her minister friend who married her and Mitch “always
wore a great big cross, it was just who he was.” But when he performed their
ceremony, “he very respectfully put it in his shirt.... ’ Cause you know, it would
not have been appropriate to wear a big Christian cross in front of the whole family
of Jewish people.” Joan recalls the scramble she and Neil had when their outdoor
Jewish ceremony was moved indoors because of rain. The plan was to have the
event on the property of what had previously been their college but is now a Catholic
high school. The building they needed to use “had this big crucifix on the wall, so
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we had to take that down. You can’t have a crucifix up for the Jewish ceremony. I
think we had to kind of hunt around the room and make sure there weren’t any other
Catholic symbols ....”
Neutrality of the setting was noted by other couples as well. “We had it in a
temple and it was a very plain building,” says Marsha. “It was a really nice building,
but you walk in and unless someone told you it was a temple—it didn’t look very
religious.” Sherry, who was married to Walter in a hotel, noted that the ceremony
was “totally a-religious, although we had a—an arch of flowers that could have been
construed as a chuppa, but not for those who didn’t know.” Leah and Bill were
married outdoors “so it wouldn’t be in a church or in a synagogue. We still did it on
a Saturday, but late in the day.”
The one Jewish element that was resisted by some Christian spouses was the
use of Hebrew in the ceremony. While Al, who was raised Catholic, agreed to a
Jewish wedding led by a rabbi, he did request that the use of Hebrew be kept “to a
minimum.” “My point was, I didn’t want someone saying something at my wedding
that I didn’t understand. That to me is the only reason. I did the chuppa, I did the
stomping of the wine glass . . , Regina “didn’t want a whole lot of Hebrew,”
because she wanted the wedding to be comfortable for her relatively non religious,
but Protestant, family. “I wanted it to be kind of an inclusive ceremony, and one that
everybody could understand,” she explains.
Even when a wedding was overtly Christian, conducted in a church by a
priest, there was an effort made to accommodate and make as comfortable as
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possible both sides of the family. Joan modified their Catholic ceremony to
downplay the tone of the service:
The readings I chose, I tried to make them as neutral as possible.
They weren’t really wedding readings, they were more philosophical
readings, like for the gospel I used the Beatitudes . . . You know,
“blessed are the . . . cause I felt they . . . [were] neither Christian or
Jewish, you know. So even though it was a Catholic mass, at least the
readings, I tried to make them more “God,” without “Jesus.”
Chapter Summary
Interfaith couples, by marrying across religious and cultural lines,
demonstrate a willingness to embrace difference. At the same time, this is frequently
achieved by downplaying religion and emphasizing inclusiveness. Christians and
Jews enter into intermarriage with distinctly different cultural messages and family
expectations, and Christians particularly may be unprepared for the disapproval of
their future in-laws.
The wedding of an interfaith couple, in whatever form it takes, serves as a
microcosm of the various elements to be negotiated by the couple in the years to
come. The choices to be made regarding how each member’s religion or culture will
be acknowledged and balanced, the amount of input and influence they will allow or
resist from extended family, and the amount of religion or spirituality they want
represented in their lives in the form of rituals and symbols are decisions that will be
ongoing throughout the life cycle. The wedding is only the launching point.
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CHAPTER §
CREATING AND MAINTAINING AN INTERFAITH FAMILY IDENTITY
Once established as a new family, the married interfaith couple typically is
faced with the next developmental stage of family life: the addition of children.
While the addition of a child brings dramatic change to the lives of all new parents,
interfaith couples in particular are under pressure to make decisions about how their
child will be raised in terms of religious and cultural identity. The families in this
study represent various choices, and offer insight into different interfaith family
configurations.
In the preliminary, demographic section of each interview, parents were
asked the question, “Are the children being raised Jewish, Christian, Both, Neither or
Other?” Seventeen of the 32 couples reported they are raising their children Jewish.
Three are raising their children as Christians. Five couples have chosen to have no
religion in their lives. One couple answered “culturally both” but later agreed that
their children are Jewish. Three couples stated they are raising their children as
“both.” One reported the children raised as simultaneously “both” and “neither.”
Another couple cited “other” as the best answer, and one reported “a bit of Judaism
plus Unitarian.”
It quickly became apparent over the course of interviewing that what it
actually means to be raising the children as “both,” “neither,” or even as “Jewish” or
“Christian” can vary widely among families. What one couple considers doing
“both” can look very similar to what another couple considers to be doing “neither,”
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and vice versa. On a more subtle level, the spouses themselves may not share
exactly the same view of how they are raising their children, in terms of the
children’s religious or cultural identity.
Interviewer: So are the kids being raised Jewish, Christian, both,
neither, or other?
Scott Sort of Jewish.
Interviewer: Jewish, “sort of?”
Heather: They are being raised Jewish. They go to Hebrew
school three times a week.
This brief exchange illuminates the subtle distinctions between religion as practice
versus religion as culture, and the different ways in which Christians and Jews might
understand what it means to “be” Jewish. For Scott, a Jew, the family life he has
created with Heather may in fact not feel “as Jewish” as the one in which he was
raised, and thus prompt him to reply that the children’s upbringing is only “sort o f’
Jewish. Perhaps, because their annual celebrations include Christmas and Easter, he
sees mixed-faith elements in their family life. Heather, who comes from a church-
going background, sees her commitment to the observance of Jewish traditions, the
family temple participation, and the religious education of her children, and is
satisfied that they are, in fact, raising the children as Jews. From her Christian
perspective, the practice of going to temple and Hebrew school, and celebrating the
Jewish holidays throughout the year, demonstrate this. Both she and Scott are
satisfied with their choice; they may, however, understand it differently.
At the time of their interview, almost all of the couples had arrived at a
working arrangement for the religious upbringing of the children. Three or four ,
couples whose children are relatively young are still in the development phase (i.e.,
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children not yet enrolled in religious school, but parents planning to). For the most
part, these couples have negotiated their way to a decision, and are making their way.
Some chose to defer these decisions as long as possible, while others developed a
plan well in advance.
The issue of making an advance plan is an important one, because it is so
strongly espoused by premarital counselors and other resources for interfaith couples
planning to marry. The prevailing wisdom is that couples who fail to make a plan
will be faced with many unpleasant and potentially destructive conflicts that will
arise from unspoken assumptions or unanticipated emotions. Admittedly, no amount
of planning can prevent a later change of heart, particularly in arenas as emotionally
laden as religion and childrearing. But there are no resource or advice books—and
probably no rabbis or priests—who advise a course of “winging it,” or “dealing with
it when it comes up.” Interfaith marriage is considered to be too fraught with
potential “time bombs” (Cowan & Cowan, 1987) not to be approached with a
thorough plan of action.
Nevertheless, the couples in this study varied widely in terms of whether or
not they developed a plan for raising the children prior to having them, and to what
degree they developed their plan. Despite what might be expected, the couples who
planned in detail, those whose plans were sketchy and vague, and those who made
no plans at all were just as likely to be satisfied with their choices.
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A. Planning for children—How will they be raised?
Thirteen of the thirty-two couples (approximately 40%) had a clear and
distinct plan, or agreement, in place before they married as to how their children
would be raised. As discussed in the previous chapter, some of the couples resolved
this as part of their premarital negotiation. Having a decision and a plan was a
condition for agreeing to marry. “Before we got married we agreed,” recalls Joe.
“What really mattered to me was not that she convert but that, um, our kids be raised
Jewish, that we have a Jewish house. And she agreed to that.” Although Ann Marie
and Joel didn’t know how it would actually turn out, they were equally committed to
respecting and recognizing each other’s religions. “We certainly made an agreement
before we were married to try and raise our children in both faiths, and do a lot of
exploring,” says Ann Marie.
Some couples developed a plan because they were prompted or pressured by
parents or clergy to do so. Although she knew she really couldn’t do it any other
way, Sally promised the rabbi who married her that she would raise her children as
Jews. The rabbi had requested that as a condition for marrying her to Chris, an
Episcopalian. Jenny, who has been married to Dean for 26 years, vaguely
remembers their premarital meeting with a rabbi: “We had to agree that the children
would be raised Jewish, ‘cause he said by Jewish law the children would be
Jewish I think that was all he had to say.” “Well, basically that was it,” adds
Dean, .. because it wasn’t that—it didn’t feel that vital to me and it was like,
we’re together and we’re moving on, and we’ll take things as they come.” As Dean
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remembers it, they “sorta” had a plan. “Yeah, it felt—it felt that’s where it was
going to go and that type of thing.” For Marsha and Adam, it was easy to make a
plan when the rabbi pressed them, because at that time they were planning to not
have children. Adam remembers:
The game plan was, all right, they’ll be Jewish. She’s Jewish. You
know, I didn’t really care, so that was—made him happy, and we told
the priest the same thing and he was happy with that So that’s how
we—we didn’t sidestep it, we said “we’re not having kids, but if we
did this is what we would have.”
Later in the interview, however, Adam adds, “the kid religion thing is pretty
important to talk about. I think. Again, we didn’t talk about it because it wasn’t an
issue, but it probably should have been a little more.”
Walter was aware that interfaith marriage and its impact on the continuity of
Judaism “was an issue for a lot of Jews,” and he anticipated his future in-laws’
resistance. He remembers, “when I asked Sherry’s parents for her hand, I said ‘but
there’s absolutely no problem with the kids being brought up Jewish,’ and we were
hoping that that would help.” Brad and Maria both admit that Maria’s family played
a decisive role in their decision-making, because their strict Catholic beliefs
dominate the family system so strongly. It was of utmost importance to them that
Maria and Brad raise their children Catholic. Brad, who is not religious, favored a
more secular approach, and allowing the children to decide what they wanted to be
when they got older. But that “just wasn’t an option on Maria’s side of the family,”
he says. “Right,” agrees Maria. “They’d think, ‘God, what if he wasn’t baptized,
he’d go to hell if he died’ and all this other stuff. . . . ” Maria herself doesn’t believe
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that raising the children Jewish instead of Catholic would have been wrong, but she
and Brad knew that crossing the wishes of her family on this issue would have major
repercussions.
Maria: But who’s to say, if my family—I mean, if Brad was maybe
more religious, and I didn’t have this kind of family, maybe I
would have said, well, they’re “Rosenberg”; maybe they
could be Jewish? . . . I think as long as you are teaching them
about values, you're teaching them about God—that’s the
most important thing.
Brad: We couldn’t have—it couldn’t have worked the other way.
Maria: It couldn’t have. That’s what I’m saying, with my
family—they would have really—they would have disowned
me, or something, you know.
Brad: So that’s why I think we did the right thing. Because for me,
religion in general wasn’t that important, so it really wasn’t
this tug-of-war where I was saying, "gotta be Jewish,” and she
was saying, “no, they gotta be Catholic.”
For other couples, outside influences played less of a role, and the decision
was straightforward. “I remember that when we discussed children, I said if we have
children I want them raised Jewish and he said ‘of course’. So that was the end of
that discussion,” says Adrian. “I don’t think we ever really talked about the
tangibles of it,” notes Regina. “But we did talk about the fact that we were going to
raise them Jewish.”
On the other end of the spectrum, ten couples (approximately 30%) admit
that they did not develop a plan as to how they would raise their children prior to
having them. Four of these couples mentioned that early in their marriage they were
either not planning to have children, unsure if they would, or at that point viewing
parenthood as a far off future event. Making a specific plan seemed pointless and
unimportant. “We didn’t have a plan. We were open,” remembers Leah. She and
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her husband, Bill, both felt that religion and a religious education would be important
for their children. But they didn’t work on the details of how they would address it
Bill adds:
We didn’t plan it out because I think we just felt like there were too
many—your own feelings about religion fluctuate throughout your
life .... I think it was just that we didn’t know, so we didn’t decide.
It seemed dumb to decide something when we didn’t even know that
we were going to have kids, you know .... For some people it’s
important to always be planning those kinds of things, but I don’t
think it’s important. You know, things change.
Some of the non-planning respondents did not remember putting much
thought into the issue when they got married. A few reported having questions in
their minds, but not having a discussion with their new spouse. Sam and Leslie
didn’t talk about how they would raise their child until he was at least five years old.
But Sam, Jewish, remembers that much earlier, before he even married, “I was
thinking about it. But not acting on it.” Marty, who is Jewish, reflects on his
thinking as he was preparing to marry Jill: “I didn’t think, ‘oh, we’re going to have
kids, gee. . . . ’ Or actually maybe I did sort of think, ‘gee, I wonder how we’re
going to raise them.’ But I never tried to deal with it at that time, or even—I just
figured, well, we’ll figure it out.”
When religion was seen as unimportant, by either one or both spouses, it was
easy to pass over the question of religious upbringing, especially when children were
still an abstraction, or even when they were very young. Rachel and Wayne
exemplify this attitude as they try to recall how they eventually came to their
decision.
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Interviewer: At what point did you decide that you would raise the
children Jewish?
Rachel: I don’t know.
Interviewer: When you got married?
Rachel: No. We didn’t. I don’t even know how it ever got
decided, (to husband) Do you?
Wayne: We didn’t really discuss it.
Rachel: I know that we wanted to go to this preschool right
near us, and they said they would take [our oldest] at
two, and it happened to be the Jewish Temple Isaiah.
Wayne: We really didn’t get into the—because neither one of
us are super religious.
Rachel: It just kind of happened that way. Probably just
because all the people we know and that went to
Jewish preschools...
Interviewer: It just sort of evolved?
Rachel: Yeah.
Wayne: It came to be, and then eventually we said, well, how
are we going to raise the kids? And I said, well, you’re
more Jewish, and you know, culturally . . .
Rachel: The family is here—
Wayne: The family is here.
Rachel: — more Jewish people here.
Wayne: And so I said, let’s do it that way. And that’s how we
decided. Because to me—again, if it were left to me, I
probably wouldn’t do it. So we decided to go that
route.
Those couples who did not make a plan acknowledge that it reflects their
style and the way they approach life. “We never had any serious discussion about
it,” remembers Dena. “It was always just kind of understood and implied that we
were going to kind of wing it.... We are not big planners ahead.” “We didn’t
talk about having kids,” says Jill. “We ju st. . . let life happen to us.”
In between the couples who had clear plans and decisions and those who
decided to “take it as it comes” are the nine remaining couples whose plans were
tentative and vague. “Yeah, I mean, we thought about it, we talked about it,” recalls
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Robin, who is Jewish. “But when you’re in love, I mean, you’re so blind to
everything that’s going on in the real world, you just end up dealing with it when it
happens anyways.” Robin’s husband Kyle recalls, “I think I just told her that it
wasn’t important to me.”
In some cases, husband and wife remember it differently. Melissa
remembers that she and Ron had always felt that they would raise future children “in
the heritage of both religions.” But, says Melissa, who was raised Catholic, “we
never really got down to ‘will we baptize them, will we not baptize them? Will we
go to church, will we go to temple? What will we do?”’ Ron remembers that they
did address the details more closely. “I think we did. I think as far as baptism went,
I was against that. And I think we discussed it and I’m not certain that we came to
any conclusions. I’m certain we voiced our opinions about it.”
Keith and Mindy were requested by the rabbi who married them to raise their
children as Jews. Mindy, the Jewish partner, wanted this. Keith admits that at the
time, while he agreed, it was “all rather abstract,” and that he “didn’t really know
what it would mean.” He knew it was what Mindy wanted, but it wasn’t discussed in
detail.
I probably didn’t want to hear about it, you know. I didn’t want to
really, um, do anything in terms of religion. . . . Probably, you know,
as I said, I would hear it, but wasn’t hearing it. And thought that
when the time came we’d skip over it, 'cause she’s not particularly
religious. She never really went to temple, except on a few of the,
you know, big occasions. So it seemed to me that there might be a’
way to just float through it without any conflict or without a decision. .
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In comparing the ultimate outcomes of these families, and how they are
raising or raised their children, it is interesting to note that there is no correlation
between whether or not a plan was made, and how the couple eventually decided to
go. It seems that early planning was both a factor of personal style—whether or not
the spouses are “advance planners” -- and the ease with which one partner, or both,
could relinquish any thoughts or wishes they might have had of raising their children
in the tradition they themselves had been raised. When religion was considered
unimportant, it was fairly easy for Christian spouses to be flexible, and to
accommodate the wishes of their Jewish mate. Even for non-religious Jews,
however, it does not seem that a casual or vague agreement to “raise the kids
Christian” was an option. The three families in which the children are being raised
exclusively as Christians had all established that plan prior to marriage.
A specific advance plan for the children’s upbringing was more common
with the couples in which the wife is Christian and the husband is Jewish (nine out of
16 couples) than the Jewish wife and Christian husband couples (five of the 16).
Eight of the Jewish wife and Christian husband couples had vague, but undeveloped
plans, whereas only two of the Christian wife and Jewish husband couples were
vague. Each group had five couples who did not make a plan.
Although couples attributed their planning, or lack thereof, to personal style,
it appears that there is something in the configuration of Christian wife with Jewish
husband that generates more specific planning for the upbringing of the children.
There may be a gender role influence at work here. Women are traditionally viewed
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as the nurturers of children—a role which can include responsibility for their moral
and religious development. The mother is often the parent who facilitates the
children’s extracurricular activities, and ensures that religious school is attended. It
could be speculated that husbands, in general, are willing to let their wives take
charge of the religious upbringing of their children for these reasons. In an
interfaith home, however, letting one spouse take on the religious upbringing of
children could lead to an imbalance in religious representation in the family. If the
wife does what is familiar to her, what she knows how to do, then the children are
raised in her faith.
As we have seen indicated above, it may be much more uncomfortable for
Jewish fathers to have their wives raising their children as Christians, than it is for
Christian fathers to have wives raise the children as Jews. Even if the Jewish
husbands and the Christian husbands feel equally that religion per se is “not very
important,” the prospect of Christian influences in home and family may be much
more difficult for Jewish husbands to accommodate than vice versa. Making specific
plans ahead of time is one way to address this and set up the terms, whether it means
the Jewish husband insists on a Jewish only household, or accepts that his wife will
be raising the children as Christians.
B. Factors in Decision Making
Whether the couple planned ahead in detail or made each decision along the
way, most were able to name the reasons why they did: what they did. As discussed
above, some respondents felt religion to be of little importance, and stated that they
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“didn’t care” how the children were raised—or, more specifically, didn’t care if the
children were raised in the traditions of their spouse, rather than their own. But other
factors are involved in couple decision-making. These include how highly one or
both members value a unified family identity, the importance of raising children
within the context of an extended family, the importance of being fair, and the
degree of comfort felt with the religion and traditions of their spouse.
hjaiomlngonejatb
Almost two thirds (20) of the families have a single, designated faith for their
children. Seventeen of the twenty are raising their children as Jewish (a mix of
Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist); three are raising them Christian (two
Catholic, one non-denominational). Many of these couples are familiar with the
argument that it is “better” for children if parents “pick one religion,” and they agree
with that. They don’t see “doing both” as a viable option. “You really can’t raise
children believing in Christ and not believing in Christ at the same time,” states
Ruth. “You just can’t do i t I really felt you can’t have it both ways.” They
speak of wanting their children to have a clear identity and a sense of connection to a
heritage and peoplehood. “When I hear people going and saying,4 oh, well we
celebrate all the holidays,’ I go, how confusing is that for a child?” says Louise. Her
husband, David, adds “I don’t think you can do it [both] and give the child any sense
of identity of what they’re about.” Frances, who like Louise has agreed to raise her
children Jewish, states:
We don’t think you can do both in one household. Because we think
that at a certain point not only are you enormously confusing your
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children, you’re teaching them, you know, up until here everything is
great, but then “Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus isn’t the Son of God.”
And then there’s more to it than just confusing them that way,
because subconsciously at some point. . . they’re picking Mommy
over Daddy, or Daddy over Mommy. I mean, there’s all that other
emotional interplay as well. It’s not just “picking a religion ....”
And you know, you read any study and most kids who... get a mush
of this and that, end up with nothing.
Several couples chose one family faith because they wanted something they
could all participate in as a family. Heather and Scott remember that when their first
child was around the age of three, Heather expressed her desire to give the children a
“religious foundation.” Scott told her that it was fine with him if she wanted to take
the children to church, but that she should not expect any participation from him. “I
actually had said to her at the time that if she wanted to take on the responsibility of
taking them to church all the time, it’s okay, we could raise them non-Jewish. But I
wasn’t gonna participate at church.” Heather asked if he would go to temple, and he
said he would. This made the decision for her. “The really most important thing to
me,” she explains, “is that Scott be involved. Because when I look at the other way
we could have done it, that I could raise the kids Christian, there would have been
me and the kids going to church, and Scott wouldn’t have been involved at all. That
just didn’t feel right.”
