1. You picked a Jewish man because Jewish men are all such mensches. Uh, no. Some of them are Bernie Madoff, or the Son of Sam. The passive-aggressive undercurrent here is "you stole one of our boys away from some poor Jewish girl who won’t have a husband now."  Ignore.

2.  You’d better discuss how you are going to raise children before you get married. Duh. You and Mark, like my own parents, dated for many years before making the decision to marry. Extended courtship is typical of many thoughtful, mature interfaith marriages, precisely because it takes time to work these issues out. Yours is not a Hollywood fling-I am sure you have already had many conversations on this subject. To suggest otherwise is incredibly patronizing and not going to gain either "side" any points in the matter. Ignore.

3. You should convert before you get married. This presumes that one of you has to convert, and that it’s going to be you. My mother never converted, has been happily intermarried for 50 years now, does not regret the fact that she did not convert, and even has some Jewish grandchildren, for those who are counting. Conversion is a personal decision based on your beliefs and never something that you should undergo for the sake of others-and Jewish law is very clear on this point, so no rabbi has any business suggesting otherwise. Ignore.

4. Your children won’t be Jewish unless you convert. There are plenty of Jewish communities (Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, independent) that would be thrilled to have you as members if you choose to label your children as Jews and join a Jewish community. By the time you have children ready for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, the Conservative movement may have joined the patrilineal bandwagon as well. Many older Jews have a gut-level, tribal attachment to matrilineality, even if they’re Reform. But this is changing as a result of the demographic reality among younger Jews, and your children will have plenty of patrilineal playmates. In short, your children will be Jewish if you raise them as Jews-at least until adulthood, when all adults (interfaith or monofaith) get to make their own decisions about religious affiliation and identity.

5. Your children will be confused unless you pick a religion for them. There is zero objective research leading to this conclusion, and in fact there is zero objective research on this topic at all. Part of the problem is that most of the research has been conducted with a strong Jewish bias-often paid for by Jewish foundations. Many of us who are adult interfaith children see the benefits and drawbacks of choosing one religion, and the benefits and drawbacks of not choosing one religion. You should know that there is a growing movement of communities educating interfaith children about both Judaism and Christianity-you can find us in DC, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Denver, Boston and elsewhere. We invite you to explore this option.

6. Now you have to deal with a bossy Jewish mother-in-law. Can we please let go of this corrosive stereotype, please? Anyway, you were raised by one of the most powerful women in America. Obviously you are capable of loving and relating to strong women. Ignore.

Chelsea, mazel tov! If you need a rabbi and a minister who do great teamwork in DC, I can hook you up. If you want a supportive community, remember that there are communities ready to support you, no matter what choices you make for yourself and your children.

Fondly,

Sue Katz Miller

Happy Interfaith Poster Child

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Growing up, I didn’t know any other interfaith children except my own siblings, and we quietly passed as Jews in suburban Boston. Our Reform synagogue accepted my family-many synagogues did so, even prior to the official ruling on "patrilineal descent" by the Reform rabbinate in 1983. In 1976, I was even allowed to "have a Bat Mitzvah" as we said in those days. Because intermarriage was still relatively rare, no assimilation alarm bells were going off yet, and my family did not cause any real controversy.

Then I went off to college and met Reform, Orthodox and Conservative students, including Chabad proselytizers, who told me I wasn’t Jewish at all. A Conservative Jew I dated told me his parents would "rather have him marry a falasha." Jewish institutions, facing the increase in intermarriage, began to panic and push furniture up against the doors that wouldn’t stay shut, alienating interfaith couples and children. As my religious identity shattered, I groped for a way to put it back together into a new mosaic. Since there were no blogs or websites yet, no books yet written on interfaith children, I cast about for guidance or models. And I found that guidance in the mixed race movement.

In 2000, the US Census allowed Americans to check more than one race box for the first time. In making this historic change, they cited the work of psychologist Maria P. P. Root. Root is perhaps best-know for her "Bill of Rights for People of Mixed Race," a powerful manifesto. The first time I came across this Bill of Rights, I felt an electric current run through me. As my mind translated each line from "mixed race" to "interfaith," I realized that Root had unwittingly articulated exactly what I wanted to say about my own interfaith identity.

Recently, I wrote to Root and asked for her permission to publish my adaptation of her Bill of Rights. I put in italics the only words I changed. She immediately responded in the affirmative, writing, "You are right. It works beautifully."

Bill of Rights for Interfaith People

I HAVE THE RIGHT… Not to justify my existence in this world. Not to keep the religions separate within me. Not to justify my religious legitimacy. Not to be responsible for people’s discomfort with my religious ambiguity.

I HAVE THE RIGHT… To identify myself differently than strangers expect me to identify. To identify myself differently than how my parents identify me. To identify myself differently than my brothers and sisters. To identify myself differently in different situations.

I HAVE THE RIGHT… To create a vocabulary to communicate about being interfaith. To change my identity over my lifetime–and more than once. To have loyalties and identification with more than one group of people. To freely choose whom I befriend and love.