Jill, who also agreed to raise her children Jewish, had a similar desire to bond
the family together with religion. In addition, she considered the fact that as a stay-
at-home mother, she already had a very close connection with her children. Raising
them as Jews would, she hoped, solidify their bond with their father—and keep him
involved in the family. Although Judaism is unfamiliar and she feels a bit at a loss
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as to how to “do” it, she views it as a better choice than her raising the children as
Christians, which would leave her husband Marty “out in the cold.” Also, she
reasoned, raising them in Marty’s faith would be “a way to make sure you [to
husband] were more invested in them, you know. It was like . . . okay, now they’re
Jewish, now you really can’t go anywhere because now they’re yours.”
Another factor cited by three couples in deciding which religion to raise
children in was the proximity of extended family, and the religious community they
afforded access to. Louise and David both strongly wanted extended family
involvement in their children’s lives. Because they live in Los Angeles—the home
town of David’s Jewish family—while hers are all in the Midwest, they decided to
raise the children Jewish. “We talked about the fact that, you know, we were living
in California, and if our kids would feel part of a bigger family, our California family
is Jewish and we wanted them to feel they were a part of that family,” David
explains. Keith acknowledges similar circumstances for his children:
They have only Jewish family here in Los Angeles. My scattered,
fractured family is back East, and none of them are religious anyway,
or I guess they might be, but, you know . . . why should I deny them a
family identity and religious identity just for the sake of holding out?
Like they could participate in the holidays and be a part of a
community .... You could say it’s practical in some ways.
A characteristic shared by all the couples who chose one faith for their
children is an imbalance—large, or ever so slight—in the degree of importance each
spouse places on raising their children in one or the other tradition. One spouse feels
more strongly that religion in general is important, or one may feel a stronger sense
of loyalty to Ms or her own faith or heritage,
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Spouses who feel less strongly are often quite willing to let their mate take
the lead in the responsibility of religiously raising the children. George, for example,
had had left his own Mormon heritage far behind. He knew he wasn’t comfortable
raising his children in that church. “I also wasn’t anxious to get actively involved in
some other, third, mutual choice [like Unitarian],” he remembers. And because his
wife Ruth felt strongly about giving the children a solid cultural identity, which for
her was Jewish, “it was easy for me to give her that responsibility.” “It was very
important to Joe that his kids be Jewish, and it wasn’t so important to me,” explains
Frances. “So I’m like, well, okay, if it’s so important to you, you’re obviously going
to make a bigger effort, let’s do it that way.”
Some of the Christian spouses felt they had distanced themselves too far
from their own religious upbringings to turn back—or had no desire to. A church
from the past just “doesn’t resonate” now. Lisa, who had a Mormon upbringing,
states that “it wasn’t a struggle, like we had to fight about who was going to win out,
you know, in their religion. I knew I didn’t want to raise the kids particularly in the
Mormon church, and so Judaism was fine with me.”
Other Christian respondents reported feeling comfortable with Jewish beliefs
and practices, and an admiration for the Jewish culture. “It’s embraceable,” states
Keith. “The culture is kind of cool. There’s a lot of fun things about it A lot of
interesting things. Rich history.” Equally important, several made a point to
mention that although they retain some residue of their own Christian upbringings,
they no longer identify with the central tenants of Christianity. “I find Judaism very
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interesting,” says Kyle. “Going to services, saying the Jewish prayers in Hebrew....
The fact that it’s Hebrew, that it’s Jewish—it’s all religion to me. It’s God. And I
was never big on the Jesus part anyway.”
Heather recalls, “at one time, I so embraced the philosophy of Christianity in
that you couldn’t go to the afterlife unless you embraced Jesus, you know, as the
Lord.” But now, her philosophy is that “logically, it just can’t be. I mean, I just
can’t see this benevolent God that is going to create all these people and then say,
okay, now only the 10% of you that believe in Jesus Christ are going to be saved. I
mean, why would God do that?” For Heather, who believes in “a higher power,”
Jesus is “a non-issue.” Without Christ as a focus, Christianity and Judaism become
very similar from the perspective of these Christian spouses. Judaism, as the “basis”
or “foundation” of Christianity, can be accepted without conflict.
As the numbers reflect, in the most typical one-faith families, the Christian
spouse is willing to raise the children as Jews. Most of the Christian men who are
raising Jewish children remember that at the time the decision was made, they were
“willing to go along” with the wishes of their spouse, because religion was not very
important to them. The Christian wives who are raising Jewish children, in contrast,
felt that a religious upbringing was important for their children; it is apparent that
the important thing is that the children have a religious upbringing. In a general
sense, Judaism is as good a religion as any in which to do this. Leslie exemplifies
this attitude:
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Leslie: I feel very strongly that all children need some sort of
religious background. . . . And that’s why I said to
Sam, you pick. Because if you won’t, I will.
Interviewer: If he had said, “you do whatever you like”?
Leslie: I probably would have sent him to Catholic school.
Sam: You went to Catholic school.
Leslie: Yes, I did.... I feel very strong that children need
religious training. They crab, but I think it kind of,
um, it gives you peace. I find it very peaceful. I can
go into any form, any religious house, and I find it very
peaceful. I like any kind of religion.
Interviewer: For you, the value was in having a religious influence.
Leslie: Right Right.
Interviewer: It really didn’t matter to you which one.
Leslie: No.
In contrast, Jewish spouses were less willing to participate in Christianity
than the Christians were in Judaism. This undoubtedly reflects the power of
longstanding cultural loyalties, the experience of being a minority group, and a
history of persecution at the hands of the Christian church. “As life-affirming as
Christianity can be, as full of goodwill to Jews as it now seeks to be, most Jews still
feel the scars inflicted by the churches” (Petsonk & Remsen, 1988, p.29). “It would
have been very hard for me to raise them to not be Jewish,” admits Marty.
Only three families in the study are raising their children exclusively as
Christians. In these families, the decision about the children’s upbringing was made
by the wife, who practices a Christian faith. The husbands accepted the terms when
they married their wives. They did not report feelings of admiration for Christian
beliefs or principles, and they generally keep a distance from participation in the
formal aspects of Christian tradition and practice. Brad remembers thinking that
because he wasn’t observant in his Judaism, and didn’t have strong feelings about
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the importance of the children having a Jewish education or identity, he had “a very
weak argument” in the face of his strongly Catholic in-laws. Richard took the
position that his children could never be Jewish, because his wife Denise was not a
Jew. While it didn’t raise his enthusiasm for Christianity, he resigned himself to the
fact that it was pointless to fight for raising them Jewish, because their birth to a non-
Jew determined their fate,
ih Choosing M-.feboth
When couples decided to do both, the overriding theme that arose in the decision
making process was a desire to be fair, and to respect the heritage of both spouses.
For the two couples who are actively participating in both faiths, religion and cultural
identity are highly important to each spouse, although perhaps not experienced in the
same way.
Leah and Bill both strongly feel that a religious education is crucial for children
— and view having a knowledge of religious history and reference as essential for
becoming an intelligent, literate adult. They are taking each family developmental
milestone as it comes, and making decisions at each point along the way. For
example, when they enrolled their oldest child in Catholic grade school, this
prompted the decision to also enroll him in Hebrew school, as a balance. They keep
an active dialogue running between them which enables them to make ongoing
choices, checking in with each other about how they feel. “It’s still evolving,” notes
Leah. For his part, Bill is confident that their commitment to balance and equality
will continue. “I have never felt like Leah was sneaking about behind toy back, you
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know, and turning them into ‘Super Jews/ you know,” he says with a laugh. “It’s
just not happening.”
Joel and Ann Marie realize they have taken on a challenge in their pursuit of a
true interfaith household, and have done so with little support and few role models.
Their choice has entailed hard work and compromise. But they could not see any
other way. She is a practicing Catholic, and although Joel does not consider himself
to be as religious as his wife, he is very clear that he “wasn’t going to sign away” his
Judaism—“even if I never went to synagogue again . . . or did anything!” “If I had
my choice of... one faith or two faiths, I would choose one,” he admits. “But not in
our situation where Ann Marie is with me now .... The decision to raise our
children in both,. . . for me, I think, it’s less about wanting to have them experience
both faiths,. . . it’s more like, ah, respecting Ann Marie’s faith, and bringing it in.”
For the remaining couples who describe themselves as doing “both,” it is
much more difficult to pinpoint their decisions and what factors led them to where
they are now. “Both” is more likely to mean celebrating both sets of holidays than
actively participating in two religions. If anything, these families tend to lean toward
Judaism, although not through formal participation. To distinguish these families
from the two described above, they have been categorized as raising the children as
“both/neither,” the term one family stated they felt fit best. These families will
speak of themselves as doing both, letting the children decide, and being “half and
half.” Two couples spoke of the spiritual sustenance they get from 12-step
programs.
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These couples cannot be accurately described as having chosen one, two, or
no faiths for their family. Melissa and Ron, for example, allowed their children to be
what they wanted to be—and one of their children participated in church while
another Bar Mitzvahed. Amy and Matthew fluctuate with their definition of how
they are raising the children. At one point, they state they are raising them as
“culturally both.” Later, Matthew remembers that “it seemed more important to her
parents that the children be raised Jewish than any pressure that I was getting from
my mom, and ah so we decided that culturally we would raise them that way.” But
he really feels that the children will be “spiritual” Jews, as opposed to “religious”
Jews. “In that sense, we’re totally reconciled; there’s no conflict,” he says.
in, Choosing to have no religion
The decision to have no religion in the family, which was made by five of the
couples in this study, was most directly linked to the spouses sharing a non-religious
world view. “She wasn’t religious, and I didn’t want to be,” summarizes Mark, who
was raised Catholic but stopped practicing as a teen. The couples that chose to
raise the kids as “neither” typically share a discomfort with organized religion, and
did not want to have that as a part of their own lives, or the lives of their children.
They had abandoned any mainstream religious practice they might have had before
they married, and it was understood between the two of them that they would not
make dramatic changes once children arrived.
This did not mean that there was no value placed on “spirituality,” for several
of these spouses claimed to value the spiritual elements of life very highly, and
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hoped to transmit that to their children. But they do not see themselves as raising
their children with a specific faith. They pursue their own interests in spiritual
teachings and alternative religions, but do not require their children to attend or
participate.
The issue of fairness and balance also factored into the decision making of
no-faith couples, but in a different way. Rather than making an effort to include
both faiths equally in family life, the focus is on preventing division between parent
and child by allowing one religion to seep into the family and disturb the balance. A 1
describes the importance of keeping his agreement with Dena, and she with him, that
there be no leaning one way or the other toward Christian or Jewish practices:
My caring isn’t that they be raised a certain thing, but that they not be
raised something that is so foreign to me that it locks me out of a
portion of my kid’s life. That’s all it is. I don’t want to be going and,
and, you know, having my children raised Jewish, and then they’re
Jewish and then they have a Jewish family, and—It’s like, I’ll never
be able to associate with that. So what I don’t want to have happen is
that I get locked out.
lv. Other..choices
Carol and Mitch are participating in the Unitarian church, which they feel
offers a chance for their children to embrace an inclusive experience of religion. It
meets Carol’s need for them to have a place of comfort and spiritual sustenance, and
it also provides them with exposure to Judaism. In this sense, it is “a bit of both.”
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Religions and Cultural Leadership — How the Children are Raised
The abstractions of plans and the early decisions made for raising the
children eventually turn into a course of action in these families. If a couple has
decided on a religion for their children and their family as a whole, there are steps to
be taken to develop and maintain that identity. These steps can be as basic as
celebrating religious holidays, or as thorough as keeping a kosher home. In
understanding the process by which interfaith couples develop and maintain the
religious and cultural identity of their family, it is perhaps most helpful to look at the
way these processes are led. Are the spouses equally involved in the religious
upbringing of their children? Or, if a choice is made to “pick one,” is the spouse
whose religion is chosen then the one who is solely responsible? Is the “non
represented” spouse (e.g., the Christian in a family raising the children Jewish)
expected to play a supporting role? In the following sections, characteristics and
features of the various religious leadership styles which these families have
developed will be described and analyzed.
A. Team Leadership
I have termed the first identified religious leadership style team leadership.
When an interfaith family features team leadership, both parents are equally
committed to the religious upbringing of their children. Husband and wife are both
involved and actively participating in the overseeing of their children’s religious
education. Twelve families (approximately 40%) in the study can be described as
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having a team leadership style. Of those 12, ten are raising their children Jewish.
The other two couples are raising their children as “both.”
When a team leadership couple is raising their children as Jews, the spouse
who is Jewish may be more knowledgeable about a Jewish upbringing, but the
Christian spouse is equally invested in the children’s upbringing. Barry admits that
he has “a bit more of the knowledge of what practically it involves to be raised
Jewish,” but that doesn’t make him feel, “that I’m Jewish and she’s not and therefore
I need to be the more motivating force about picking out a temple, about making sure
everything happens, and you know, encouraging the process. I definitely don’t feel
that way.”
These families belong to synagogues and enroll their children in a religious
education program. The decision for the children to attend Hebrew school is made
by the parents, and is not optional. Martha reports that occasionally her children “try
to give me a harder time about having to go to Hebrew school. They say, ‘how come
you make us go, and you’re not Jewish?’” She explains to them that this is the
choice she made with Jerry for them, and that they have to go. “We’re pretty strict
about it,” she notes. It is apparent that in a team leadership family, children’s efforts
to appeal to the non-Jewish parent for a Hebrew school reprieve will be thwarted.
Many of the Christian spouses report feeling comfortable and welcome at their
temple, and that they find it meets their own spiritual needs.
■ Team parents who raise Jewish children create a home atmosphere that
observes Judaism year round, with holidays and some Friday evening Shabbat
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dinners. They are as likely to have chosen an exclusively Jewish home (no
observance of Christian holidays) as they are to include Christmas—but Christinas is
a secular event, not a religious one. Christmas may be described as “grandma and
grandpa’s holiday,” or “a day that we celebrate the joy of new life in the world,” or
as being about Santa Claus and presents. Some families acknowledge Easter, but it
is “just the egg hunt and the baskets.” When team leadership families do have
Christmas and trees in their homes, it is not reported as a source of discomfort for
most of the Jewish spouses, perhaps because the commitment is so clear between the
parents that they are of one mind and raising their children together to be Jewish.
“I’ve really come to enjoy [Christmas],” says Dan, a Jew. “It’s just another day to
kick back and enjoy and celebrate life.”
An interesting feature to note in this subgroup of study families is that the
typical team leadership family is Comprised of a Jewish husband and a Christian
wife. All of the Christian wife/Jewish husband couples who are raising their
children Jewish are doing so as a team, and only one of the Jewish wife/ Christian
husband couples who are raising their children Jewish are team led. Some of these
women are like Heather, who felt that a religion for the whole family to practice
together was more important than choosing Christianity, knowing her Jewish
husband would not participate in a church. Or, as Louise describes, if she were
going to give up her religion, she was going to be certain that her family “did
Judaism” and did it right. “I just felt like, if Fm giving this up [her own faith]* I
want them to he something. I don’t want them to be nothing. . . . Just to say they
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are Jewish doesn’t make them Jewish.” In some families, the Christian wife’s desire
to ensure a religious presence in the home leads her to push her Jewish husband to
participate more fully in Judaism. Dennis, who is Jewish, reflects on the role he
sees his wife Lisa has played in their home observance:
Lisa has brought out the Judaism in me, and her strong sense of
religion/ spirituality has brought Judaism into our life and our family.
If she had been another Reform Jew that felt like I did, probably we
wouldn’t even be doing Shabbat, to be honest with you. But she felt
like she wanted some sense of cohesion, of religious cohesion in the
family, and I said okay to that, as long as it’s Jewish. And ah, you
know, the rabbi should come up and thank her for that Because I
know that argument is that interfaith marriage is dissipating the
Jewish religion. But in many ways it’s also bringing people back....
Although the outcome is quite different, the two families who are actively
raising their children in both faiths also exemplify team leadership. While they
might designate the Christian spouse as responsible for the Christian components of
their children’s upbringing, and likewise the Jewish spouse for Judaism, the
emphasis on equal representation demonstrates their shared, team approach. The
parents both commit energy and the family resources of time and money to the
consuming process of raising children in two traditions. These families send their
children to Catholic school and Hebrew school, preparing for (or recently
completing) a Bar Mitzvah.
Couples who feature the team leadership style often reveal their commitment
to it when the question is put to them of what they would do if their spouse were to
die, and they were left to raise the children alone. This is particularly relevant for the
spouse who is raising their children in a religion that is not their own. The Christian
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wives raising Jewish children indicate that they would keep their commitment to a
Jewish upbringing even without their husbands. “Nothing would change,” asserts
Frances. “It would be exactly the same.... [The kids] have that whole identity
now. I think it would be just bizarre to all of a sudden like, start going to church and
worshiping a different way.” Louise feels similarly. “I feel they already started
something, and they already have a sense of belonging, so I wouldn’t want to change
that for them,” she says. “I wouldn’t want to make it confusing.” The team
leadership couples who are raising their children as both expressed similar
sentiments—a commitment to continue the balanced path they have been pursuing,
particularly emphasizing the fairness of doing so out of respect for their spouse’s
family and memory.
B, Delegated Leadership
The second identified religious leadership style is delegated leadership.
Religious leadership is delegated when one parent is primarily responsible for the
religious upbringing of the children. The delegated leader directs the course of the
children’s religious participation, and determines the religious identity of the family.
In this study, all of the delegated leaders are women. The 13 families which feature
a delegated leadership style all acknowledge that the wife is the one who determines
their religious orientation and home observance. Four families which have a
Christian wife and a Jewish husband have a delegated leadership style—and none of
them are raising the children Jewish. Nine of the families with a Jewish wife and a
Christian husband have a delegated leader, and all of them are raising the children as
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Jewish (or “both/neither” with an emphasis on Judaism). This may reflect an
adherence to the traditional Jewish rule that children bom to a Jewish mother are
Jewish.
The wives who are raising children as Christian or Unitarian typically attend
services and have their children enrolled in religious education. They do not expect
their husbands to attend with them on a regular basis, or at all. However, they do not
allow the children to opt out. Joan, a Catholic, describes how her children
sometimes try to bargain with her:
“Why can’t we be Jewish like dad, and we won’t have to go to
church?” I say, you want to be Jewish? Okay, I’ll put you in Hebrew
school two days a week. You’re gonna learn Hebrew and have a Bar
Mitzvah. And all of a sudden they don’t want to be Jewish. So.
They have to go to church, and dad doesn’t.
The Christian wives who are raising their children in their own traditions
make efforts to acknowledge Judaism, and to ensure that the children are familiar
with the heritage of their fathers. This can take the form of celebrating Hanukkah,
going to Passover seders at the Jewish in-laws homes, or enrolling the children in a
Jewish preschool. There is a clear distinction that the children are not religiously
Jewish, but that Judaism reflects part of their heritage. When the delegated leader is
a Jewish wife, the children are likely to attend Hebrew school and have a Bar or Bat
Mitzvah. Six of the nine delegated leadership families led by Jewish wives enrolled
their children in a program of Jewish education.
When the wife is the delegated leader, she may have strong support or weak
support from her husband. A husband who offers strong support is in agreement
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with his wife about the religious path the family is taking, and is usually a willing
participant in religious observance, such as going to temple or holiday events.
Typically, he feels little to no incentive to bring his religious roots into the family,
other than the observance of Christmas. Although he may talk about “exposing the
children to both,” no obvious efforts are being made to activate participation in his
religion. He may even feel that, by default, he is practically a member of her
religion. It is clear that the wife is the driving force behind the religious observance
and participation of family members, both within and outside the home.
The wives who are delegated leaders with supportive husbands often
mentioned the gratitude they feel that their husbands are so willing to “go along”
with what they have chosen to do for the family in terms of religion. “George was
very supportive,” recalls Ruth, as she discusses enrolling their children in Hebrew
school. “It’s never been, ‘well, this is your tradition and this is mine,’” says Robin.
“Kyle has been real real wonderful about it, and has just gone along with me on the
things I do, whether Shabbat dinner or—I mean, I could say we’re gonna celebrate
Kwanza, and Kyle would go, ‘okay.’” Sometimes a Jewish wife would acknowledge
the importance of “allowing” a Christmas tree as acknowledgement of their Christian
husband’s tradition. Feelings of being supported, along with the sense of making an
effort to include “the other side” both belie the role of leadership that these wives
assume. And for the most part, these couples report minimal conflict over how their
arrangement is working.
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When a husband offers weak support to his wife, there is a clear separation of
roles between the spouses in terms of whose job it is to provide the children with
religion and a religious identity. The religious upbringing of the children is “her
thing,” and his participation may be minimal. The primary example of this is the
Jewish husbands of Christian wives who are raising their children as Christians.
Denise feels that her job as the delegated religious leader for their children came
about in part because her husband Richard wasn’t willing to fill the role. She is
raising them Christian because that is what she knows and believes.
I’m primary caregiver 99% of the time. He’s never here. And if I’m
going to run the household according to his ways, I would be lost.
What do I do next, dear? I mean, I’d be calling him at work. And
this is the question. What do I say? Whereas I just had to trust on my
own education and religious spiritual journey and make my decisions
from there. And a lot of times they’re not what he wants. But then
again, he’s not around to enforce what we wants. Or to support or
provide what he wants.
While these husbands do not actively undermine their wives’ efforts to take
the children to church or Sunday School, or send them to Catholic school, they resist
participating in church themselves. Neil was unwilling to be present at his
children’s baptisms, and only agreed to attend confirmation because his child begged
him to. He feels the extent of his involvement in the children ’ s Catholic upbringing
is to pay for their parochial schooling. Brad admits, “it’s hard for me to be
completely supportive, I guess. And it’s tough when I’m in church. I’d say it’s
becoming tougher.”
Brad notes that when conflict arises with Maria, it is not because he is trying
to insert Judaism into their children’s Catholic upbringing. He would prefer to tone
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down religious elements in general. “I just want to have less of it, period. It’s
usually when there’s a big event coming up, you know, like first communion, and
it’s just becoming this whole, big, you know, dramatic thing .... I want religion to
play a role, but not a big role.”
Christian husbands, too, sometimes protest the time and energy that is
devoted to Hebrew school, or the big emphasis that is placed upon Bar and Bat
Mitzvahs. When his son comes to him to complain about Hebrew school, Keith
admits that he is likely to shrug and “not say anything.” He wishes he had more time
in his busy schedule to spend with his son, and resents the religious school as one
more drain on the family’s time. Wayne will attend Jewish events if his wife Rachel
tells him “he has to go,” but otherwise prefers to stay home. They have accepted and
agreed to the religious direction their wives are heading with the children, but also
acknowledge that it isn’t their preferred way of using time.
In most of the delegated leadership families, both Jewish and Christian
holidays are celebrated, although a religious emphasis may be placed on the holidays
of the leader’s tradition only. For some couples, all holidays are seen as “fun” and
embraced with equal enthusiasm. Jenny, who is Jewish, remembers with a laugh that
her son once said when he was young, “you know, the best Jewish holidays are
Christmas and Easter!” She explains that she and Dean “really didn’t affiliate
anything with one religion or the other to them, everything was ‘fun.’” Dean notes
that despite the decorating, Christmas is not really about Jesus (“we’re not talking
mangers or anything!”), but about Santa Claus and an opportunity to share family
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time. “We’ve taken the religion out of many of the cultural things, like Christmas is
not ‘the birth of Christ,”’ explains Amy. “I think it makes the holidays easier
because it’s just fun to go hunt for eggs, you know.” These families typically have a
Christmas tree, but the decision may be the wife’s to make.
In a family with delegated leadership, it is much less likely that religious
practices currently in place would continue for the children if the delegated leader
were to die, leaving the other spouse (in all cases, husbands) to raise the children
alone. The more exclusively the delegated leader has managed all matters related to
religion, the less likely the other spouse would be to maintain the status quo,
although these husbands did acknowledge the importance of supporting resources,
such as in-laws, or their current enrollment in religious school. Left alone, “I
certainly wouldn’t raise them as Catholics,” says Neil. “The difficult question would
be to keep them in Catholic school.”
Interviewer: If something happened to your wife, what would you
do, in terms of religious involvement with Jewish
institutions?
Wayne: I probably wouldn’t.
Rachel: He would just go to the holidays with my parents and
that’s it.
Wayne: Or, I’d have to get married to another Jew? (laughter)
I don’t know. She’s going to outlive me, so I don’t
have to worry.
The delegated leaders, for their part, would not have to change their children’s
religious direction if they were widowed. But they too admit it would be difficult to
represent the heritage of their husbands Without them there. “It might just practically
become a little harder to honor the Jewish traditions just because it’s not my first
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language, so to speak,” says Carol. “For his parents sake, as long as they were alive,
I would still have Jewish holidays,” says Joan. “But after that, I don’t think I would
have a practice—do ceremonies or light candles. And I certainly wouldn’t have a
seder.”
One phenomenon that characterizes delegated leadership families is the effort
that is made to balance religious views. This is not done to the same extent as in the
families which are actively raising their children as “both,” but has a similar flavor of
acknowledging that the two parents come from different traditions, and that one is
not better than the other. Jesus, for example, may be described to children as “a
person who many people believe is the Son of God, and then many other people
believe was a man who was a great prophet.” Beliefs about the afterlife or heaven
are approached in a similar, “some people believe this and some people believe that,
and no one really knows” manner. Similar to the families doing “both,” there is an
effort made to not discount one religious belief over the other. This may represent
the parents’ desire to teach the children tolerance for difference, or it may reflect
their reluctance to give the children absolutes, as that would mean one of the parents
is wrong.
C. Secular Leadership
Couples who have chosen not to have a religious component to their
children’s upbringing are technically not providing them with religious leadership,
but they will be referred to here as families with secular leadership. In many ways,
families with secular leadership share the features of the team leadership families.
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The parents are equally committed, but in this case their commitment is to raising
their children without organized religion. They are the five families who are raising
their children as “neither,” four of which have a Jewish wife and Christian husband,
and one a Christian wife and Jewish husband.
In these families, the children are not enrolled in religious school and there
are no plans for Bar or Bat Mitzvahs or similar Christian events. Both Christian and
Jewish holidays are celebrated in the home, but all from a secular perspective.
Because they share a dislike for organized religion, it is rare that there is any
negotiation or conflict over participation or observance. Joanne and Randy have
heard the argument that interfaith parents need to “choose one” or risk confusing
their children. But, given their values, Joanne reasons “it would confuse them more .
.. if I actually went to temple and he was actually going maybe to church all the
time, and there were two constantly going.”
Occasionally, tension will arise when religion inserts itself into the family
from another source, however. For example, when Dena’s daughter began to ask to
go to Hebrew school with her friends, and she realized she was secretly pleased at
the prospect, this created tension between her and her husband Al. It threatened their
agreement of no religion for the kids, and eventually was decided against. Marsha
remembers how uncomfortable she was when Adam took her to a Christmas service
with his mother. It was important for his mom, Adam felt. But Marsha felt
overwhelmed, and particularly uncomfortable bringing her newborn with her. These
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unanticipated events can create a temporary strain on the normally “neutral”
environment they have created together.
D. Families Without Clear Leadership
Two families could not be described as having a clear religious leadership
style for the children. These couples gave their children the freedom to decide what,
if any, religious participation they wanted. “We explain it in such a way to say that
Dad is Jewish and Mom is Catholic, and we try and raise you with the understanding
of both religions so that someday you will be able to chose,” explains Melissa. In
each family, one of the sons chose on his own to have a Bar Mitzvah, which then led
the family in to more participation with Judaism. But the parents followed the
child’s lead, not the other way around.
While they value the free choice they have afforded their children, both wives
in these families expressed feelings of dissatisfaction with the lack of religious
cohesion in the family. They spoke of wanting to go to services with their husband
or as a family, and wishing that their husband shared those feelings. Melissa and
Ron experience tension because he does not share her feelings about the value of
religion, and although he supported his son being Bar Mitzvahed, he prefers a secular
approach to life. Janice, who is Jewish, prefers to attend services at an ecumenical
alternative church, but at the same time has longings for more Judaism, especially
around the Jewish holidays. Paul, her husband, sees a global, unified' view of all
religions, and prefers not to emphasize one over the other, either to his children or in
his home.
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Issues of Identity—What Are the Children?
Regardless of their degree of religiosity, an interimth couple is comprised of
two individuals who have different religious and cultural identities. When children
join the family, questions of identity can become murky. Each parent has his or her
own identity, but what are the children? Leah and Bill, who are actively raising
their children as both Catholic and Jewish, admit that they are attempting to provide
their children with something they themselves never experienced. “Yeah, I mean,
I’m not ‘both’, and she’s not ‘both,’” admits Bill.
Parents must find a way to explain the differences to their children, and more
importantly, explain to the children who they are. Do the parents consider the
children to be Jewish or Christian? Or both? Do these parents believe that they are
raising their child to be something that neither of them are—a third identity, the
identity of “half Jewish, half Christian?” Is there agreement between the spouses as
to the identity their children have arrived at? Do parents feel that they can, in fact,
determine their children’s identity solely by how they raise them? To what extent is
the traditional Jewish rule — the child is Jewish only if bom to a Jewish
mother—believed and drawn upon? The final section of this chapter will explore
how the couples in this study have resolved these questions.
A. "This is Such a Jewish Kid”
“There is no question in my mind that if you asked my kids what their identity is,
they would say ‘Jewish,’” asserts Jerry. “They are Jewish with a mother who is not
Jewish.” Martha, Jerry’s wife, comes from a Christian upbringing but considers
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herself to be a Unitarian. She and Jerry are a strong team, and she admits that
acquaintances often assume she is Jewish because she has so enthusiastically
embraced having a Jewish home. Unlike some of the couples who are raising their
children exclusively Jewish, they do celebrate Christmas. But they both agree that
their children are undeniably Jewish.
Adrian and Carl’s daughter was “bom with” her strong Jewish identity, they feel.
It wasn’t something they chose for her, Adrian emphasizes, “it’s really who she
is .... This is such a Jewish kid.” Carl has long ago left behind his Catholic
upbringing, and participates with his family in temple and in maintaining their
kosher home. He adds, “there is no choice in her as to that she could be something
else other than Jewish. I mean, she is Jewish whether two of her grandparents are or
not.... If she would come up with the idea that’s she’s half Jewish, what would the
other half be? A vacuum.”
Frances recognizes that her children are at an age when they like knowing “this is
this, and that is that.” She reports that they understand clearly, “I am Jewish, but my
mommy is this and my daddy is that, and that’s fine ....” The children don’t feel
they are “half and half’; they see their parents as being “half and half.” She credits
this to the fact that she and Joe “really haven’t left things mushy.” They are raising
their children in an exclusively Jewish home, and make an effort to avoid the mixed
messages they feel they would send if they had a Christmas tree, for example.
Parents with younger children are less able to know how their kids view their
own identities, and to some extent can only plan for what they hope will happen.
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Louise and David, who are raising their children as Jews, are encouraged when they
hear their daughter interact with her young peers and inform them that she
“celebrates Hanukkah” and not Christmas, because it confirms that “she knows what
she is, and she’s aware of other children and what their religions are, and I feel like
she kind of knows that she belongs to something.”
It is interesting to note that within these 32 families, almost all have produced
children who identify with Judaism. In all of the families raising their children
Jewish, the parents report that, with a few exceptions their children identify
themselves as Jews. Four of the five couples doing “neither” report that their
children would be more likely to identify as Jewish than anything else. The couples
who provide a combination of “both and neither” (i.e., not actively doing both)
similarly report that at least some, if not all, of their children consider themselves to
be Jewish, more so than Christian or “half and half.” Several Jewish parents noted
how happy they are that their children proudly embrace a Jewish identity, because
they remember their own painful feelings of growing up as “an outsider,”
marginalized and uncomfortable being a Jew.
b. "mif.md.m ic
The question of the “half and half’ identity is handled differently by different
parents. It is a concept that appears to be quite appealing to children. Even parents
in the most dedicated one-faith families report that their children will, at least some
of the time, describe themselves as “half Christian and half Jewish.” If parents don’t
accept that concept, they will correct their child and try to explain identity to them .in'
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a different way. “They used to say, T m half Catholic and half Jewish,” remembers
Joan. “We did get that when they were younger. And I tried to explain to them that
they aren’t .... It’s their ethnicity that’s half and half, but they just have one
religion [Catholicism]. . . . They’re culturally and ethnically Jewish, but... that’s
not their religion.”
Kirsten’s daughter told her she had said she was “half Jewish and half Christian”
at school. Kirsten explained to her that she didn’t see it that way; that being
Christian is “a practicing thing.” She told her daughter that because she (Kirsten) no
longer believes “that Christ is the son of God,” it is inaccurate to say she is a
“Christian”- and for her daughter to say she is half Christian “would give people
the wrong idea of what we do in our home. Our home is Jewish. We are raising you
as Jews.”
For other parents, however, the explanation of “half and half’ comes easily, if
not consistently. “We’ve always told them they’re half Jewish and half Christian,
and what they are is what they choose to be” says Kyle, blending a subtle mix of
choice into the answer. He feels his kids “have never felt any pressure” to choose.
The recent Bar Mitzvah of one of his sons, he admits, puts emphasis on the Jewish
“side,” “but their heritage is still half Jewish and Christian. And if you asked them
what they are, they’ll say ‘both.’” Yet at the start of the interview, he states that the
children are being raised Jewish, and it is his Jewish wife, Robin, who is skeptical of
that answer. She cites the fact that they celebrate Christian holidays. “But they both
had their Bar Mitzvahs. They have never been to a Christian church!” Kyle protests.
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Joanne and Randy, who have chosen a secular upbringing for their children, echo
this vagueness of identity. “I think if you asked my children, I think they would all
say they’re Jewish,” says Randy, who grew up Catholic. Joanne disagrees. “I think
they see themselves as Jewish and Christian. They will label themselves, even
though... we don’t practice Judaism or Christianity. That’s how they identify
themselves. And I don’t think they have any problem with that. They’re not one or
the other.” Joanne herself feels that she is culturally Jewish, but not religiously so.
She and Randy explore the more subtle issue of how cultural Judaism might be
transmitted to their children:
Interviewer: Do you see that cultural Jewishness in your sons?
Joanne: Hmmm. That’s a good question. No. I don’t think so.
Randy: I don’t think so. No.
Joanne: No, I think it’s been lost in the, um, —
Randy: We don’t know, though. But they’re kids—they’re not
going to walk around saying Yiddish words.
Joanne: Well, they say “o y”
Randy: They do say “oy.” But everyone does! You don’t
have to be Jewish to say that anymore! (laughter)
Although a clear understanding of what defines identity appears elusive in these
discussions, very few parents reported that their children were confused about who
they were, even in homes without clear religious leadership or participation in
organized religion. Much more likely, parents find that their children’s self-
proclaimed identities are in ongoing flux, and sometimes situational. In general,
parents regard this without concern or fear that the children are “confused.” Robin
has raised her children as Jews, but with much acknowledgement in the home of
Christian holidays. Currently, one of her teen children has embraced Judaism, while
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another is exploring alternative forms of spirituality. She is not alarmed by this;
“he’ll make eight thousand more choices, you know, as he’s exposed to new things.
And has friends who do different things.” “[My daughter] will say she’s half Jewish
and half Christian,” reports Sherry. “It’s funny to me that she says that, because she
hasn’t had any exposure to [Christianity].” “Yeah,” adds Walter, Sherry’s husband,
“but I’ve heard her say, you know, ‘I’m Jewish,’ you know, to a lot of kids in the car.
Or to piss you off sometimes [she’ll say] ‘I want to be brought up Christian!”’
Parents may not share the same assumptions about how their children view
themselves. Nina and Josh, who have opted for a secular home, share their different
perspectives on their teens:
Nina: I don’t know, if you asked him right now, how much [our son]
would identify with being Jewish or not.
Josh: I think he would.... I think they [both] would identify
themselves as Jewish. I think, if you asked them, you know,
what religion.
Nina: I think they come up with “well, I’m a little bit this and little
bit that” also .... I think the religion part doesn’t stand out as
a separate piece of who they are, you know .... I mean they
really do come from very different gene pools and
backgrounds and um ah I guess that’s one thing they know, is
that their heritage isn’t just one thing. That it’s a huge platter
of many backgrounds. And um I think that awareness is what
they would talk about if you asked them.
Josh: I think [our son] would talk about himself as Jewish.
Nina: I think it would depend on the context. I mean, like at school
he’ll say, you know, “Stevie and I are the only Jewish kids.”
But if he weren’t in that context, um, in another place, I’m not
sure he would do all that.
Josh: That’s true. I think it would depend on the context
Nina: I think it depends on the setting, and who he identifies with in
that setting.
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C. Is the Mother Jewish?
The question of whether or not the mother in an interfaith marriage is the one
who is Jewish arises as an issue for these couples in different ways. Four of the
couples who have Christian wives have had their children undergo a conversion
processes—typically by immersing them in a ritual mikva bath—to formalize their
Jewish identity. Three of these families are affiliated with conservative Jewish
temples, which require it One family did it to solidify their commitment to raising
the children Jewish, and particularly for the benefit of the Jewish in-laws.
For some of the Christian women who have made the commitment to actively
raise Jewish children, there is a feeling that the practice of doing so should be
enough to entitle a child to call him or herself a Jew. Leslie raised her now grown
son Jewish, but was distressed by the difficulty they had in finding a synagogue that
would welcome them as a family because she was not. “I will be very argumentative
when people say that he is not Jewish because I’m not,” she states. “He went to
Jewish (day) school where other kids who have had no religious training, and they’re
considered [Jewish] — just because their mother was Jewish. I find that very hard to
believe. That’s one of the Jewish bylaws, I guess you call it, I find very strange.”
Dennis and Lisa are giving their young children a Jewish upbringing, and Lisa is
well aware of the sacrifices she has made to create an exclusively Jewish home.
They participate in temple, have a weekly Shabbat, and do not celebrate any
Christian holidays in their house. Dennis admits that Lisa is more active than he in
keeping the family religiously involved. Yet, he notes of his daughters, “they’re not
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of a Jewish mother, so technically I don’t know if they’ll ever become, really be
Jewish.” Later, he adds, “I think [they’ll] feel Jewish, but [they’ll] know they are
only half Jewish.”
When the spouses from Christian backgrounds discuss the issue of being “bom
Jewish” via a Jewish mother, or “being a Jew” as a result of upbringing, there is
often an undercurrent of choice in their reasoning. Perhaps because Christianity is
based upon choosing to accept a belief system, and thus open to any comers, it is
difficult to understand how Judaism could not accept as a member someone who
practices it. This has been a source of heated debate between Denise, a Christian,
and her husband Richard. “He said they wouldn’t be Jewish, and I said they could
choose by faith to be anything they wanted to b e I guess I’ve tried to convince
him that you are what you do, and what you believe and how you act it out....”
Richard can’t agree. The belief that a child’s Jewishness if maternally determined is
“something I can’t take out of myself. It’s like ingrained in me .... And that’s why
I say I knew at the point that my [oldest child] was conceived, that child was not
going to be Jewish.” Denise is raising their children as Christians, and Richard may
need to hold firmly to his belief as a way to manage the “definite ambivalence” that
he feels when he thinks about his children not growing up to identify themselves as
Jews.
As discussed earlier, many of the Christian husbands have a relatively easy time
of letting their Jewish wives take the lead in giving the children a Jewish upbringing.
Sometimes this goes hand in hand with the acknowledgement that “the kids are
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Jewish anyway, because the mother is Jewish.” But for some Christian husbands,
there is resistance to this, even if only in principle. Dean remembers times when
people would tell him, “that the children are bom and that they take on the mother’s
religion and the whole thing, and I always had a fight with that.... I would tell
anyone that religion is a very private, personal thing, and it should be a choice.”
Keith found it particularly hard to deal with when his first child was bom, because he
felt so dismissed in the determination of his son’s identity.
You know, there was a lot of talk about, you know, if the mom is
Jewish, he’s Jewish .... I was really mad, because you know if you
do the math, you know, one plus one is two. And only one plus zero
is one, so it made me the zero. And I really resented all that. So it’s
their goofy conception that he’s automatically Jewish, and I don’t
agree with that. He’s obviously half and half. That’s how he was
bom. How you raise them is another thing. How they perceive it is
up to them. But it can never be altered in my mind.
Keith finds he is not alone in his feelings, and that when the subject has come up
among intermarried acquaintances, other Christian men share his sentiments. “It
can be a source of irritation for the guys,” he notes. “Several times I’ve had the
conversation, and it was like, ‘yeah, yeah.’”
Chapter Summary
The couples in this study vary in the amount of planning they did for their
children’s religious upbringing, the style of religious leadership they adopt, and the
identity assumptions they hold of their children.
Three styles of religious leadership are featured in these families. Team
leaders are couples in which each spouse is equally committed to the plan for their
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children’s religious upbringing. They may be raising their children in one or two
faiths, but both parents are involved and actively participating. In families with
delegated leadership, one parent is the decision maker, the enforcer, and the
identified “bearer” of the religion for the family. The other spouse may be very
supportive, but he is generally “going along for the ride.” When the non-delegated
spouse is unsupportive, the family may be religiously segregated, with religion as the
domain of the leader, and the children under her direction. Non-religious parents
choose a secular leadership style when both spouses share a dislike of organized
religion.
The children of interfaith marriages may be identified as being of the same
faith or culture as one of their parents, or potentially as “half and half.” The mixture
is nebulous, and presents a challenge for parents in their efforts to express to their
children or to each other what they view the children’s identities to be.
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CHAPTER 6
PERMEABLE BOUNDARIES? REGULATING RELIGION IN
INTERFAITH FAMILY LIFE
Interfaith couples—like all parents—must decide on the role they want
religion to play in the life of their family. As we have seen, some couples plan the
steps they will take to ensure that their children have a solid religious education well
in advance. Others decide that they will specifically avoid any contact with religious
institutions. Some couples simply “take it as it comes,” choosing to deal with
questions of religious education, religious rituals, and the amount of involvement
they will allow for their children as they go along.