(Adapted by Susan Katz Miller, with permission, from the Bill of Rights for People of Mixed Race, copyright Maria P.P. Root, PhD, 1993, 1994)

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But yesterday, I tried to suspend my suspicions and personal complexities, and to some degree my irony, to go down to the National Press Club in Washington for the unveiling of the "Charter of Compassion." The Charter was created to unify and inspire people from every religion, and no religion, with the idea that we must put compassion at the center of our lives and world.

I was drawn in, principally, by Karen Armstrong, former Catholic nun and a religious writer both notorious and celebrated for thinking outside the box. As she told us today, "I don’t think belief is very important." A radical statement from a religious thinker, but one that works perfectly for me as an interfaith child who has spent a lifetime integrating two religions while being told that they are somehow mutually exclusive.

The Charter came about after Armstrong won the groovy TED Prize last year, and TED granted her wish to create the Charter of Compassion. Religious luminaries signed on to support the project, including everyone from the Dalai Lama to Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Three aspects of the Charter project, besides the leadership of Armstrong, made this more than just another typically sappy interfaith declaration: first, the hipster TED folks convinced Armstrong to let the Charter evolve through a massive online collaborative free-for-all: thousands of people posted ideas about what should go into the Charter. (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design). As a blogger, I was intrigued by this techno-savvy commitment to user-generated content, or crowdsourcing, in the world of ideas. At the press conference, Rabbi David Saperstein called this "one of the most collaborative undertakings in religious history," and predicted that it could have a "transformative impact."

Second, Armstrong specifically encouraged atheists and agnostics to be part of the process. The basis of the Charter is the idea that the Golden Rule is a central tenet of all major religions. But the acknowledgement of the importance and contributions of "non-believers," as President Obama affectionately calls them, is novel and daring.

Third, the Charter itself includes some edgy statements. For one, it calls on us to acknowledge that "any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate" and that some of us have "increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion." So very true, but strong stuff that. At the press conference, Armstrong said she was determined not to "try to mask the less than flattering aspects of religion."

The charter also calls on us to "ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures." That is music to the ears of interfaith families who brave the disapproval of religious institutions to educate their children about even two religions

In the last forty-eight hours, the Charter has been unveiled and mounted on the walls of houses of worship, and secular spaces, including the the Sydney Opera House, the Garden of Forgiveness in Beirut, the Ramallah Friends Meeting House, and both the National Cathedral and the Washington Hebrew Congregation in DC. Around the world, today and through the weekend, communities are staging readings of the charter, a sort of benediction and charge to mobilize interfaith love. Suspend your snark-o-meter and read it. I expected platitudes, and instead encountered bracing challenges and frank talk.

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So why do my husband and I insist on Jewishness in our family? Why do we light Shabbat candles, teach our kids Hebrew and schlep them to synagogue? Why don’t we give in to the inevitable, dominant, Christian culture? For all the same reasons that many half-Jews continue to identify as Jews:

• "Passing" doesn’t work. Everyone’s going to assume you’re a Jew anyway if you’re a scrawny, brainy redhead with a mom named Katz. (That would be my kids).
• The Who-is-a-Jew-mishigas. Jews disagree on patrilineality, and the litmus tests for Jewish practice, so why not play by our own rules, and claim Judaism whether anyone likes it or not.
• Minority identification. Empathizing with the underdog will make us stronger.
• Guilt. We really do care whether Jews disappear from the face of the earth.
• We Love Judaism. Read my list of 10 reasons why.

On the other hand, we resent having our religious status defined by a Jewish percentage, while the rest of the family counts for nothing. We don’t define ourselves by diminishing Jewish fractions and my children don’t call themselves quarter-Jews.  Really, it’s a horrible image, and for me, brings to mind being drawn and quartered.

So if we refuse to define ourselves as fractional Jews, who are we? We’re an interfaith family, and we’re part of a growing interfaith community. My children are second-generation interfaith children, hybridized, whole and robust, and proud of it. As interfaith children, we see ourselves at the center of a religious Venn diagram, but reserve the right to travel from one part of the diagram to another in the course of a minute or a lifetime. Just as Jews do, we interfaith children claim special gifts, special status and our shared unique history.

And some of us insist on our right to immerse ourselves in Christianity as well as Judaism–to understand both sides of our heritage from a theological and cultural perspective. I am aware that even the Reform rabbinate forbids this. But rationally, does it make sense to withhold this knowledge from children who are three-quarters Christian? A few brave Jewish scholars and rabbis now encourage all Jews to study Christianity. Frankly, the whole concept of denying access to knowledge doesn’t feel kosher, doesn’t feel Jewish. Perhaps that’s why interfaith communities designed to teach both Judaism and Christianity to children are proliferating and thriving, whether religious institutions approve or not. We even have the chutzpah to claim that this teaching is not only good for our children, but good for the Jews.

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