When parents decide that they want their children to have a religious
education, or at least a familiarity with one or both religions, they typically seek out
a church, temple, or religiously affiliated school to facilitate this. For a Jewish
education, the standard path means Hebrew school, with the goal of a Bar or Bat
Mitzvah in mind. Families who are church affiliated send their children to a Sunday
School or similar program for religious education. Confirmation and first
communion are rites of passage which may require educational preparation. Day
schools that are affiliated with a church or temple, and even church- or temple-based
preschools, also provide a means by which parents can ensure that their children are
being religiously educated.
In the case of a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, the importance of religion may be less
clear. Because Judaism is experienced as a culture as well as a faith, and may be
claimed strongly as an identity without adherence to a religious belief system, going
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to Hebrew school and having a Bar or Bat Mitzvah can be viewed as an important
cultural tradition — an acknowledgement of belonging with the Jewish
people—rather than a statement about beliefs.
I have termed these institutionally based religious involvements formal
influences. In this chapter, a closer look is taken at how interfaith couples determine
how much organized religion they want for their family and in their children’s lives,
and how they go about pursuing it. Also to be examined is how couples negotiate
when one spouse wants more formal religious influences for the children than the
other. To what degree are the children themselves allowed a choice of how much
formal religious influence they want ? Is Hebrew school a choice? Can they decide
to Bar Mitzvah or not?
Interfaith families, regardless of decisions made by parents regarding the
degree of formal religious influence they will allow, do not live in a vacuum. There
are numerous means by which religion or religious culture can infiltrate family life:
from parents, in-laws and extended family, from children’s peers, from the curiosity
or interest of their own children, and by the neighborhood or community at large.
Another important source of religious influence is holiday celebrations and the
emphasis placed on their religious meaning (holidays will be addressed separately,
in detail, in the next chapter). All of these potential sources of religious information
and exposure—which I have termed informal influences—are an, unavoidable part of
life. Parents must decide how much exposure and influence they can control, and
how to go about doing so.
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In family process terms, parents must find a comfortable level of “bridging”
out to religious institutions when there is a desire for involvement, and “buffering”
against religious influence when the preference is to keep it at bay. As the rule
makers in the system, parents usually make these decisions for their children. The
regulation process itself is not unique to interfaith families—all families must
determine their boundaries and decide how much flow of religious information and
exposure is allowed between the family and the outside world. But for interfaith
families, when the interior balance between spouses may already be a delicate one,
unique situations and challenges are presented.
Formal Influences
A. Church and Temple Participation
Twenty-three of the study couples currently attend temple or church with their
children, or did so in the past when their children were younger. One family whose
children are currently young have not yet joined a synagogue, but plan to soon. Of
the remaining eight families who have chosen not to take their children to a
synagogue or church, five are families which feature secular leadership, In keeping
with that preference, they are not seeking involvement in organized religion. One
couple is raising their children with a Jewish identity, but never found a temple in
their area that they liked, or that they could manage into their busy schedule. The
other two families are raising their children as “both/neither,” with an emphasis on
the mother’s Judaism, but not involving themselves in a temple.
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Couples who are raising their children as a team generally attend services as a
family. In delegated leadership families, it is more likely that the spouse who is the
leader (the wife) will take the children, and the husband will stay at home. However,
the participation of these husbands varies from family to family—in some, the
husbands never attend, and in others they always do. In families with a Christian
wife as the delegated leader, the Jewish spouse’s lack of church participation can be
attributed to discomfort with Christianity and being in a church. For families in
which the delegated leader is a Jewish wife, the reluctance of Christian husbands to
participate in temple is more likely to be explained as their general disinterest in
organized religion, or other demands on their time, than because of a discomfort with
Judaism. “I realized I’m not into religion, whether it’s, you know, going to church or
the synagogue,” explains Wayne. “I mean, I’m in there for half an hour and I start
getting antsy.”
Couples raising their children as “both” may participate in both a temple and a
church. Leah and Bill go to services as a family—at either temple or church—but
only infrequently. Ann Marie is a regular church-goer, and takes the children. Joel
accompanies them occasionally. Their involvement in temple has been connected
primarily with their son’s Jewish education program and Bar Mitzvah. Ann Marie
has never formally become a church member, however. As she says, she just “shows
up.” She recognizes this as part of the carefully crafted balance of their family life.
When an interfaith couple attends a religious service, one spouse is likely to feel
like an outsider. As previously discussed, a church can be an extremely
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uncomfortable place for a Jewish spouse. For the three families raising the children
as Christian, there is clear awareness that participation in church activity by the
husband will be minimal—and a source of discomfort. “I don’t expect Mm to
enforce the religion, or supervise it, or participate, or facilitate it, really,” states Joan.
Many couples raising Jewish children report that they have found temples which
strive to make interfaith couples feel welcome. Yet non-Jewish spouses are also
aware of their status. “I’m terrified they might ask me to do something,” admits
Keith of attending temple with Mindy. “But aside from that, I feel completely
welcome.” Sometimes being a non-Jewish participant can be awkward. Carl
remembers a recent event:
I function in shul like everybody else, and there isn’t much that
distinguishes me in one way or another. I’m not so self conscious
about these things very often. But recently I got this invitation from
the rabbi to chant the torah. And then I said I don’t think you really
want to invite me because, you know, I’m not really Jewish. And that
was sort of like an administrative error, and that’s when it sort of
becomes obvious and apparent. And obviously I don’t like that too
much.
Even when a firm commitment has been made to raise Jewish children, some
of the Christian spouses reported feeling out of their element in temple when they
didn’t know the songs, or Hebrew was spoken. But they also described feelings of
being spiritually satisfied in the temple. Although it was not familiar, several
Christian wives reported feelings of appreciation for the temple as a spiritual
environment, a peaceful place, or an institution which valued family togetherness
—all of which resonated with their own personally held values. Melissa reflects on
her experiences in their temple:
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1 kind of enjoyed going on Saturday and trying to learn the songs. I
mean, it really brought back all the rituals of the old Catholic Church.
And to me it doesn’t make any difference where I’m worshiping, it’s
just nice to be in this situation where you can be quiet and meditate
and do all that.
Occasionally there are times when families who normally do not attend
services of any kind will find themselves in a church or temple. This usually
coincides with a visit with parents or in-laws. The opportunity to see a spouse in the
environment in which they grew up can be intriguing or disconcerting, depending on
the comfort level with that religion.
Matthew and Amy have gone to Catholic church with Matthew’s mother, and
he modifies his practice when they are there. “I might not [take] communion in
respect to her, because she’s so weird about it,” he notes. The significance of ritual
participation hit home with Phyllis when she went to church with Mark and his
parents. “I remember walking into church with Mark that night, and I didn’t realize
that I was testing him, but I was. And I know, as we were getting into our seats, I
noticed that he didn’t genuflect. And I was happy that he didn’t.” Neither of these
couples is raising their children religiously. Yet there is reassurance in seeing that
the Christian spouse is not practicing; it allows the comfortable, religiously-neutral
balance which has been struck to be maintained.
B. Deciding Against Religious Education
Seven of the study families have not pursued any formal religious education
for their children. Five of these are the secular leadership families, and two are
delegated leadership families with Jewish wives.
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For secular leadership couples, as discussed, it is not a matter of negotiating
or deciding which religion they will provide for their children; they have made the
choice of no religion. “I think either one of us would have been shocked if the other
one had said, gee, I want to take my kid to [religious school] muses Nina. Several of
these parents admit that they are simply not religious. Some hold strongly negative
opinions of religion in general. They speak of being “turned off’ by religion, or the
feeling that religion has “done more harm than good.” Some value “spirituality,” but
state that they are “not congregation people.” Two reported that they made an
overture, once they had children, to a religious institution, but were displeased with
the response they received and never went back.
These couples resist the idea that religion is necessary to teach their children
values, and they feel confident that their children can grow up to be “good people”
without the benefit of formal religious training. Dena and A1 both feel they are
“burdened” by their respective religious upbringings, and do not want their children
to have that experience. A1 reflects on the impact he feels religious education (in his
case, Catholic) has had on him and his wife: “She was never given the choice. I
wasn’t given the choice. And it kind of ruins you for later 'cause you really don’t
have a free choice to make. You’ve always got baggage you’re carrying along ....
I mean, I think religion is a lot of brainwashing.” They are striving to raise their
children without religion because they believe it is the best way to give them options
to make their own choices, and “to be able to feel comfortable in situations that I
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never felt comfortable in.” Without the constraints of religion, Dena admits, “I feel
like they are going to be free.”
Among the families who have decided against religious training for their
children, there is variation in how strictly the parents buffer their family from formal
religious influence. While they make no efforts to bring their children into a
religious school, several state that they would not be opposed if their children sought
out religious education on their own. The door has not been completely shut to
religious involvement for the children, should the children decide that they want it.
Adam: I think we pretty much decided that they weren’t going
to get a religious education.
Marsha: Right. Unless they really wanted one.
For Marsha, who is Jewish, the most important thing is that her children have an
opportunity to develop self esteem through activities they love. She doesn’t want to
force them into something they hate, and she cringes when she sees her children’s
friends complain about being forced to go to church. “I don’t ever want to be a
parent [who forces them]. Unless my kid was saying, T really want to go to church
or go to temple.’” And, she adds that if one of her children convinced her that
attending church was truly her heart’s desire, “I would go to church every Sunday
with her, if that was important to her.” This statement is particularly notable because
Marsha describes at another point how uncomfortable it was for her to attend a
church service.
Nina and Josh share a relaxed attitude toward religious interests that have, or
might, develop in their children. “I think we kind of left it open, saying you know to
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the kids, if they want to go check out... any kind of church, we’d take them. They
have never taken us up on the offer!” laughs Nina. She also says she would have
been supportive if her children had wanted a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. Although neither
of them wants involvement with formal religion, Nina and Josh describe a family
system that accommodates to religious interests pursued by their children, who are
now teens. The ability to welcome and accommodate religious input is not limitless,
however, says Josh:
You know, if either of them sort of went in that direction real
strongly, I would be surprised. And you know, maybe concerned.
Maybe concerned. I’m sometimes concerned about people who are
overly religious. Now, a group of girls getting together, you know,
who happen to belong to the same church, or in the same girl scout
troop who all happen to be of a certain religion and know each other
through the group or whatever, you know, it’s not a big deal. But,
um, I don’t know.
Amy and Matthew felt it would be hypocritical to send their children for
religious schooling. “I feel that, if it’s not our lifestyle choice, I’m not going to make
my kids do it,” says Amy. She says that she and Matthew are “open” to their
children learning more about her religion (Jewish) as well as his (Catholic), although
they are not taking any steps to facilitate that.
I even asked my daughter—I think about four of her friends were
going to Hebrew school, and she knows, you know, her best friend
goes to Sunday school—you know, “would you even want to go?”
And she said, like, “no.” I said, “we’ve never wanted to send you
because we don’t do that and we don’t follow that....”
Joanne made the choice not to send her children to Hebrew school, because
although she feels culturally Jewish, “religiously, it never clicked.” She states that
she is open to her children pursuing religious participation, but she would carefully
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scrutinize their motivations. She was not the only parent to suspect that their child
might want a Bar or Bat Mitzvah because “they want a party”—which the parents do
not think is reason enough. Joanne elaborates:
Would I Bar Mitzvah my kids? No. You know. Now, if they had a
love of really wanting to learn the Torah, not just to get Bar
Mitzvahed because their friends that do get a lot of money? You
know? If they really felt this connection where “I really want to leam
Hebrew and I really want to leam the Torah,” I would do that.
The value placed on religious education and Bar or Bat Mitzvah can be
influenced by the parents’ own experiences growing up. Sally, for example, comes
from a conservative Jewish background. Growing up she viewed Bat Mitzvahs for
girls as something “that Reform Jews do.” Because her two children are both girls,
she did not feel pressure to enroll them in a Hebrew school program.
Some parents have negative memories of their own days in Hebrew school or
at Sunday school. Marsha remembers, “I used to tell my mom, T don’t like it! I’m
not interested in it. I don’t want to be there. I don’ t like the people in the class. I
don’t like the teacher. I don’t like anything about it!”’ “I hated going,” says Josh.
“I hated it. I mean, I had to go. I did everything humanly possible to get out of it.”
“There was no way he was going to subject his kids [to that],” adds his wife, Nina,
who has her own negative memories of her religious upbringing as the daughter of a
Southern minister.
It would be inaccurate to suggest that bad memories of forced religious
education leads parents to excuse their own children from it. A number of Jewish
parents were well aware from first hand experience that Hebrew school can be an
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unpleasant ordeal, but are still insisting that their children go through it However,
among those parents who are purposely not sending their children, their own
negative memories are cited as a good reason why.
Even when parents agree that they will not send their children to religious
school, or belong to a temple or church, this is a position that can be challenged at
times. Dena, who states complete agreement with A! that religion is negative and
not what they want for their children, admits that there are times when she
experiences a longing to take her children to the synagogue for the High Holidays. It
reflects, perhaps, an internal ambivalence about participating in organized Judaism.
While she rejects religion, she also feels the strong pull of positive childhood
memories. But it presents a threat to the balanced position she and A 1 have declared
between themselves, and can become a source of conflict.
A year ago, one of Dena’s children asked if she could go to Hebrew school.
Dena felt “it was totally socially motivated for her.... Her friends were there.”
She also knew that this would violate the agreement she had made with Al—no
religious education for the kids. Still, Dena couldn’t help but have a fleeting
moment of hope that it could come to be. “There was like a little part of me that was
like, happy,” she remembers. “And a little part of me that thought, oooh, it might be
kind of neat. But I never—But I knew it wasn’t going to happen. And it just—it
was gone.” She knew AFs reasoning for refusing, “and I totally respect and
understand it, and [it’s] the same reason he doesn’t take our kids to church We
don’t want to feel alienated from our children in any way. And that would alienate
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either one of us.” By not raising their children in a religion, Dena and Al have
found a way to avoid a situation where the children are aligned with one parent and
not the other.
C. Providing Children with Religious Education
Twenty-three of the 32 couples in this study have enrolled their children in a
formal program of religious education. In addition, two couples have an intention to
begin religious education when their children are a bit older. It is a large number,
given that interfaith couples could easily avoid emphasizing their religious
differences by staying away from religious institutions. It also exemplifies the fact
that individuals who are willing to marry someone of another faith do not necessarily
devalue religious involvement. As these couples discuss their reasoning, it becomes
clear that many see religion as playing a very important role in childrearing.
By giving their children a religious education, these parents explain, they are
offering them “something to be, something to believe in, something concrete,” It is a
means for developing “a firm foundation,” “a center,” and “moral fiber to fall back
on as they hit decisions and peer pressure.” As Jill states, “I think it makes them feel
a part of something, more that just a family. Feel a part of the community.”
Some parents mentioned the possibility that religion might have a preventive
effect against problems that could arise when children enter adolescence. “In the
Times the other day it was saying how important religion is, especially now for
teenagers, to help them have a solid ground and a sense of belonging to something,”
notes Louise. “It keeps them away from drugs, it keeps them out of trouble. And I
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really strongly believe that.” Heather echoes those thoughts: “I’d rather it be, you
know, God or religion than, you know, drugs or something like that.”
Mindy and Keith have come to realize that having their son in Hebrew school
is an important supplement to the kind of parenting they want to provide. Although
he sometimes resents the amount of time the religious education program demands
of his son, Keith, who is Christian, admits it is also beneficial:
I think [Hebrew school] serves the purpose that I find useful... and
that is, to teach the kind of thing that you never get around to teaching
or talking about. You know, the sort of right and wrong and what’s
morally good and not. I mean, every religion has a version of it, and
it’s kind of all similar, so I also see that it’s good. You know, I got it
in Sunday school, and I know he gets the ideas, you know, the
philosophy of religion, or just, you know, humanity and equality and
morality I had imagined that I would teach him all those things.
You know, “in my spare time.” Which I don’t have----
Carol had similar thoughts about what she hoped religious education would offer for
her children, which she began to consider when she had her first child.
I really felt the need for an involvement wherein we could, you know,
broach issues of spirituality, values, morality, and um, you know, with
our son. In a more systematic way .... I think there are many, many
families who do that totally outside of organized religion, but there’s
a real value added by doing it within an organized structure .... It’s
a lot richer.
For Sherry, having her children educated in the temple program is an
important way that she can help them fully claim their Jewishness. “I want [my
kids] to feel comfortable at temple,” Sherry realized. “I want my kids to know the
melodies and the prayers and feel comfortable, and I think that’s part of feeling like
you belong. So I think that’s one of the reasons I pushed religious school.”
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Among the families who have (or had) children in religious school, there is
variance in how strongly it is enforced as a family rule. For the most part, couples
who operate as a team develop a religious education plan for their children, and
implement it. Religious school is not an option. This position is agreed upon and
enforced by both spouses. Generally, if a delegated leader decides the children will
have religious schooling, it happens, but there may not be support from their spouse.
Parents may disagree on the value of religious education in general, or they may
clash over the beliefs being imparted to their children.
In delegated leadership families, children are quick to pick up on who is
enforcing religious school, and may make appeals to the non-delegated parent. “The
requirements of Hebrew school drive me crazy,” admits Keith. “If [my son] says, T
don’t want to go,’ I’ll just be quiet. I don’t ever say, ‘oh, yeah, come on son, you
should go.’ I’m just quiet It’s like, yeah, I understand.” “My daughter gets me a
lot,” says Brad, who is Jewish. His children are being raised Catholic. “I think she
knows that I’m—maybe she thinks that I’m a little more rebellious, so she can, you
know, ask me stuff. Since she knows I don’t observe everything.” He relates a
recent incident when his daughter told him she had forgotten to say bedtime prayers
at a sleepover. She wanted to know if this was okay. Brad (who was unaware she
had been saying prayers) assured her that it was fine—and that in fact, it was okay if
she didn’t say them at home either, “Now, I recognize that she’s got a little bit of a
conflict going, you know. Maybe her mom is telling her she should, or maybe her
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CCD instructor is telling her like, you have to. And dad is going, ‘well, you can if
you want.’ Or you don’t have to.”
Some parents feel that children should choose if they want to attend religious
school, while others are quite comfortable mandating it, “’cause I’m the mom and I
say so.” Some spoke of wanting to be sure their children have a solid religious
education in place first, which they can choose to reject or accept later. And spouses
do not always agree, which can further complicate the enforcement of religious rules.
The concept of children’s choice for religious education is a slippery one for
interfaith parents. Even parents who maintain strict boundaries around the family in
terms of which religion is recognized in the home are reluctant to give up the idea of
free choice. “I’d like them to get to the point where they could decide if they wanted
Hebrew school and then to be Bar Mitzvahed,” says Dennis. He is the one who said
the only religion he was willing to have in the family was Judaism. But as he
discusses the matter with Lisa, we can see the murky nature of the issue.
Dennis: I would never say they’d have to go....
Lisa: Well, you’re saying that the decision is going to come
from them, but it’s only a decision whether to go to
this one place [Hebrew school] or not to go to that one
place. If they had decided they wanted to go to
Sunday school, are you going to drive them.to-Sunday
school?
Dennis: Um, at the Mormon temple?
Lisa: Mormon church.
Dennis: Um, yeah, I probably would. Honestly.
Lisa:. -Really?'
; Dennis: I mean, I don’t quite understand, ‘cause they’re not
going to make that choice at age seven. She’s not
going to come to me next year and say that she’d rather
go to a Mormon temple ....
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Lisa: So you would bring it up to her, and whatever her
decision about it would be fine.
Dennis: Right, let’s say she came to me in high school and said,
you know, I’d rather start going to the Mormon church,
you know. If she wanted to, I would let her do it
Allowing the children to choose to participate in religious school, or to have a
Bar Mitzvah or confirmation, may hold an appeal similar to the idea of allowing
children to decide which religion they want. Or, it can reflect the inherent fact that
interfaith couples themselves made choices to participate through marriage in
religious traditions that were not their own, and feel they cannot dictate what their
own children must do in terms of religion.
In four study families, a choice did come from a child. In each of these four,
a son made the choice to have his Bar Mitzvah even though his parents had not
enrolled him in the regular course of religious schooling. Two of these are families
which could best be described as not offering clear religious leadership. The other
two are raising the children Jewish, but with minimal participation in organized
Judaism. Because religious education for their sons had not been part of the ongoing
childrearing scheme, the request for a Bar Mitzvah necessitated changes in the
family system. Parents needed to make hasty arrangements to have their boy
educated quickly, usually via tutoring. It meant a re-orientation of family time and
resources. Some parents admitted they were stunned by their son’s request, but all
reported the process in highly positive terms. They expressed their pride in their
sons’ efforts, and felt the experience to be enriching for the familyt In one case, the
son’s dedication and hard work had such an impact on his father—who had not Bar
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Mitzvahed himself—that the father enrolled in a separate adult Jewish education
course and Bar Mitzvahed with his son.
E, Parochial Schools / Jewish Day Schools
Seven families enrolled their children in parochial or Jewish day schools, in
an effort to support or supplement the children’s religious upbringing. Many more
reported placing their young children in church or temple-based preschools. Lisa,
coming from a non-Jewish upbringing, felt a temple nursery school would be a good
means of support for her and Dennis—a non-observant Jew—as well as her child.
“You know, she’d kind of leam, and we’d kind of leam, as we went along.”
Both of the families who are actively raising their children in both faiths have
at least one child enrolled in Catholic school. Neither families planned to do so in
advance, and their decisions demonstrate how plans can change or develop
midstream. Ann Marie and Joel had been raising their children with a “blending” of
both Catholicism and Judaism, but without formal religious education. When their
son became a pre-teen, they became concerned about his public school environment,
and decided to transfer him to her parish Catholic school. Joel found this move
“palatable” because he felt his son was old enough to not be too strongly influenced
by Catholicism. “If my kids went to Catholic school from kindergarten, that would
be a problem. But because they’re coming in late I feel like they’re over the part
where they [could be] brainwashed.”
The school environment did influence their boy, however. Exposed for the
first time to peers who had been raised in religious families with confirmations,
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communions, and other formal involvement, he informed his parents that they had
“really messed up” by not giving him more of a religious upbringing. At that point,
says Ann Marie, “we really hit the pavement.” After much discussion about needing
to give their son more religious direction, with an eye to maintaining balance, they
decided that Joel would lead the way for him to have Hebrew training and ultimately
Bar Mitzvah. “In a good way, our whole history of marriage and our decisions and
you know went out the door,” says Joel.
Leah and Bill report a near-identical process with their first child. When it
became clear that the local Catholic school was the best choice, Bill initiated a
discussion with Leah.
I said to Leah, how do you feel about that? It’s a Catholic school,
he’s going to be taking religious classes and he’s going to be, you
know, “Hail Marys” and “Our Fathers” and all that stuff. It’s going to
be a part of his daily existence over there. How does that make you
feel? And she says, “well, I feel like we should—it’s okay, but we
should do something about the other side.” So... what? And so we
explored. Then looked into Hebrew classes.
In true team leadership style, these parents carefully adjusted to a change in the
family’s religious environment. Because they are committed to balancing their
heritages and identities, a move in one direction requires a countermove in the other.
To open the boundaries wider to only one religion would threaten their implicit
agreements.
Interestingly, a few couples have enrolled their children in church-affiliated
schools or preschools despite the fact that they are raising their children Jewish. In
these cases, however, the move is not seen as an effort to give “the Christian side”
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representation. The decision, parents explain, is based purely on the academic and
social needs of their child. Sherry, who is Jewish and the delegated leader, placed her
son in a Presbyterian preschool because the preschool of their temple was “too
frenetic and chaotic for him.” She was taken by surprise when some church
teachings made their way into their home.
Sherry: [My son] would say something like, something about Jesus
being the son of God. Remember when he came home talking
about that? And I went, “where did you hear that?”
Walter:Well, he was going to Presbyterian school. Getting
brainwashed over there.
Sherry:Maybe that’s why, oh that’s true. He went to Presbyterian
preschool for a year. And they had to go to chapel. So maybe
that’s where he got that.
Frances and Joe have their oldest child enrolled in a private Episcopalian
school, despite the fact that they are raising him in an exclusively Jewish home.
After much thinking, Joe realized that “it was much more important to have him be
in the right place for him, whatever religion.” He and Frances have taken a proactive
role in his classroom, bringing in special presentations on Jewish holidays to educate
the children. Last year Frances, who grew up Methodist, put on a seder for the class.
The school embraces it as “diversity education,” and Frances and Joe know that they
are moderating their son’s experience in that environment.
For a couple who wants a strictly secular education for their children, a
search for private schools can be frustrating. Dena and Al specifically wanted no
“religious input,” “and that eliminates a heck of a lot of schools.”
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Informal Influences
At.ImmMa MMzlcrns
Grandparents can play an important role in the lives of their grandchildren.
They offer a link to a religious heritage, and facilitate the continuity of traditions.
As demonstrated in earlier chapters, the religious and cultural identification of
grandchildren can be a matter of dire importance in some families. When
grandparents are eager to exert an influence of their own religious or cultural
orientations, it can be a source of support for the couple. But it can also be a source
of strain and pressure.
Interfaith couples strike their own agreements as to how they will balance
and represent religion and identity within the nuclear family. Their parents and in
laws may have other agendas. Because parent-child relationships are so emotionally
loaded—and because interfaith couples may already have felt disapproval of their
marriage from parents and in-laws—it can be extremely daunting for them to
regulate the amount of religious influence grandparents have on their grandchildren.
Also, there may not be agreement between the spouses as to “how much is enough,”
or whether or not a grandparent’s efforts are welcome or appropriate.
Efforts to bring religion into the lives of grandchildren were generally
welcomed when they did not represent a threat to the agreements between the
interfaith spouses, or when they were viewed as helpful. Holiday celebrations and
meals at grandparents’ homes were often mentioned as a positive influence on
children, offering them the sense of being part, of a larger family and community.
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Heather notes that she relied on visits from her Jewish father-in-law to leam how to
do a Passover seder and cook the traditional foods. Melissa and Ron were fine with
their daughter attending church with her grandmother, because it was a special way
for the two of them to have time together. Several spouses mentioned gifts of books
with religious themes—particularly Jewish—that grandparents would give.
Joan: His mom’s a librarian, and she gives the kids books. Usually
the books she gives them are Jewish-themed books. Always
about Hanukkah or Passover, or even just stories that had
Jewish characters. A little girl with a cat, but she’d be a
Jewish girl, and the cat would have a Hebrew name. That
kind of thing. So, they did try to bring Judaism in that way
[the children are being raised Catholic].
Interviewer: Was that comfortable for you? Or did it feel like an
agenda?
Joan: No, it was fine with me because I think it’s important for them
to know about both.
When grandparents’ efforts to exert an influence become problematic for a
couple, they must find ways to deal with the situation. Strategies can range from
simply ignoring, or not supporting grandparents’ overtures, to directly confronting
and blocking unwanted input into the family system. Nina, who is raising her
children in a secular home, has advised them to gently ignore their grandfather’s
efforts to engage them in Christianity. It dismays her, because she knows her father
wants a relationship with his grandchildren, but the religious divide makes it
difficult
My father will send my kids an email—which they never answer
—but it’s something totally, you know, if he had any ability to be on
the same wavelength he wouldn’t do this, you know. But he’ll send
them an email and it will say, “I want to challenge all of my
grandchildren to read the Book of Numbers before the end of the
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month.” And you know, my kids come and say, “what’s the Book of
Numbers?” . . . And of course, they never do it.
Adam and Marsha have found an effective way to keep his Catholic mother from
pressuring them to give the children a more religious upbringing: They have
capitalized on the fact that her devout religious beliefs emphasize following religious
rules. And Adam and Marsha have decided to support the “rule” that if the mother is
Jewish, the children are Jewish.
Marsha: She’s accepted in her head that those kids are Jewish.
You can’t really push them to go to church....
Adam: See, I’ve used that a few times, where, “look, we’re
Jewish. Marsha’s Jewish, Jewish religion, kids are
Jewish. I have no choice. Out of my hands. Can’t do
anything.” So you’re right. She understands it as a
rule. She can’t break that rule; it’s a religious rule.
Jenny and Dean have been minimally involved with organized religion, but
when their son reached the age for Hebrew school, Jenny enrolled him. She did so
primarily because she knew it would please her mother. But her son was miserable
and enforcing attendance was a painful struggle for parents and child. “[So then] my
mother said, ‘if you’re doing it for me, don’t do i t ’ I said, I’m doing it for youl So
you better think about if you mean it.” Jenny pulled her son out, and did not pursue
any further religious training. Then, when her son was almost 12, her mother offered
to pay for a Hebrew tutor. At that point, Jenny told her, “It’s too late now, Mom.
We can’t do that That’s not fair to put that pressure on him.” Phyllis reports that
her parents put “a lot of pressure” on her son to have a Bar Mitzvah. She was
uncomfortable, and worried her son would do it just to please them—or just to have
the party. So she told her son she would give him a big party for his 13th birthday,
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with or without a Bar Mitzvah, and encouraged him to think carefully about the
commitment He decided not to Bar Mitzvah.
Kirsten, who is raising her children Jewish, has painful memories of her
mother’s efforts to insert Catholicism into her home with Dan when their first child
was bom. Her mother sent a crucifix, and ordered Kirsten to put it over the baby’s
crib, to “protect her.” When Kirsten refused, her mother became very angry. “She
said, you know, this is my grandchild, and I want her protected!” Kirsten told her
that a crucifix would be highly inappropriate in their home, and while she would do
everything in her power to keep the baby protected, her mother did not “have the
right to intrude on us.” Although she does not want her children to turn against her
mother, Kirsten tells them that “Nana has the potential to say or do things that may
sting a little bit.”
Situations can arise when one member of the couple feels pulled between the
wishes of their own parents and the agreements they have with their spouse. Lisa
remembers that once, when her daughter was staying with Lisa’s parents, they called
and told her they wanted to take the child along with them to church. “I think they
like any opportunity to take her along and expose [her], not in order to influence her,
but to let her know that that’s there, and that’s part of her and they want her to see
that also,” Lisa reflects. She allowed her parents to take her daughter, but she didn’t
tell Dennis about it Perhaps to comfort herself with an awkward situation, she
assured herself that her daughter wouldn’t like the experience because she “is not
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used to sitting through a service. So she wasn’t going to really be into it.... I
didn’t think it would be real pleasant [for my parents either].”
For many couples, the proximity of parents and in-laws is mentioned when
evaluating whether or not they have had an easy time with the religious or secular
choices they have made for their children. Some couples feel that they have had
more freedom to do what they want with their children’s upbringing because neither
sets of parents are living nearby, to either make demands or disapprove. “I think the
most important thing that I could say—and it goes for both the families— is because
we didn’t choose to live in an area where we were going to have any contact with
either side of the family, that the pressure was less,” states Richard. “I think it has
more of an effect if your families are nearby and you are visiting those families,”
notes Heather. “It didn’t affect us a lot because both of our families are not here.”
Some of the same couples who acknowledge that they are faced with fewer
pressures and potential conflicts by living without family nearby, also acknowledge
that their situation has drawbacks. Holidays without extended family are less
meaningful. It can be particularly isolating to be the only one familiar with your
own traditions. “It’s hard not having the community to help,” says Leah. “If we do
something, I have to do it I have to do the whole seder. We’re not going to Mom’s
house for seder, or to my aunt’s house. I have to do it all. Every year.” Having no
extended family “makes it a lot more difficult to raise your kids,” comments Marty,
“but it also takes away a lot of the pressure.”
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When one set of grandparents are local and the other far away, it can have an
impact on the religious and cultural identity of the children, and the family as a
whole. Several couples mentioned that their children’s identification with one
religion over the other is influenced by their involvement with only one set of
grandparents. Celebrating only Jewish holidays, for example, can generate a sense
of Jewish identity in the family.
The informal influence of grandparents can be a factor of many things: how
openly the couple welcomes their efforts, their proximity to grandchildren, and
undoubtedly, matters of personal style. “My mother’s idea of being a good in-law
was T’m going to stay out of your life,’” Mark explains. “And she probably did to
excess.” In contrast, A1 finds his mother-in-law to be constantly “nudging.”
Her mom is always trying to get my children more Jewish .... I go
to more seders than my Jewish friends go to. We have one over here,
we have one over there, and it’s her mom behind the scenes making
sure that she gets her grandkids, even though she knows they are not
being raised Jewish. Damn it, she’s going to get as much Judaism in
there as she can.
Grandparents, as an extension of the family system, do not only seek to act
upon, or influence, their children and grandchildren. They also respond to activity
and change from within the system. Many of the couples who initially had negative
responses from their parents about intermarrying report a transformed relationship.
At least three Jewish respondents mentioned that their previously resented Christian
fiancee was now the “favorite” son or daughter-in-law. David speaks of how his
mother, who treated his Christian wife Louise “shabbily” for several years, had a
complete turnabout in attitude when she saw how dedicated Louise was to raising the
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children as Jews. David describes his mother now as “one of Louise’s biggest
supporters.”
Ann Marie and Joel had a painful experience when their son Bar Mitzvahed.
Her Catholic parents decided shortly before the event that they could not attend.
Although shocked by this, Ann Marie and Joel came to realize that although they had
been carefully trying to raise their children in both religions, the Bar Mitzvah was, in
her parents’ mind, a declaration of Judaism chosen over Catholicism. Joel and Ann
Marie didn’t see it that way—their son was, after all, still enrolled in Catholic
school—but it had a strong impact on the grandparents.
Couples who have not experienced pressures or problems with their parents
or in-laws mentioned that they felt “lucky.” They expressed appreciation for the
support they receive, and could easily envision how parent and in-law issues could
be a major problem for an interfaith marriage.
B. Peers and Community
Children’s peers can play a role in their religious and cultural identification,
and impact the tone of the family environment. From a very young age, questions of
religious identity between children can be brought back to parents, and thus begin a
process of socializing children into “who they are.” Parents reported overhearing
their young children’s friends ask questions such as, “I celebrate Hanukkah, I’m
Jewish. What do you do, do you celebrate Christmas? Because if you celebrate
Christmas, you’re a Christian.” This can be confusing for children in interfaith
homes, and catch off guard the parents who have not yet developed a plan for how
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they want their children to identify. It propels parents—sometimes for the first
time—into decisions and explanations.
Parents commonly mentioned that their children interact with peers from
diverse backgrounds, which they view positively. Some mention that children may
try out many different identities as they grow. “[My son] came back one time and
said that he wanted to be raised Christian,” remembers Kirsten. “And immediately I
said, okay, well which of his buddies now . . . does he want to be most like?”
When children are invited to attend religious events or services with a friend
of a different faith, these parents allow them to go. Exposure of this type is not
viewed negatively. Jenny remembers that her daughter, who would accompany
different friends to church and temple, “was always curious growing u p She
wanted to be in on everything. Always has, always will.” But there is a distinction
between exposure and endorsement, Melissa and Ron remember when their
daughter was frequently attending a “heavy-duty reborn Covenant Christian church”
with a playmate. Melissa and Ron allowed it, but they would not take their daughter
there themselves. Randy and Joanne realize that, at times, they have to address
information their children are getting from the very Christian homes of some of their
playmates. Randy recently spoke with his son about managing friendships with
people who hold different beliefs:
I said,... I just want you to understand that, just 'cause you don’t
believe what he believes—because they believe that you know if
you’re not a Christian you’re not going to go to heaven, and Mommy
and I don’t believe that—and I just don’t want that to get in between
your friendship. Because it’s really not worth it; friendships are more
important than just that.
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As we have seen, the majority of the interfaith couples in this study are
raising their children Jewish. Nine couples noted that the community in which they
live, which has a high proportion of Jews, plays an influence in the ease with which
their children embrace Judaism. Sherry and Walter feel that because there are so
many Jewish families in their community, “it’s an easier environment.” “[My
daughter] just feels so comfortable being Jewish, which I didn’t as a child,” says
Sherry. Even some couples who have decided against a religious upbringing for
their children report that their children tend to identify as Jewish, because of the
influence of Jewish peers.
Parents also take comfort in the fact that their children often meet friends
who come from interfaith homes, and mention that Jewish/Christian couples are
prevalent in their temples or neighborhoods. Joan notes with amusement that,
although she is raising her children as Catholics, her children’s close friends tend to
come from interfaith families. “It’s really funny that all three of them, even though
they go to Catholic school, they ended up with friends that were from these mixed
families.”
Chapter Summary
Providing children with a religious or cultural education involves negotiating
a plan that is acceptable to both parents. If religious institutions are viewed
favorably by the couple, involvement in a temple or church is seen as a way to offer
children exposure to values and a sense of community. When the participation is in
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Judaism, the emphasis may be on the cultural aspects of Jewish life, rather than
religious practice. Jewish parents may particularly value an opportunity to give their
children a sense of belonging, and a positive Jewish identity.
Interfaith couples regulate the religious influence of formal institutions as
well as that of kin and community. When spouses do not agree on the type of
involvement they want extended family to have in their children’s religious
upbringing, tensions arise. Most families have arrived at a balance point that each
spouse finds acceptable, if not desirable. Actions and reactions from grandparents
can arise at various points in the children’s growing years, with varying degrees of
intensity, but appear to stabilize with a level of acceptance once the age of Bar
Mitzvah has passed.
Interfaith couples react sensitively to input into the system that threatens their
internal balance and agreements. The importance of monitoring the religious
environment, particularly for the sake of the children, is emphasized.
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CHAPTER?
HOLIDAYS, RITUALS, AND RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS
Holidays and religions rituals provide families with opportunities to embrace
and strengthen their sense of religious and cultural identity. Events and celebrations
usually involve grandparents and other extended family, and serve to reinforce a
sense of tradition and connectedness. The visible indicators of holiday decorations
remind family members, and announce to passers by outside, of the faith traditions
that are valued in the home. Rituals such as a baptism or a bris announce
membership and affiliation to the larger community. Religious symbols - worn, or
on display—can provide a sense of comfort and identity. But there is always the
chance, in an interfaith family, that the same event or symbol that fills one member
of the couple with joy can create for the other intense feelings of discomfort.
Because traditions, by their nature, evoke memories of long ago in childhood,
choices made as an adult—such as agreeing to not have a Christmas tree - can
provoke unanticipated emotional reactions. Interfaith couples must negotiate their
way through a potential minefield of emotionally laden traditions and symbols.
Because American culture is overwhelmingly Christian, the holidays of that
tradition are clearly dominant. Christians do not have to know about Jewish holidays
and celebrations. Jews cannot escape knowing about Christmas. Holidays provide
an arena in which the contrasting experiences of majority and minority group
membership can play themselves out.
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A. Christmas
Six of the study families have made a clear decision to not celebrate
Christmas in their home. In keeping with their identity as a Jewish family, they do
not get a tree. Any Christmas participation takes place at the home of the Christian
grandparents, where it is typically explained as “grandma and grandpa’s holiday.”
The children might go to other relatives or friends homes to “help” decorate the tree,
but parents make it clear to their children that Christmas is not their holiday.
Two families, under the delegated leadership of the wife, have celebrated and
had Christmas and trees intermittently. Rachel and Wayne didn’t do the tree one
year when they were moving to a new house, and just never resumed the tradition. It
was “too much hassle.” Their children identify as Jews, none of them pushed to
have a tree again, and in their mostly Jewish neighborhood, they didn’t miss it. Amy
admits her discomfort with having a tree, mostly because she knows it upsets her
parents. “It’s something like emotionally inside that I can’t even explain.” “She gets
much more Jewish around Christmas,” observes her husband. But Amy thinks that
perhaps this year they will have one again. “I know my heritage,” she says. “But it
doesn’t mean that we can’t create something that’s just for us.”
When Christmas is celebrated in the home, it presents an interesting
opportunity for Jews who grew up without it For some Jewish spouses, Christmas
and all the accompanying symbols engender negative or uncomfortable feelings.
Others report a child-like sense of delight at finally having the holiday they’d always
envied as a child. Five Jewish wives spoke of the enjoyment they get from
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decorating the home in festive Christmas decoration, to the point where there
husbands tease them about “going overboard.” “I like all the decorating and
everything!” says Marsha. “I put like, fake snow down, I have little lit houses and
things, and lights. I go crazy. I’m totally into it!” “I love Christmas,” emphasizes
Janice. “Christmas is like—as Paul will tell you—it is like my holiday.”
A number of Jewish spouses reported having sad or negative memories of
Christmas as a child, feeling left out or lonely when they did not have a celebration
or trees and gifts. Now the opportunity to celebrate is appreciated and enjoyed. They
can be Jewish, and even raise Jewish children, but they also can satisfy the longings
or envy they remember. These spouses speak of not wanting to create for their own
children a sense of “the forbidden” which they felt about Christmas, as a child.
Only five of the 32 Jewish respondents grew up with Christmas trees in their
childhood home each year. Three more remember having a tree only once or twice.
For the majority of the Jewish respondents, Christmas trees and decorations were
introduced into their home life by their Christian spouse. For some it was a
delightful experience; for others it was initially awkward and uncomfortable. Some
spoke of how “hard” or “weird’ it was the first time the tree was in their home. Joel
remembers seeing a creche Ann Marie put out, and thinking “wow, get this out of
here!” Sam coped with his discomfort by not participating in decorating, and
making an effort to “ignore it.”
The Christmas tree is also a loaded symbol because many Jewish respondents
grew up in communities where Jews who did Christmas'or had a “Hanukkah bush”
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were sneered at. Having a tree in their home meant they had become one of “those
Jews”—and left them feeling vulnerable to criticism. Many Jewish spouses
mentioned how awkward and uncomfortable it was when relatives or other Jews
came to their home and saw the tree. Josh remembers that “it was difficult in the
sense that it was, you know, like, ‘oh my God, what are my parents going to think if
they come over to the house and see this Christmas tree?’” “I wanted to take the tree
and stick it into the closet when they came over! And then pull it back out,”
remembers Dena. Sherry admits that although she and Walter usually have a tree,
the December visit from her parents might have been “part of the reason we didn’t
have one last year”. “Ahaah,” said Walter. “You kept meaning to pick one up,
but... ?”
One of the main strategies for managing potential discomfort with holidays,
particularly Christian holidays, is to modify the meaning of the event or symbols.
Several couples who are raising Jewish children spoke of keeping Christmas but de
emphasizing the religious significance. Heather knew she could “never give up
Christmas,” although she is willing to raise her children as Jews. In explaining the
holiday’s significance to them, “I don’t not talk about Jesus, but I talk about it more
in the sense . . . that ‘in the Christian religion, you know, they believe in Jesus’ ....
But in celebrating Christmas, it’s really more the Americana part of it.” Kirsten and
Dan, who consider their home to be Jewish, also get a tree each year. “[But] we look
at it differently than maybe a lot of people look at their trees,” Kirsten explains. “For
us it just represents a day that we celebrate the joy of new life in the world .... It’s
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not a threatening symbol, because it doesn’t in any way challenge who we feel we
are as a family.”
Another way in which couples diminish religious differences in the holiday
season is to emphasize the commercial or secular elements, such as Christmas being
about Santa Claus and presents. Jenny, who is Jewish, and Dean discuss her love of
Christmas decorating:
Interviewer: You enjoy getting the decorations.
Jenny: Yes, and he’s the one saying, “don’t buy anything
else!”
Dean: Oh, she has — ! No, the piano comes down, that [area]
is a whole winter wonderland, and the whole thing...
Jenny: I change the towels and the toilet paper and—
Dean: But it represents—
Jenny: Santa Claus.
Dean: Santa Claus, right.
Some couples openly acknowledge that a Christmas tree, as perceived by the
Jewish partner at least, is a Christian symbol—and a potential source of discomfort.
Frances knows that “I can say to [Joe] until I’m blue in the face that a Christmas tree
is nothing more to me than this beautiful thing that smells good. And to him, it may
as well be Jesus on the cross.” But Christian spouses varied in terms of how ready
they were to accept that idea. For some it was very hard to understand that anyone
could object to a Christmas tree. It appears that the culture of Christmas as an
American institution has overtaken the religious association of Christmas,
particularly for Christians who do not consider themselves very religious. If they see
the Christmas tree as a non-religious, neutral image, how could their spouse not see
it that way too? Christmas is Americana, not a statement about beliefs. Keith and
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Mindy get a tree each year to respect his traditions and wishes. But he struggles to
understand why a Jew would protest against having one.
I guess I don’t view it all that much religiously. Maybe it’s a cultural
thing. A symbol of happiness. I think most people—I mean, it’s hard
not to smile at a Christmas tree. Most of them are pretty nice. You
know, it gives you a good feeling I think. I mean, if it meant, you
know, if it was like it was the Confederate flag and it meant
something evil? I think it doesn’t though .... It’s a different
religion, but it doesn’t have any sort of underlying weird, you know,
racism attached to it. So I think it’s pretty benign. I like it.
Other spouses spoke similarly of the light view they take of Christmas symbols.
“Just because you have red and green wrapping paper, doesn’t mean Christ is going
to walk through the door,” says Matthew, a Catholic. Randy feels similarly:
Just because you have a Christmas tree doesn’t mean you’re those
born-again, freaked out Christians! It doesn’t mean that at all. As a
matter of fact, the Christmas tree is not a religious symbol at all. You
know, I think it came from the Druids, who, you know, ah,
worshipped trees!
Christians who have stopped having Christmas because of their agreement to
raise their children in a Jewish home report feelings of relief as well as nostalgic
longing. Jill remembers growing up with a stepmother who is “like a Martha
Stewart” and “would do up every single holiday perfectly beautifully amazing since I
was a little kid.” Before she married Marty, Jill felt anxious and inadequate at
Christmas because she could never match her stepmother’s talent for holiday
decorating. Now, having a Jewish household, “we’re not doing Christmas, so I don’t
worry about i t To have that pressure off is nice.”
Missing elements of old traditions at holiday times can be painful. Lisa
reflects on how strongly she feels that nostalgic tug at Christmas time:
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I like a tree. I haven’t missed it, I haven’t wanted it in my house. But
then I think back. I used to, you know, when I was a little girl, I’d lay
under the Christmas tree and look up at everything and the lights. It
wasn’t about Santa, it wasn’t about what I was going to get. It was
just laying on dark winter nights and looking at the lights [sad; eyes
mist].
Grandparents frequently play a role in holidays, even if just by sending gifts
from far away. Several families spoke of giving children the gifts from Jewish
grandparents on Hanukkah and the gifts from Christian grandparents on Christmas.
When children are being raised Jewish, gifts from the Christian grandparents can
prevent them from being “left out” on Christmas Day. ‘The presents that my family
send down,... I save that stuff for Christmas morning,” explains Jill. “We open
presents Christmas morning from Christian people .... For me it’s just so it’s not
such a let down day.”
Frances, who agreed to a Jewish home without Christmas, recognizes that an
important part of what makes that possible for her is that her parents live nearby.
“And if I sort of need my Christmas fix,.,. it’s very easy to go there and go ‘God,
the tree looks so beautiful.’” She also is aware that, had they lived in Joe’s home
town surrounded by his extended Jewish family, “it would be much harder. I think I
would feel very, very sad and left out at the holidays. No matter how happy you are
364 days out of the year with the decision you’ve made .. . . ” The proximity of her
parents provides the support she needs to uphold her end of the agreement she has
made with Joe—and to help curb her craving to decorate. (“About three years ago I
conned him into putting lights around the house at the holidays,” she confesses.
“Blue and white lights. I could have blue and white lights around the house.”)
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Interfaith couples are much less likely than same faith couples to face
conflicting demands from parents and in-laws at holiday times. If it was convenient,
many families would spend the respective holidays with each sets of parents. But
sometimes even the most flexible and accommodating spouse finds it impossible to
give up old Christmas traditions, even if they become a source of stress on the
family. Adam takes Marsha and their children to his mother’s home four hours away
every year. “You don’t mess with Christmas,” he states. “Some things you don’t
mess with.” Sally and Chris experience their only interfaith-related conflict at
Christmas time, when Chris insists that they participate in his extended family’s
celebrations. Sally finds the logistical demands and the requisite gift giving very
stressful, and has reached the point where she no longer wishes to participate.
When Hanukkah and Christmas overlap, “it gets a little complicated,” says
Lisa. “We’ll do our five days of Hanukkah, but then on the sixth day we’re
supposed to be at Grandma’s to do Christmas .... We’ve had to be kind of creative
this last year about that.” Two families mentioned taking a menorah with them when
going to visit Christian relatives at Christmas.
It was not always a given that both sets of parents would be visited, even if it
meant that the couples raising Jewish children would do no Christmas. Travel is
undesirable during the winter holiday season, and three Christian spouses who are
raising their children without Christmas admitted that it is just too difficult to get to
their parents homes at that time of year. “Quite costly with three kids, taking time
off, it’s just a grueling trip,” says Wayne, at the prospect of taking his children to his
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family for a Christmas visit. “If I’m going to take a week off, Fm going somewhere
exotic. I work too hard.”
Two Jewish spouses who accepted the celebration of Christmas and trees
within the home specifically drew the line at decorations that could be viewed from
outside the house. “One of the things I asked Maria to do was to just not overdo it,
you know? I don’t really feel comfortable being one of those homes that people talk
about when they drive by and see all the Christmas decorations and stuff,” says Brad.
While willing to celebrate Christmas, making a public statement with outdoor
decorations felt like too much.
B. Passover
Unlike Christmas, Passover is a holiday that stirs up few unpleasant emotions
in the spouse who had not been raised in that tradition. The symbols and rituals of
Passover are often viewed by Christian spouses as “interesting,” and seders
experienced as a nice time of family togetherness. Some couples celebrate with
other interfaith families, which the Christian spouse particularly enjoys. Frequently
families go to the home of the Jewish in-laws. Several Christian wives spoke with
pleasure about learning to prepare the traditional foods and coordinate the seder meal
themselves. A few couples spoke of modifying the theme of their seders to make
them more inclusive. “For us that whole issue of Passover is celebrating the right of
all men to be free of enslavement. It doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish or Christian,”
says Kirsten.
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Bill, who was raised Catholic, reflects on his experience of learning about
Passover with his wife Leah:
Bill: I like the [Jewish] holidays, they’re very interesting to learn
about They’re, um, you know—because it was not something
I knew anything about until I met Leah. I mean, nothing. It
was just sort of an interesting thing to learn .... I guess
because Christianity is so dominant in society, it’s not much of
a—you never feel threatened ....
Leah: Well, you’re always in the majority.
Bill: Yeah, you’re the majority. So it—you know. I always found
it interesting.
This exchange also highlights the important point that Christians, as the majority
group in America, are free to not familiarize themselves with Jewish traditions and
rituals. Jewish holidays have never been imposed upon them. Furthermore, for
Christians, participation in even the most religious rendition of a Jewish holiday does
not require the them to set aside their beliefs. Christians can easily accommodate the
historical events that form the basis of Passover and Hanukkah. Jews cannot do the
same with Christmas or Easter.
C. Baptism and Bris
Unlike holidays which cycle around year after year, the religious ritual of a
baptism or bris is a one time event which can have deep significance for parents and
their extended families. Participation in either of these welcoming rituals with new
babies can indicate the direction parents plan to take with their children’s religious
upbringing. If Christian grandparents are distressed because their grandchild has not
been baptized, this can strain relationships with their children and son- or daughter in
law. Similarly, a grandchild’s baptism can be dismaying for Jewish grandparents. If
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the couple has not developed their plan for how they will raise their children, they
may be unable to decide about which, if any birth rituals they wish to perform.
Five of the families have had at least one of their children baptized. The
three families which are raising their children as Christians are among them. In the
other two cases, the baptisms were somewhat alternative, and not performed in a
church. In only one family of the five did both parents attend the baptisms together.
Neil felt he could not be present at his children’s baptisms because to do so
“would sort of sanction it.” He accepted Joan’s terms of raising Catholic children
when they married, but he was not willing to participate in Catholic rituals himself.
Denise had her children baptized during a visit with her parents, without her
husband’s approval. She had brought it up to him in the past, and he had objected.
She brought it up again, “and he didn’t say ‘don’t,’ so I did.” “I basically baptized
the kids for my parent’s sake,” she explains. “They felt it was necessary, and I didn’t
think it could hurt.”
Matthew felt a similar obligation to his mother, a devout Catholic, to have his
children baptized. Based on his own religious education, he determined that it was
not necessary to have them baptized by a priest. He knew that having a church ritual
would be too much for his wife, Amy. So he performed the baptism himself. Amy
was uncomfortable, and did not attend. But now, she says, “it doesn’t bother me. I
mean, I even joke with, ‘ you might as well baptize me too.
Only a few couples reported struggles over baptism decisions, but for the
parents who wanted to baptize their children and did not, it was difficult. As a
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deeply committed Catholic, Ann Marie feels she has made a tremendous sacrifice by
not having her children baptized. However, in honor of the agreement she made
with Joel to raise the children in both traditions and not place one above the other,
she refrained. It remains a painful issue for her, even now, with her children in their
teens. She has had to field anxious input from her equally distressed parents.
Marsha, Jewish, was concerned that Adam would want their children
baptized in deference to his mother, and she knew that was something she could not
tolerate. “I told him that was the one thing I was ready to draw the line over. I will
not baptize the kids.” She could not clearly articulate to him why; neither she nor
Adam consider themselves to be religious. “Just culturally in my religion, it was like
baptism was bad for some reason,” she says.
Joanne remembers that Randy’s mother requested that they baptize their first
child. Joanne asked what the meaning of baptism was, and was told it “takes away
the original sins of the child.” She didn’t accept that belief, and rejected the idea.
“If she would have said it’s welcoming him into the world and it’s a ceremony
welcoming him to this life, I would do that,” Joanne states. “But I didn’t agree with
that.... If I believe in the meaning, I can do it. But if I don’t, I can’t.” Randy adds
that there is another twist to their experience with baptism:
Randy: But then she does take her—this is a story, I’ll tell ya!
Her father, who is a participant of Self Realization
Fellowship, which is more a yogi-type thing, she takes
my son to visit him, and they have to baptize in that
kind of church, or whatever you call it!
Joanne: Well, the meaning of it—
Randy: The meaning of it is, it’s a celebration of life.
It’s—that’s their baptism.
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Joanne: Right
Randy: So he gets a little certificate from Self Realization
Fellowship that he was, you know, baptized in their—
Joanne: Because it had meaning to me. See, I don’t mind
doing the ceremonial stuff. You know, I could do
something Muslim . . . or you know, anything that has
some sort of meaning that connects somebody to their
inner spirituality. I think that’s a good thing.
Melissa, who is Catholic, remembers her efforts to negotiate a baptism for
her children with Ron. He refused, then reconsidered, but then refused again when
they learned that the church would require him to take classes and state his
commitment to having a Catholic household. Years later, their older son decided on
his own to have a Bar Mitzvah, and the temple they joined required a ritual
conversion to Judaism. Melissa remembers:
The next thing I heard was that [both our boys] will be going through
this ritual bath, and ah, then the ceremony will be on such and such a
day, and I went, “What?” And [Ron] said, “well, you know, as long
as we’re doing one we might as well do the other.” And I said, “well,
wait a minute. I thought we decided that we would let them choose.”
And so then again after a very heated discussion, he said, “well, I
understand where you’re coming from, and we don’t have to do it.”
And then I gave in, because I figured if [our younger boy] really
wanted to do this, it’s going to be so much harder for him to do it at
nine years old than now since he’s a baby .... And there was a part
of me that felt that going in the water was kind of like a baptism
anyway, so maybe that wasn’t so bad.
Of the 27 couples in the study who have sons, only four had a bris. Three of
those families were planning to raise Jewish children. One family was intending to
raise Christian children, but the husband’s strong wish for a bris for his son was
accepted by his wife. Almost all the couples with male children reported that the
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boys had been circumcised, but it was frequently explained that it was done for
“health reasons” rather than religious ones, and had taken place in the hospital.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, bris ceremonies were reported as difficult
experiences for some Christian fathers and grandfathers. “The whole notion of it
was disturbing to me, to say the least,” remembers Keith. “I didn’t really like it. But
you know, he would have had it done in the hospital, so that was fine.” Keith also
realized that the bris was only one of many concessions he would be making by
agreeing to raise his son in his wife’s traditions. “You know, in these sorts of
relationships, one person has to usually be a little more passive than the other. In
this case, it would be me. I think, really, if one person doesn’t have any objections to
it, then you just go with it It’s easier.”
D, M m tM m sM M m s , Symbols
In addition to Christmas trees and holiday decorating, respondents spoke of
feelings and reactions to other religious symbols, such as ritual objects or jewelry.
Often such objects were treasured by one spouse, and the source of discomfort for
the other. The negotiation of symbols in the most intimate domains of home and
partnership can be the most delicate to maneuver,
i. Christian sym b ols
Five couples spoke about the fact that they do not have crosses in their
homes, even in families where the Christian spouse is very observant. This decision
has been made because both spouses know that the Jewish partner would not be
comfortable having them displayed. Brad, who has agreed to Maria raising the
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children Catholic, specifically requested this. “I don’t feel comfortable highlighting
- to come into this room for example and see a big cross. Because I just don’t feel
like it’s a religious household. It’s a household, that happens to observe to a certain
extent. But it’s not dominated by religion.”
Ann Marie, who grew up surrounded by “comforting” Christian art and
images, realizes that similar displays would be “offensive” for Joel. Because they
are raising their children in both faiths, the house is not devoid of religious art But
Ann Marie modifies the symbols to make them less apparent. “I’ve chosen symbols
that are, I think, more respectful,” she says. “So for example, over the door as you
come in, there is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, a dove.” Their doorway also bears a
mezuzah, a symbol of Judaism.
Denise has a dove over her doorway also, and is happy with that symbol.
“Just for [Richard’s] sake, I didn’t want him having to get up and see a cross over the
bathroom mirror,” she states. Joan keeps her “religious things” in a closet, “out of
consideration” for Neil. Asked if he notices her things, Neil says “oh yeah. You
walk in the closet and it’s like a shrine. I keep looking for the relics.” But Joan
manages her competing desires for religious objects and her husband’s comfort by
keeping them out of immediate view, and in a private region of the home where
visitors would not go.
Perhaps the most delicate negotiation involves personal jewelry worn by the
Christian spouse. A cross worn around the neck can be difficult for the Jewish
partner to manage, and equally difficult for the Christian spouse to give
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up—particularly if the object has strong sentimental value. Marsha remembered
during the interview how disturbed she had been, when she and Adam were dating,
by a necklace he wore.
Marsha; When I first met him—Show her your necklace. His
mom got him this. It’s got—there’s a cross on one
side . . . and Jesus on the other. It’s solid gold, she got
it from Italy. And I saw that, and that bothered me.
Adam; Yeah, that used to freak her out.... I wear it all the
time. I wear it to sleep. I wear it all the time.
Interviewer: How did you know she was “freaked out”?
Adam: She told me! She goes, “do you have to wear this?”
Marsha: Yeah. [I’d say] “that thing freaks me out.”
Adam: She says, “can you take that thing off?” No. This is
what I wear. My mom gave it to me.
Marsha: But now, honestly, I wouldn’t want him to take it off.
Marsha was not the only Jewish spouse who had a difficult time with crosses.
When Keith gave their son a cross he had from his own childhood, Mindy told the
boy not to wear it when they were with her parents. “And I’m not proud that I feel
that way and that I can’t be more open,” she says. “It just doesn’t feel comfortable
for me.” Dean remembers vividly how adamantly Jenny opposed the costume
jewelry cross their teenage daughter bought during a fad inspired by the singer
Madonna.
It really struck me funny I mean, here’s [Jenny], who gave me a
Jewish star as a present. . . . And here it was, I’m sure my daughter
was totally wearing it as a design thing, not a religious thing
And all of a sudden, I just saw in Jenny that it was really. . . you
know, it was like “take that thing off!”
Randy reports that his wife Joanne, who is Jewish, once bought him a cross as a gift.
But it disappeared, and “I still think to this day she threw it away,” he says. Joanne
denies throwing it out, but she agrees that she became uncomfortable with it. When
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they were dating, it was fine. But later, her feelings about Randy wearing it changed.
“I think as we got married, and I got pregnant right away, and I guess it became a bit
of an issue, when I think about it.” The statement of Christian affiliation she felt the
cross portrayed was the problem.
Joan regularly wears a cross, but she removes it when they visit with Neil’s
parents. “I didn’t want to rub it in their faces, if I happened to sit across the table at
dinners,” she explains. But she doesn’t remove it for Neil. “He knows I’m
Catholic.”
ii. Jewish symbols
Just as Jewish holidays and ceremonies can be comfortably absorbed by most
Christian spouses, the presence of Jewish symbols in the home is not identified as a
source of tension. Christian spouses did not report as objectionable the mezuzahs,
menorahs, or other objects that were displayed in their homes. Nina reported that her
deeply religious Christian mother was so taken with the idea of a mezuzah, she
bought one and put one on her own home (“Your mom did?” laughs Josh,
incredulous).
Ritual candle lighting, either for Hanukkah or Shabbat, is described by
Christian spouses as beautiful and atmospheric. “I appreciate the aesthetics of it,”
says Matthew, a Catholic. “You know, lighting the candles is very pretty and the
children enjoy it. And we say a prayer to God, and that’s it.” All three wives who
are raising Christian children spoke of Jewish symbols they welcome into their
homes, such as dreydels for the children, mezuzahs, and Stars of David.
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The only reported negotiating over Jewish symbols involved food.
Bill: She doesn’t eat ham, but if I want a ham sandwich, that’s
okay.
Leah: Yeah, we have ham in the house.
Bill: Yeah. But what we don’t do is, you don’t bake a ham.
Leah: No. I never do that.
Bill: We don’t do that. I figure that is one thing I can give up, is
baked ham.
Chapter Summary
Holidays, rituals and symbols provide important opportunities for families to
embrace and affirm their religion and culture. In interfaith marriages, couples must
negotiate their way to a satisfactory arrangement that allows each partner to feel
included and recognized.
Christian holidays are dominant in American culture, and enjoyed by many
Jews as well as Christians, But Christians may have minimal awareness of how
comprehensively Christian tradition juxtaposes itself with American culture. This
can have ramifications for how understanding they can be when a Jewish spouse
responds negatively to Christmas symbols. For Christians, painful feelings are
engendered at the loss of Christmas. For Jews, the pain may be activated by
observing it. In general, Jewish holidays and symbols are accommodated by
Christian spouses without difficulty.
The Christian spouses who are religiously observant are the ones most likely
to own or wear Christian symbols as an expression of their faith. But because the
faith difference in their marriage has always been at the forefront of their thinking,
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they are sensitive to the significance these symbols bear, and make efforts to
accommodate their spouse’s feelings.
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CHAPTERS
CONCLUSIONS
The purpose of this study has been to learn about interfaith family process
and how Jewish/Christian couples determine and create religious and cultural
identities for their children. The literature has indicated that interfaith couples are
frequently viewed as problematic. It has been suggested that these families will
struggle or be unable to provide children with clear identities. They are viewed as a
threat to Jewish continuity. The prospect of an intermarriage can provoke intensely
negative reactions in parents, particularly in Jewish families. Given these
expectations, one of the more striking findings of this study is the low level of
spousal conflict reported regarding religion and the upbringing of children.
For the most part, the couples in this study have stable and satisfying
marriages. They consider their children to be confident, happy, and secure. The
plans and arrangements the couples have made for the role of religion in their lives
are generally settled, and do not necessitate ongoing negotiation. While some
tension does exist over religious involvement and observance, most of these couples
are not focused upon it as a major—or even minor—source of contention. Instead,
they present a challenge to the idea that interfaith couples are in an ongoing process
of conflict, and that children in interfaith families miss the opportunity to develop a
solid religious identity.
The varied approaches the couples have taken to addressing religion and
culture in family life provide an opportunity to see that there are several viable ways
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to organize religion in an interfaith family. Three styles of religious leadership were
identified in the sample: team leadership, delegated leadership, and secular
leadership. Each style may lead to widely different outcomes, and face challenges
specific to that approach. But couples featuring each style reported satisfaction with
their choices, and feelings of having the “best fit” for their particular family.
The theoretical perspective of family process, or family systems, enhances
our understanding of the balancing of religious identity that couples report within
the family, and their monitoring of transactions with larger family systems and
religious institutions across family boundaries. In a particularly insightful
assessment of family process, Josh explains why he thinks an interfaith couple whose
spouses are mismatched in terms of the importance they place on religion ( i.e., a
delegated leadership style) could have the greatest struggles:
If one of the members of the couple has strong religious views, even
if the other one doesn’t, I think that... could potentially be a
problem .... As opposed to having two strong views. I think two
strong views is almost better than one strong and one not strong ....
Because with... one strong and one not strong, my impression would
be that the person with the strong view would try to sort of take over
that territory. like you know, not necessarily convert that person, but
convert the household to that point of view. Where you have two
strong views, then I think at least in that scenario maybe you would
have more of a demarcation as to, you know, “you can go this far, but
don’t go past that line.” You want to have your religion, that’s fine
with you. You want to go to church on Sunday, that’s cool, you
know, go to church and all that. You want to go to temple on Friday
night, that’s cool too. But you know, you can go this far and no
further. You can go this far and no further. And you know, maybe
there is a line in the middle somewhere.
Although not predominant in this sample, it is easy to speculate that an
awareness of interfaithness can lead spouses to pursue more involvement in religious
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or cultural tradition and ritual than they would have in a same faith marriage. This
may reflect a desire to develop a common spiritual or moral “language” that they
cannot draw upon from similar backgrounds. There may be a strong push to retain
cultural traditions and identities that could be lost or “homogenized,” as one couple
put it, in a dual faith system. Interfaith marriage may present a threat to the stability
of the extended family system, and generate activity within that system to address
the imbalance. Grandparents may become more active in their efforts to share
religious traditions with grandchildren when the religious or cultural identity of that
grandchild is vague or unclear.
Regardless of religious leadership style, the couples in this study have
overwhelmingly chosen to identify their family orientation and their children as
Jewish. This finding stands in contrast to the numbers from the National Jewish
Population Survey of 1990 as reported by Phillips (1998), which indicate that 44% of
interfaith families identify as “Christian,” 32% are “dual religion,” and only 15 % are
“Judaic.” There could be many reasons why such a different family profile is
featured in this sample.
It appears that it is much easier for a couple to form a team leadership style
when the choice is Judaism. No couples in this study who are raising Christian
children are doing so as a team. The Christian upbringing in those families is highly
segregated into the domain of the Christian wife. If, as suggested by some of the
findings here, the embracing of Judaism is easier for a Christian spouse than the
embracing of Christianity would be for a Jew, the choice of Judaism for the family
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provides a potentially more comfortable arrangement for the couple (a key
component for this comfort, however, is that the Christian spouse places little
emphasis on Christ in his or her belief system). It is possible that couples which
adopt Judaism as the dominant faith for their family may be less conflicted and more
comfortable. Couples who are content and secure may be the most likely to volunteer
for a study such as this.
If a couple decides to have involvement with a religious institution and offer
their children a religious education, they may find that Jewish temples, particularly
Reform and Reconstructionist, make extensive efforts to welcome and acknowledge
the needs of interfaith families. Christian spouses speak of feeling welcome, of there
being “lots of other interfaith couples,” and of appreciating when the rabbi explains
the Hebrew or rituals for the non-Jews in the service. The outreach efforts of
organized Judaism may, in fact, be having a positive impact on their target
population—the intermarried who want involvement with organized religion.
Another possibility for the prevalence of Judaism is the demographic
composition of the Los Angeles County communities in which these couples live.
Significant and visible Jewish populations, as well as the prevalence of interfaith
couples, may enhance a couple’s willingness to raise their children Jewish. Several
parents who are raising their children in a secular home mentioned that their children
claim a Jewish identity, often in response to friendships with their many Jewish
peers.
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The couples in this study reflect the influence of gender in interfaith family
dynamics and decisions. The assumption that women seek consensus in relation
ships and value family connectedness is supported in the findings. Willingness to
adopt another faith and actively participate as a team leader, for the greater good of
family unity, is an attribute that characterizes many of the Christian women in this
study. Women are also widely viewed as the designated nurturer of children within
the family. If religious influence is understood as a form of nurturance, these
findings also support the traditional view of women’s family role. Most of the men
in this study seemed, by and large, willing to have their wives take the lead in the
religious upbringing of the children. However, Jewish men were more likely to veto
the form that upbringing could take (i.e., “only if it was Judaism”) than were
Christian men. The overall picture that emerges from the families which are
religiously involved is of the wife as the activating, motivating, and facilitating
partner, while the husband “goes along,” responds when asked, or sets his terms for
what he is willing and unwilling to do. Whether this reflects a general tendency for
women to place more value on religious involvement for families and children than
do men is unclear.
While the couples in this study challenge the idea that interfaith relationships
are filled with contention, they often mentioned that they could easily imagine how
conflicts and tensions could arise for other intermarried couples. Often, they
attributed their own success as a couple to being “lucky”—lucky that their own
parents didn’t pressure them, lucky that one spouse really didn’t mind letting the
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other be the religious leader, or lucky that “things worked out” even when they
didn’t plan it in advance.
The strong emergence of Judaism and a Jewish identity amongst these
families offers a mixed contribution to the debate over intermarriage which rages
amongst Jewish leaders. On the one hand, these results might be reassuring to those
who worry about Jewish continuity. At the same time, many of these families have
negotiated questions of identity or what it means to "raise kids as Jews" into non-
traditional forms. Some of the Jewish parents readily admit that their children will
not be "as Jewish" as they are. The Christian spouses have not converted to Judaism,
and there is frequently the presence of Christian influence in the home and family
life. The couples are fully aware of their interfaith status, and perhaps reluctant to
exclude one "side" or the other from their children's identification. The popularity of
the "half and half" identity challenges cultural as well as theological concepts.
Clinical Implications and Guidelines
The knowledge obtained from these couples’ experiences provides a helpful
basis for marriage and family therapists treating interfaith couples and families. As
the current rate of intermarriage for Jews has now passed the 50% mark, it is highly
likely that marriage and family therapists will encounter Jewish/Christian interfaith
couples in the course of their work, particularly in urban centers with large Jewish
populations.
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Interfaith couples may seek out the assistance of a marriage and family
therapist for any number of reasons, and may not identify interfaith issues as their
presenting problem. As we have seen in this study, interfaith couples can negotiate
satisfactory arrangements regarding religious involvement and upbringing,
regardless of how important religion is felt to be by either partner. As several
couples mentioned, they struggle over other matters but find their differences in faith
to be “a non-issue.” It is important, however, for a therapist treating an interfaith
couple to have an overview of interfaith family process and to know the potential
trigger points for struggle and conflict, even when the presenting problem is
seemingly unrelated to interfaith status.
Therapists may also be called upon to provide premarital counseling for
interfaith couples. At that juncture, the therapy may be focused directly upon
upcoming decisions and challenges related to raising children. Again, the therapist’s
awareness of interfaith family process can help guide the couples in their decision
making, not only in terms of religious choices for their children, but also by helping
the couple to think about the style of religious leadership they want to provide. The
therapist can help the couple plan strategies for managing input from parents and in
laws. By encouraging interfaith couples to acknowledge their feelings about their
partners’ holidays, rituals and symbols, as well as the importance they place on their
own, the therapist can facilitate a negotiation process and help to shape spouses’
expectations.
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In the following section, guidelines for the therapeutic treatment of interfaith
couples will be discussed. The information is based on the findings from this study,
and relies upon the expertise of the couples whose stories inform this research. They
are the true experts, and their advice to other couples reflects both what has worked
for them and what has not.
1) Recognize that raising children in an interfaith faintly is a difficult challenge.
Frequently and spontaneously mentioned by respondents in this study was the feeling
that “it would be so much easier” had they been a same faith couple. This was
observed primarily by wives, both those who are raising children in their own faith
and those raising children in the faith of their spouse. Helping couples to realize that
they have challenges to face that other couples do not can offer them support and
acknowledgement. It also can normalize the fact that an intermarried spouse might
have fantasies of what it would be like to be a same faith couple. Even spouses who
are raising children in their own faith (as opposed to their spouse’s) reported feelings
from time to time of longing “for the whole family to be the same.” “Sometimes I
feel that way, and I’m not sure why,” says Sherry. “Because he’s certainly not
fighting me about sending the kids to religious school, and he goes with me on the
holidays when I ask him, and... there’s no real tension or conflict. So I don’t know
why I think that sometimes, but sometimes I do.” Mindy notes that when she is in
temple and sees the Jewish men participating and “knowing the prayers,” it brings
up feelings for her that “it would be nice” if Keith were Jewish too. “But I’m tom,
because if it were that important to me, I would have married a Jewish man in the
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first place.” Summing up her thoughts about being intermarried, Mindy states, “I
think that it’s harder. Not in a bad way. It’s just harder. ‘Hard’ doesn’t always
mean ‘bad.’ It just is.”
2) Emphasize communication, respect, and flexibility. Frequently mentioned by
respondents as they suggest advice to other intermarrying couples, these general
concepts are the attributes they credit with their own marital success. According to
couples in this study, differences can best be managed by communicating about
them. “I think because of the differences, I think we worked extra hard to, you
know, keep it out in the open, and not make it an issue,” says Ruth, as she reflects on
33 years of marriage with George. Couples who develop an ability to communicate
openly and respond to change with flexibility and creativity are better able to cope
with the evolving nature of family development Agreements and plans that are
made at one point may need modification later. Unanticipated events and feelings
may necessitate re-negotiation of previously held arrangements. Therapy which
enhances couples’ empathy, respect, and openness to change will assist interfaith
couples as they face these challenges.
3) Encourage self awareness. An important goal in therapy with an interfaith
couple can be to address uncomfortable feelings or resentments which may be
impacting the couple relationship, despite the spouses’ best efforts to suppress them.
“People have to kind of know themselves well enough before they get involved in a
mixed marriage as to whether [religion] is an issue or not,” advises Scott. Bill states
that while it is important to be flexible and compromise in an interfaith marriage,
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“you have to know what actually does matter to you and not discard that. Because I
don’t think that you can pretend that something is not there and be happy for very
long.” “I think some counseling is also advisable,” suggests Sherry. “Talk to a
rabbi, go to a workshop .... It’s a good idea, because maybe you had these deep
seated feelings that you didn’t even know you had because you’re not so observant.”
Freeing the spouses to be honest with themselves and each other about reactions to
religious symbols, or feelings of being left out, or longings for more involvement in
religion than had been agreed upon, sets the stage for re-negotiation and hopefulness.
4) Be aware that interfaith couples live within the context of a Christian
majority. Christian and Jewish spouses, regardless of their respective levels of
religiosity, come from different points of reference to the majority group, which in
America is Christian. The Jewish spouse knows the issues of minority group
membership in a way that a Christian spouse cannot. Ether directly or through
historical association, Jews know persecution, anti-Semitism, exclusion, and
marginalization. These experiences shape group culture, and can create a divide
between “us” and “them.” While intermarried spouses have demonstrated their
willingness to cross that divide, their families —particularly the Jewish families—
may not share their level of comfort with “the other.” Negative reactions from
Jewish parents and in-laws can particularly startle Christians who are less cognizant
of minority group experience. Additionally, for Christians who are not very
religious, there may be less ability to understand how comprehensively Christian
holidays dominate American culture. The Christian spouse who views a Christmas
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tree as a benign symbol of American folk culture may struggle to understand how his
or her Jewish spouse could recognize it as a symbol of Christianity. Incorporating
the social context into therapy with interfaith couples offers a powerful means by
which to remind spouses that their relationship and family is impacted by larger
social forces that are constantly acting upon them. By assisting the couple in
exploring their respective locations in the social structure, they have a new way to
understand the different assumptions each brings to the marriage. This can also
serve to expand beyond religion or ethnicity as the designated source of conflict, and
to understand the experiences of the Jewish spouse and extended Jewish family as a
minority group within a larger culture.
5) Anticipate that religion can serve as an “explanation” for interpersonal or
relational dynamics. Interfaith couples have religious difference as an “easy
explanation” for problems that may arise within the family system. When, for
example, grandparents are intrusive with their efforts to exert a religious influence on
grandchildren, the couple may respond with frustration and resentment that is
directed against grandparents’ religious views. If instead, the couple can be guided
to think of strategies for buffering their family with loving but firm boundaries, they
can manage the matter of intrusiveness (which the couple has some control over)
rather than the religious beliefs and goals of the grandparents (which they have no
control over). If a couple persists in complaining about the religion or culture of
parents and in-laws, the therapist may wish to explore how the focus on religion and
culture is serving to avoid directly dealing with interpersonal relationships.
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6) Recognize when attitudes and behavior that are religiously and culturally
shaped are attributed to personality or character. This is a continuation of the
above issue. Spouses may bring beliefs and attitudes to the marriage that are a
product of religious or cultural upbringing, but not recognized as such. For example,
Joan, who is Catholic, described how she and her husband have distinctly different
views on forgiveness—an issue that impacts their parenting. “I have a strong belief
in forgiveness and people trying to give people another chance, and urn, I think Neil
thinks I forgive too easily I don’t know how much of it is faith, and how much
of it is just different ways that people look at, at how you live out your moral
viewpoint.” Although not related to her marriage, Nina described a Jewish man she
had dated before meeting Josh. This man, a Jew, had stated that he would never be
willing to have a Christmas tree. Nina remembers that “it became really clear to me
at that moment that, you know, I really couldn’t get along with somebody who had
such rigid views. That kind of rigidity I wouldn’t be able to live with.... It was
just an illustration of how inflexible he would have been.” By interpreting this
Jewish man’s unwillingness to have a Christmas tree as an indicator of rigidity and
inflexibility, the lines between culture and personality are blurred. Particularly when
a culturally or religiously shaped response is interpreted as a negative character trait,
tension can simmer in a conflicted interfaith relationship. Therapy that helps to peel
apart the impact of religion and culture from character can help couples explore new
meanings. If a Jew’s refusal to have a tree is understood as deeply felt group loyalty,
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for example, rather than stubbornness or inflexibility, conflicted couples can soften
entrenched positions and stop blaming each other.
7) Emphasize family of origin relationships, and the expectations that are
brought into marriage. This is of particular importance for interfaith couples. An
interfaith marriage has the ability to create anxiety within the larger family system.
When parents and in-laws react negatively to the marriage, or the upbringing of their
grandchildren, they may be responding to a sense of threat, competition, or
discomfort with difference. When adult children choose to raise their own children
in a faith different from that in which they were raised, their own parents may feel
hurt and rejected. Family therapy based on Bowenian theory, which emphasizes the
reduction of anxiety within the family system and the development of mature,
differentiated relationships with parents, can be particularly helpful for interfaith
couples (see for example, Papero, 1990). The use of genograms and the focus on
learning from parents about their own experiences and influences can provide
intermarried couples with an improved perspective and greater empathy for the
concerns of their parents and in-laws. This also provides a powerful way for couples
to appreciate the experiences of their past which influence their expectations about
couple and family life.
8) Understand that families which feature a delegated leadership style may be
particularly vulnerable to divisions, undermining, and alienation. One spouse
may feel like the outsider, and the other spouse may be frustrated that his or her
partner is an outsider. Therapists should be attuned to themes of exclusion or
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feelings of being peripheral in their children’s lives held by the spouse whose faith is
not represented. Although a spouse may “go along” with the plan of raising the
children in the other spouse’s tradition, divisions may be exacerbated when the
family is under stress. Several couples spoke of the tensions that arose while
preparing for big events in the children’s religious upbringing, such as a first
co m m u n io n or a Bar Mitzvah. The normally supportive spouse may reach a limit of
tolerance for the demands of the religious institutions before the delegated spouse.
Robin remembers preparing for her son’s Bar Mitzvah. “There were a couple of
moments when it was clearly more important to me than it was to Kyle. And I think
at one point he said something like, ‘this is your thing. I’m not Jewish.’ An angry
moment.”
9) Realize that couples who are not religions may be less prepared for the
impact o f culture, and have a harder time understanding it. Couples who enter
into interfaith marriage reassuring themselves that the issues of difference will be
minimal because neither spouse is religious, may not appreciate the power that
culture can exert from both sides. Because Judaism is simultaneously understood as
a culture and a religion by most Jews, the Jewish spouse may be better prepared for
cultural impact. But because “Christian culture” is at the same time pervasive and
Invisible, Christian spouses may not easily see the assumptions and expectations they
bring to the marriage. This is particularly likely when the Christian spouse is non-
religious. Therapy with interfaith couples may need to place extra emphasis upon
helping the Christian spouse learn from his or her Jewish mate, who can raise ’
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awareness of how Christianity infiltrates the culture that the Christian spouse may
see only as “American.”
10) Anticipate that painful feelings associated with Interfaith status may have
specific trigger times throughout the year. If couples are encouraged to recognize
the events or seasons that bring up feelings of discomfort, they can strategize ways to
manage them. For example, if the Passover holiday elicits feelings in the Jewish
partner of wishing he or she was married to another Jew, the couple may wish to
explore possible negotiations that will afford the Jewish spouse some comfort (e.g.,
the Christian spouse agrees to attend temple). The couple may, at a later time after
the holiday, conduct some sort of “coming together” ritual (such as a weekend away
together) to reconnect with the other aspects of their relationship that are unifying
and cohesive.
11) Encourage the modification of traditions as a means of fostering interfaith
family harmony. A willingness to create new meaning for old traditions, and thus
emphasize inclusiveness, was cited by study couples as a successful strategy of
compromise. Holding a Bar Mitzvah outside of the temple, and allowing the full
participation of the non-Jewish spouse (who might not be allowed on the bimah in a
temple) is a modification that emphasizes inclusion. Expanding the theme of
Passover to address “all oppressed people” is another. When Christmas decorations
are displayed in the home, but not outside in the yard, respect for the feelings of the
Jewish spouse is demonstrated. One couple spoke of physically separating the
December holiday symbols inside the home—Christmas decorations contained in
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one room, Hanukkah decorations in another—in an effort to acknowledge the equal-
but-separate religious theme valued in their family.
12) Encourage Interfaith couples to learn about each other’s religious roots.
Couples who familiarize themselves with each other’s faith traditions have an
additional tool for fostering empathy and understanding. Couples can take
Introduction to Judaism classes, widely offered in temples and synagogues across the
country. If not interested in religion, couples can study historical events, church
history, and other approaches to understanding both Christianity and Judaism.
Couples can also benefit from the numerous resources available to them that address
interfaith issues. Several couples in this study spoke of the benefits they found in
interfaith couple and family groups offered through their church or temple.
The participants in this study were asked what they would advise a young
interfaith couple who were considering marriage and a family. Their advice comes
from their position of retrospect, and realizing where they might have avoided
difficulty. “Probably they should talk it over more that we talked it over,” notes
Josh. “We were a bit lucky in that we didn’t talk it over and it really wasn’t an issue.
But technically, we probably should have.”
In addition to considering the clinical issues described above, therapists can
help premarital interfaith couples by encouraging advance planning, and directly
addressing potential problem areas. When an interfaith couple seeks premarital
counseling, most likely they are already considering these issues. The therapist can
offer guidance by helping them to clarify their unspoken expectations, their vision of
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what life with children will look like, how involved they want to be with religious
institutions, and how they anticipate managing input from their own parents. “Try to
imagine what it’s going to be like with children,” suggests Joel. Lisa advises that
couples “take the time to consider it real concretely ahead of time. It’s beneficial.”
A plan may change - “you’re always going to have to revisit it and work on it” -
but making an advance plan can help direct couples, provide a basis for their
family religious leadership, and prepare them for input and pressure from
extended family. “As a couple, I think you should make your choices, and make it
very clear to all the parties involved,” cautions Frances. Failing to deal directly with
extended family is “asking for problems.. .because then you are just opening up to
everybody’s random opinions and everything else.” “Just don’t let families push you
around,” advises Brad.
Even the best plans and intentions cannot prepare interfaith couples for
everything, and therapists can acknowledge that circumstances and feelings can and
will change over a life span. Feelings may arise after children are bom.
Grandparents will age and no longer be able to provide the holiday gathering at their
home. Couples need skills to help them accommodate to shifts and change in the
family system. “Just keep the communication open, and . . . be aware that things
could come up out of nowhere, when you least expect it,” says Melissa. “We
certainly didn’t expect—and still things come up here and there. Ah gosh, I don’t
know. I guess the summary is, expect the unexpected.”
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Directions for Future Research
The knowledge generated by this research contributes to our understanding of
interfaith family functioning. Because the data have been gathered from couples
who have developed strong marriages, effective parenting, and a viable arrangement
for managing their interfaith status, they offer additional models of healthy family
functioning. Three models of interfaith family religious leadership were developed
in this study.
Because these couples experience limited conflict over religious or cultural
differences, we still have limited knowledge about couples for whom issues of
difference are an ongoing source of contention. Because the sample was heavily
weighted toward couples raising their children as Jews, we have less information
about the experiences of interfaith couples who chose Christianity as their identified
family faith.
Our understanding of interfaith family process could be strengthened by
going beyond the couple, and researching the experiences of children and
grandparents. The couple’s co-creation of meaning and understanding about their
family may not be shared by these other important players in the system. With an
extended approach and separate interviews, including interviews alone with each
spouse, a more complex but informative picture could emerge.
This study was centered in a large urban area with a significant and visible
Jewish population. Interfaith marriage is also recognized as common in the area.
Research that includes the experiences of families in predominantly or exclusively
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Christian communities would add another point of comparison. Further research on
other forms of interfaith families, such as Catholic / Protestant, or any other form of
religious pairing, would further enhance our view by identifying commonalties
across faith lines.
Although not mentioned by respondents, their relative level of wealth may
buffer them from some conflicts by affording the family more resources. For
example, if the couple agrees to a religious education for their child, logistical
arrangements must be made to take the child to classes and meet the requirements of
participation. If one spouse is not working, and has the resource of time to facilitate
this, there may be no problem. But when both spouses are spread thin with work
demands and financial strain, the importance of a religious education my be re
evaluated. Tension can arise when parents don’t agree on how much of their limited
resources of time and money should be directed toward religious education. The
inclusion of interfaith couples of all class and education levels will broaden our
understanding of couple negotiation.
Another important direction for interfaith family research would be to
address issues of divorce and remarriage. How do couples handle the agreements
they have made when they can no longer operate as a team? Are families with
delegated leadership and weak support the most vulnerable to conflicts should the
parents divorce? How do divorced parents balance the needs of their children with
their own feelings about no longer being affiliated with Judaism, or Christianity?
What does the Christian wife, a former team leader with her Jewish husband raising
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Jewish children, do when she has primary custody of the children? And what
happens if a remarriage occurs? If her new husband is Christian and they have a
child together, how does the blended family organize its various religious
influences?
Longitudinal research would be particularly beneficial to the study of
interfaith family process, because it can reflect change over time. Studies which
include follow up contact as children grow would allow us to observe how couples
maintain or change their negotiations, and how the family system accommodates
change.
Overall, an understanding of interfaith family process broadens our vision of
healthy family functioning, and expands our understanding of adaptive response to
seemingly incompatible difference. Interfaith families deserve the attention of
researchers and clinicians, so that we might better help and appreciate them as a
unique family form.
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APPENDICES
A Recruitment Letter
B Recruitment Flyer
C Information Sheet for Interviewees
D Cover Sheet for Interview
E Household Income Chart
F Interview Guide
G Profile of Families
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APPENDIX A
June 26, 2000
Dear
Hello, my name is Marianne Callahan, and I am a Ph.D. graduate student in the
department of Sociology at the University of Southern California. I am currently
conducting research on interfaith families. You have been contacted because you
were a past participant in the interfaith premarital class, "Making Marriage Work", at
the University of Judaism. 1 would like very much to hear about your experiences as
an interfaith family in the years since then, and invite you to participate in the current
study.
The focus of this research is to learn more about interfaith couples who are raising
children. By "interfaith," we mean that one spouse identifies as "Jewish" (culturally
or religiously), and that the other spouse identifies as "Christian" (i.e., Catholic,
Protestant, etc; practicing or non-practicing). The study will only include parents
who have at least one child who has reached the age of seven (7).
Should you agree to participate, you will be interviewed together with your spouse. I
will be conducting all of the interviews myself, and yours would be scheduled at a
time and location that is convenient for you. The interview will last approximately
one and one half hours, and it will be audiotaped. In the interview you will be asked
questions such as:
• How important is the interfaith issue in your relationship and your family?
® How have you come to decide on your children's religious identity?
• What have you found to be difficult and what have you found to be positive
about interfaith marriage and parenthood?
• What insights or advice do you have for other interfaith couples and
families?
Your privacy and confidentiality is of utmost importance. At no time will your
identity be revealed, either as a research participant, or in the final written report.
Your name, and any identifying information, will be changed in the report, so that
your confidentiality is ensured. The audiotapes will be destroyed at the conclusion
of the project.
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As this is a graduate student dissertation project, no financial payment is offered in
exchange for your participation. However, your willingness to share your story may
provide great benefit to others by helping increase our awareness of the experiences,
challenges, and needs of interfaith families. You may also find that through the
interview process, you will have a chance to reflect on your own experiences and
decisions, and that this will be beneficial for you and your family.
If you do fiot qualify for participation in this study -- because you do not have a child
who has reached the age of seven, or because one of you has converted to the faith of
the other — please feel free to pass on this request for participation to any couples
you know who do quality. Participation is not limited to former "Making Marriage
Work" students, and any referrals you have would be greatly appreciated! A
recruitment flyer is enclosed.
I hope that you will agree to an interview, and I welcome any questions you have
about the study. I can be reached at (310) 306-XXXX, or by email: mhc@iisc.edii.
You may also direct questions to the faculty advisor, Dr. Constance Ahrons. Thank
you very much for your consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
Marianne Callahan, M.A., M.M.F.T.
Graduate Student Investigator
(310) 306-XXXX
mhc@usc.edu
Constance Ahrons, Ph.D.
Faculty/Principal Investigator
(213) 740-XXXX
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APPENDIX B
INTERFAITH COUPLES WANTED
to be interviewed for a USC research project
If you are a Jewish / Christian interfaith couple with one or more children, you have
expertise on the subject of this study of interfaith family life! We would like very
much to hear from you and leam about your experiences, and encourage you to
volunteer for this important research project.
What is involved in participation:
A one-time interview, approximately one-and-one-half hours long, together with
your spouse. You will be asked about your experiences raising children in an
Interfaith family, and other issues related to interfaith marriage. The interview will
be conducted at a location and time that is convenient to you. Your privacy and
confidentiality are ensured.
Qualifications for participation:
You and your spouse are married, and have at least one child that has reached
the age of seven (7) years. It does not matter how you have decided to raise
your child(ren) (i.e., Jewish, Christian, both, neither).
One spouse identifies as "Jewish", either religiously or culturally, observant or
non-observant
- One spouse identifies as "Christian" (i.e., Protestant, Catholic, etc), practicing
or non-practicing
- Neither spouse has converted to the faith of the other
No remuneration is available, but you will be making a valuable contribution to our
knowledge of interfaith family issues.
For further information, or to volunteer as a participant, please contact:
Marianne Callahan, M.A. 310 - 306 - XXXX mhc@nsc.edn
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Sociology, University of Southern California
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APPENDIX C
INFORMATION SHEET FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH
INTERFAITH FAMILY STUDY
Principal Investigator: Constance Ahrons, Ph.D. (213) 74G-XXXX
Student Investigator: Marianne Callahan, M.A., M.M.F.T. (310) 306-XXXX
Thank you for your interest in participating in the Interfaith Family Study being
conducted at the University of Southern California. My name is Marianne Callahan,
and I am a PhJD. graduate student in the Department of Sociology. This study is the
basis for my dissertation. You have been selected as a possible participant because
your experiences, and the decisions you have made in the process of raising your
child(ren) within an interfaith household, are very important to this study.
This study seeks to learn more about the experiences of interfaith couples who are
raising children. By "interfaith", we mean that one spouse identifies as "Jewish"
(culturally or religiously), and that the other spouse identifies as "Christian"
(practicing or non-practicing). The study will only include parents who have at least
one child who has reached the age of seven (7).
Should you volunteer to participate, you will be interviewed together with your
spouse. I will be conducting all of the interviews myself, and they will be scheduled
at a time and location that is convenient for you. The interview will last
approximately one and one half hours, and it will be audiotaped. Response to the
interview questions will constitute consent to participate in this research
project
In the interview you will be asked questions such as:
• How important is the interfaith issue in your relationship and your family?
• How have you come to decide on your children's religious identity?
• What have you found to be difficult and what have you found to be positive
about interfaith marriage and parenthood?
• What insights or advice do you have for other interfaith couples and
families?
Your privacy and confidentiality is of utmost importance. At no time will your
identity be revealed, either as a research participant or in the final written report.
Your name and any identifying information will be changed in the report, so that
your confidentiality is' ensured. Any iifprmation that is obtained in connection with
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this study and that can be identified with you will remain confidential and will be
disclosed only with your permission.
The purpose of audiotaping during the interview is to facilitate analysis by the
researcher. The audiotapes will be destroyed at the conclusion of the project While
the study is in progress, the tapes will be stored in a secure location to prevent access
by unauthorized personnel. Tapes and written notes will be assigned individual
codes so that your name does not appear on any cassettes or transcriptions. This is to
ensure your confidentiality.
You can choose whether to be in this study or not. Minimal risk is associated with
participation in this study. However, you may be asked questions that you feel are
personal or private, and you may chose not to answer them. You may refuse to
answer any questions you don't want to answer and still remain in the study. This is
your right as a participant, and you are free to withdraw from the interview or the
study at any time, without consequences of any kind.
As this is a graduate student dissertation project, no financial payment is offered in
exchange for your participation. However, your willingness to share your story may
provide great benefit to others by helping increase our awareness of the experiences,
challenges, and needs of interfaith families, You may also find that through the
interview process, you will have a chance to reflect on your own experiences and
decisions, and that this will be beneficial for you and your family.
If you have any questions regarding this study, please feel free to contact me, or the
faculty advisor Dr. Constance Ahrons, at the numbers listed above. I can also be
reached by email: mhc@asc.eda.
You are not waiving any legal claims, rights, or remedies because of your
participation in this research study. If you have questions regarding your rights as a
research subject, contact the University Park IRB, Office of the Vice Provost for
Research, Bovard Administration Building, Room 300, Los Angeles, CA 90089-
4019, (213) 740-6709, or upirb@tisc.edu.
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APPENDIX D
INTERVIEW COVER SHEET
WIFE
N a m e :________________________________
CODE
HUSBAND
Age:
Occupation:
Education: _
[ ] Jewish [ ] Christian
Affiliation?____________
[ ] Jewish [ 3 Christian
Affiliation?____________
First marriage? [ ] yes [] no,. First marriage? [ ] yes [] no,.
Kids from previous marriages:________ Kids from previous marriages:.
Previous marriage interfaith? [] yes [ ] no Previous marriage interfaith? f ] yes [ ] no
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Date of this marriage: Years married: Family Income code:
CHILDREN
Name:. Age: Gender [3 boy [ ] girl
Name: Age: Gender [] boy [] girt
Name:, Age: Gender f ] boy [ ] girl
Name:, Age: Gender [ ] boy [ ] girl
Children being raised as [ ] Jewish [ ] Christian ! [] Both
Affiliation, if any: _______ _ _____________
[] Neither
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APPENDIX E
HOUSEHOLD INCOME
A - under $ 25,000
B - $ 25,000 - $ 49,999
C - $ 50,000 - $ 74,999
D - $ 75,000 - $ 99,999
E - $ 100,000 - $ 124,999
F - $ 125,000 - $ 149,999
G - $ 150,000 - $ 174,999
H - $ 175,000 - $ 199,999
I - $ 200,000 or above
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APPENDIX F
INTERFAITH FAMILY PROCESS - INTERVIEW GUIDE
Couple Relationship
Tell me briefly about the history of your relationship.
How were your differences first viewed, by each of you?
Did your religious differences impact your decision to marry? If so, how?
Why did you get married?
Family and Friend Response
How did family and friends respond when you announced your engagement?
Did anyone in your circle respond negatively or try to dissuade you from marrying?
Were you asked questions about how you intended to raise your children?
How did you answer those questions?
Marital Preparation
Did you consult with a rabbi or a priest before marrying?
What did you get from those meetings?
Did you undergo any marital preparation program?
If yes, what do you remember getting from that?
Did it have any visible impact on the choices you made, or the way you are currently
raising your children?
Sledding
Who married you?
Were there any complications or unexpected problems with the wedding?
Children
Before children were bom
Before you had children, did you make a plan with regard to how you would raise
them, in terms of religion?
If yes,
- What was that plan? Was it easy or difficult to make this plan?
- How did you decide what to do?
- When did you make the decision?
- How did the plan work out?
If no,
- what do you remember expecting would happen when you had children, with
regard to Christian vs. Jewish matters?
At.gegg.Qt
What are you currently doing regarding the religious upbringing of your children?
Do you attend church or synagogue?
How did you choose the church or synagogue you currently attend?
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If you don't attend, what are your reasons for not attending?
Are there plans for future religions education or events for your children? (i.e. bar
mitzvah)
What do you tell your children about who they are?
What do they believe?
How do you explain to your (children the differences between your own religions
and families of origin?
Tell me about how you teach your children values.
Have your children ever surprised you with questions or thoughts about religion or
their religious identity?
What impact did this have on you?
Do you think a child needs a religious upbringing?
Critical Incidents
Have there been any specific incidents or life events that influenced how you are
raising your children religiously?
Observance and Celebrations
Tell me about how you handle the winter holidays (Christmas and Hanukkah).
Has this been how you have always done it? If not, how has it changed?
Tell me about how you handle the spring holidays (Easter and Passover). Has this
been how you have always done it? If not, how has it changed?
How did you decide what to do with regard to the holidays?
Do you have any regrets about how holidays are celebrated by you and your
children?
How do other family members influence your decisions regarding holidays?
Extended Family
Have there been other Interfaith marriages in your (respective) families?
If yes, what has the response been to those marriages?
Are your parents active in the upbringing of your children?
How do they manage the interfaith issues?
Have there been any problems / struggles regarding your parents and the religious
identity of the children?
How do both sides of your family get along?
Friendship Circles
Are your friends predominantly Jewish or predominantly Christian?
What about the friends of your children?
Do you have friends who are in interfaith marriages?
Do you discuss any of the matters we have been talking about with them?
What do they tell you about their own marriages?
What is a common theme that you have observed in other interfaith families?
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Negotiations, Decision-Making, and Struggles
How important is the interfaith issue in your marriage, today?
When, or in what aspect of your family life, do you see your differences most
distinctly?
How much of this difference is, in your opinion, due to your religions
backgrounds?
Is it hard for you to talk to each other about religion?
In terms of your different religious identities, what has been the hardest to agree
upon as a couple and as parents?
Do you fight or experience tension over these issues?
Are there issues that still feel unresolved?
What have been the most notable things you have learned about each other's
religions and cultures over the years that you were not aware of before?
Do you foresee any problems ahead, with regard to your children and the issues
surrounding religion and interfaith family life?
Gender
What role does gender play in these issues?
(e.g., transmitting Judaism via the mother, the role of women and men in observance,
raising of the children, etc.)
What about children and their identification with the same-sex parent, in regards to
how child identifies religiously?
Identify
What do you consider to be the "identity" of your family?
What is the identity of your children?
How has it been for you to raise the children in your faith?
What feelings has it brought up, given that you and your spouse are not of the same
faith?
(For the one whose relision is.not domimnt/recQmizedinthe family):
How has it been for you to have your children raised in your spouse's faith?
To have a different religious identity than you?
What feelings has this brought up for you?
Your CMM! s Fntttre
What will you want for your children when they are selecting a mate?
How do yoii imagine your cM!d(ren) will identify religiously as an adult?
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Should One Spouse Die...
How would that affect the way you are raising your children, in terms of their
religious upbringing?
Would anything change?
Have you discussed funeral and burial plans for each other?
What are they, and how would you go about addressing the religious elements?
Religiosity
How religious are you now?
What do you "call yourself" now?
Has that changed since you met?
What has surprised you about the way things have turned out, in regards to religion
in your family and for your children?
Describe to me your own religions upbringing.
General
What is the best part about being an interfaith family?
What was different/better/worse than you expected?
Do you have any advice for other interfaith families, or those considering entering
into an interfaith marriage?
Are there any other questions you thought I would ask, or that you wanted me to
ask?
Why were you willing to participate in this study?
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APPENDIX G
WIVES HUSBANDS Children Years Niamtjef of
JEWISH CHRISTIAN Raised As Married Children
Adrian Carl Jewish 9 1 (Boy, 11)
Joanne Randy Neither 16 2 (Boys, 14 & 9)
Sally Chris Jewish 13 2 (Girls, 13 & 10)
Janice Paul Both/Neither 24 2 (Boy 18, Girl 16)
Leah Bill Both 16 2 (Boys, 10 & 6)
Phyllis Mark Neither 21 2 (Girl 18, Boy 15)
Robin Kyle Jewish 15 3 (Boys, 16,14 & 10)
Rachel Wayne Jewish 14 2 (Boys, 14 & 9)
Jenny Dean Both/Neither 26 2 (Girl 24, Boy 19)
Sherry Walter Jewish 15 3 (Giri 10, Boys 6 & 3)
Amy Matthew Both/Neither 13 2 (Boy 8, Giri 5)
Dena A 1 Neither 12 2 (Boy 11, Giri 9)
Marsha Adam Neither 14 3 (Girls 12 & 7, Boy 8)
Ruth George Jewish 33 2 (Boys, 30 & 27)
Mindy Keith Jewish 20 2 (Boy 12, Girl 7)
Keri Justin Jewish 12 2 (Giri 12, Boy 10)
WIVES HUSBANDS Children Years Number of
CHRISTIAN JEWISH Raised As Married Children
Regina Barry Jewish 12 2 (Girl 7, Boy 3)
Carol Mitch Unitarian 11 2 (Boy 8, Giri 4)
Frances Joe Jewish 11 2 (Boy 8, Giri 6)
Kirsten Dan Jewish 22 3 (Girts 15 & 13, Boy 7)
Maria Brad Christian 13 2 (Giris 9 & 5)
Ann Marie Joel Both 20 3 (Boys 16 & 10, Girl 7)
Jill Marty Jewish 9 2 (Boys 7 & 5)
Louise David Jewish 8 2 (Giris 7 & 4)
Nina Josh Neither 18 2 (Boy 17, Giri 15)
Heather Scott Jewish 17 2 (Girl 13, Boy 12)
Melissa Ron Both/Neither 25 3 (Giri 17, Boys 16 & 8)
Denise Richard Christian 5 2 (Giris 9 & 5)
Martha Jerry Jewish 25 2 (Giris 13 & 9)
Lisa Dennis Jewish 10 2 (Giris 7 & 4)
Leslie Sana Jewish 29 1 (Boy, 23)
Joan Neil Christian 17 3 (Boysl5 & 8, Girl 13)
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Asset Metadata

Creator Callahan, Marianne Husby (author)

Core Title Interfaith family process and the negotiation of identity and difference

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Sociology / Clinical Marriage and Family Therapy

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,religion, general,sociology, ethnic and racial studies,sociology, individual and family studies

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Ahrons, Constance (committee chair), Crossley, John O. (committee member), Kaplan, Elaine Bell (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-92988

Unique identifier UC11337690

Identifier 3027698.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-92988 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3027698.pdf

Dmrecord 92988

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Callahan, Marianne Husby

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA