Are you a girl who is interested in building friendships with other girls who are not Muslims? Would you like to learn new skills, but not with Jews? Are you against reproductive, gay, and transgender rights? Have your parents examined their consciences, and determined that purchasing Girl Scout cookies negates the values of the Gospel? Then the American Heritage Girls (sic!) are the group for you! In joining, you can personally participate, with the help of well-meaning and irrevocably prejudiced adult mentors, in turning back the clock on human rights, and in undermining an over one hundred year old organization historically committed to empowering girls and women.

The media has covered the recent decision by the archdiocese of Kansas City to definitively cut ties with the Girl Scouts. While the Catholic Church has long been a major sponsor of scouting troops, their hierarchy has more recently stated their aggressive opposition to the Girl Scouts U.S.A.

In 2016 the St. Louis archdiocese took the more tentative step of discouraging Catholics from participation in Girl Scouting, even suggesting that they refrain from buying the delicious cookies which support secular humanist values. An FAQ section on the St. Louis archdiocese website explains concisely the root of the problem: Girl Scouts U.S.A. is affiliated with WAGGGS, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, an internationalist group with border-transcending powers to advance its agenda, including gay and transgender rights, sex education, and access to birth control.

Lest you misunderstand the mission of this global conspiracy, the St. Louis website explains it to you: “Once again, we see ‘reproductive’ as code language; these groups are really advocating for access to abortion and birth control.” The male hierarchy of the Catholic Church has explained to its members that the scary code word “reproductive” must be handled in quotes.

If you were not scared off Girl Scouting by this point, the website “reproduces” (sorry!) the above Instagram image (originally a gif) which GSUSA posted after the Supreme Court upheld marriage equality: the phrase “Love Wins” in multicolored letters above a sea of dancing cookies.

Yet the most disturbing attribute of Girl Scouting to some of the Church hierarchy is not sex without the possibility of reproduction, but rather encouraging girls to emulate strong role models. Both the St. Louis and Kansas City archdioceses single out two women as particularly antithetical to Catholic values: Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. These Jewish feminist leaders embody everything which the Church views as destructive: female social and economic independence, reproductive rights, and international advocacy on behalf of women’s and human rights.

So what’s a Catholic Girl Scout to do?  To be clear, any religious group has a perfect right to develop its own youth program, strictly dedicated to advancing specific beliefs and principles. Yet Catholic participation in GSUSA had always been predicated on the special character of Girl Scouting as a movement which is flexible in accommodating each girl’s faith tradition, as well as in providing opportunities for girls of different religions to celebrate what they share in common. The Girl Scouts have even designed religious recognitions, pins which girls may earn for dedication to their own traditions: Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, many different Protestant denominations, and Roman Catholic.

However, this encouragement of religious diversity no longer seems to meet the needs of the Catholic Church, which has suggested as an alternative organization the dishonestly named American Heritage Girls. Unlike GSUSA, an inclusive organization which has, since 1993, allowed Girl Scouts to substitute an alternative name, phrase, or idea for service to God in their official pledge, the AHG, around since 1995, is explicitly Christian. Its “Statement of Faith” demands belief in a triune God (the three in one version not shared by Jews, Muslims, and other faiths), and also asks girls to pledge to “reserve sexual activity to the sanctity of marriage,” defined as, you guessed it, “between a man and a woman.” (It is significant that a program allegedly appalled by the sinister values of a secular society asks young girls to explicitly address sexuality in a way which is completely outside of the scope of traditional Girl Scouting.)

There are many disturbing aspects of this alternative to Girl Scouts U.S.A. Founded in 1912 by Juliette Gordon Low, Girl Scouting was created as an affirmation of the ability of girls and women to participate in all spheres along with men: technology, outdoor activities, scholarship, culture, arts. Perhaps the most outrageous component of the American Heritage Girls is their appropriation of role models for their “Level Awards.” This attempt to co-opt American icons as part of an indoctrination program in anti-American values includes the Sacagewea, Lewis and Clark (they’re not even girls!), and, perhaps most reprehensibly, Harriet Tubman awards. In an alternative version of “American heritage,” the courageous Native American guide confronting U.S. expansionism, and the soldier of abolitionism and the Underground Railroad, are models of idealized “purity” and adherence to retrograde values which limit the choices of women. (Sacagewea was born into a Native American faith tradition; it is unclear whether her “marriage” as an adolescent to Toussaint Charbonneau promoted her belief in a triune God.)

If you are wavering between GSUSA and the AHG, perhaps it is time to buy some cookies, and enjoy them while reading or re-reading the Girl Scout Law:

Girl Scout Law

I will do my best to be
    honest and fair,
    friendly and helpful,
    considerate and caring, 
    courageous and strong, and
    responsible for what I say and do, 
and to 
    respect myself and others, 
    respect authority,
    use resources wisely,
    make the world a better place, and 
    be a sister to every Girl Scout.

The post ‘American Heritage Girls’— It’s Girl Scouts. For Bigots! appeared first on Jewcy.

I was 17, I had overslept, and I was late for my boyfriend’s brother’s christening. The service was just beginning as I slipped into the church and quickly sank into an aisle seat toward the back.

I looked around—this was my first Catholic service, and I was curious as to what I would see. People stood up; I stood up. People sang hymns; I read along in the hymnal. People knelt; I stayed seated, hoping I wasn’t offending anyone.

Everyone stood up again and, row by row, filed into the aisle leading toward the front of the crowded church. I hadn’t quite heard—or understood—the priest, and for whatever reason, I failed to ask anyone around me what was going on. Uneducated as I was about Catholicism, I actually thought, “This must be the part in the service where everyone goes up to look at the baby.” When it was my row’s turn, I led the way into the aisle.

I was almost at the front when the truth revealed itself to me: everyone was presenting themselves to the priest to receive Communion.

The Holy Eucharist is one of seven Roman Catholic sacraments, or sacred ceremonies.  Catholics believe in the doctrine of “transubstantiation,” which states that when the priest blesses or consecrates the Communion, that bread and wine mystically and miraculously become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. I didn’t know that at the time, but I had seen enough movies to know that this was a very holy ritual. I had also learned in history class and Hebrew school that Catholic Communion was a symbolically weighty thing for Jews—many have died over the centuries for refusing to take it.

Now, no one was forcing me to take it, not even a little. But by the time all these thoughts  had swirled together in my mind, I was face-to-face with the priest’s kind smile, his hand extending a wafer to my inexplicably open palm. I glanced back at my boyfriend, his parents, and his six younger siblings, and my memory is that their shocked faces matched my blanched one. Still holding the wafer, I took a step away, thinking, “I can’t eat this.” But then, panicked, I realized I couldn’t keep it or throw it away either. I took a breath.  I put the wafer in my mouth. It was smooth, flavorless. It dissolved instantly.

When I told my parents the story later that day, my mother urged me not to worry about it. I had erred on the side of politeness, she said—a better course of action than making a scene (i.e. trying to return the wafer, saying “No, thank you” to the priest, etc).

But my father, who rarely lost his cool about anything, went berserk. The fact that it was an honest mistake didn’t change the shamefulness of it in his eyes. I was a Jew, and I had taken Catholic Communion. With that one action, I had violated the most fundamental principles of Judaism, and validated a set of beliefs that are absolutely outside the boundaries of Jewish thought. Just as upsetting to him—if not even a little more—was that I had insulted Catholic belief and practice around one of the religion’s most sacred rituals.

In the wake of that dramatic conversation, I felt the responsibility of being a Jewish adult in a new way. I now understood that I’d need to be more upfront about what I was and wasn’t willing to do in religious contexts. Being polite and respectful was still a high value for me, but not mutually exclusive with the fact that I might need to say no to some things, or make special arrangements at certain events to find a way to be part of someone else’s celebration without betraying my own faith.

*

That was 23 years ago, and since then I’ve attended Harvard Divinity School, became a professional religion writer, and developed a solid hold on how to be true to myself as a Jew when attending the religious observances of another faith. But it hasn’t always been easy to find ways to assert my comfort level in the context of another faith when I’m being directly asked to participate.

After all, most religious participation situations involve the joyful life events—specifically weddings and baptisms—of people I care deeply about, and who have honored me by asking me to be part of their celebrations as wedding attendants or godparents. Saying, “Wait, I can’t do ______ because Jews don’t, plus I want to be respectful to your faith,” can come off as disingenuous, or at least annoying, when a friend just has you down for ‘Bible reading’ at their church wedding.

My very first time as a bridesmaid, the presiding Lutheran pastor required that attendants bow before standing beside the bride and groom at the altar. This was many years ago, and the Communion mistake was fresh in my mind when I told my friend I wasn’t comfortable participating in that part of the service. My objection prompted a one-on-one meeting with the pastor, during which I offered to withdraw from the wedding party if necessary because I wasn’t going to be able to bow at the altar. Happily, the situation was resolved smoothly, and I was allowed to pause respectfully instead of bowing before taking my place beside the bride.

Positive outcome—and a friendship that’s now entering its third decade—notwithstanding, that dialogue was strained, and I still feel bad I brought stress, or at least one more thing to deal with, into the wedding planning. But I don’t feel bad for declining to take part in that ritual. I could have just done it and told myself it didn’t mean anything, but I had learned that religious behavior is inherently meaningful. For me, in the shadow of my Communion moment, the decision to take a religious action would either matter all of the time or it never would matter at all. I felt pulled toward the former.

A few years after that wedding, the same pastor baptized my friend’s son, with my husband and me as his godparents. We had reviewed the text of the ceremony beforehand (and consulted our rabbi), and felt like it was something we could feel comfortable and proud doing. Almost 13 years in, our relationship with our godson has become both broad and deep, and entirely devoid of interfaith discomfort. If anything, our different perspectives have enriched our conversations about things like family, friendship, and honesty.

Some other simchas I’ve participated in have required similar negotiations, but people celebrating joyous life events almost always have an open attitude toward, for example, assigning me the “Old Testament” reading at a Catholic wedding; or, as when my husband was the best man at an Episcopal wedding, inviting him to stay standing when the other members of the wedding party knelt to receive Communion.

*

Sometimes, though, there’s no time for advanced conversation about the religious content of a service. Sometimes you’re 17 years old, propelled forward by the Catholics queued up behind you. Sometimes you have to make a decision in real time. And sometimes you make the wrong choice.

But I’m actually grateful for the Communion incident, because it taught me to take religious rituals—both my own and others’—seriously.  It motivated me to learn to articulate my understanding of what Judaism asks of me, and to really listen to what others’ faiths ask of them. And most meaningfully of all, it put me on a path toward being truly able to celebrate life’s blessings—in good faith.

Holly Lebowitz Rossi is a freelance writer based in Arlington, Massachusetts.

(Image: Shutterstock)

The post Once, I Accidentally Took Catholic Communion. Is that Bad? appeared first on Jewcy.

The first time my partner asked me to come home with him to meet the parents, I couldn’t have been happier. A relationship milestone so soon after we’d started dating held such promise. Plus, I had it on good authority that his previous girlfriend, whom he’d dated on and on-and-off for nearly two years, had never had the pleasure. So, when we packed our bags for that first Thanksgiving in Florida, I felt far more excited than nervous. Parents tend to like me. Except this time, it occurred to me, I already had one strike against me: I wasn’t Jewish.

When my partner and I began dating, I was only vaguely aware of his Jewish background. Unless the name ended in “Stein” or “Berg,” I didn’t have a clue. I’d grown up in a suburb of Buffalo, NY and I simply didn’t have a lot of exposure to Jewish people. Of course, it didn’t help that I’d attended Catholic schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

My friends and family were a bit taken aback when I announced that I was dating a Jewish guy from Long Island, given that my past serious relationships had been with men of African descent. Steve was short, funny (funnier than anyone I’d ever met) and extremely ambitious, and sometimes, when he grew animated, he’d adopt a Brooklyn accent, learned from his father and perhaps leftover from his first few years as a boy in that borough. I remember early on in our courtship a friend remarking that Jewish guys were great “because they really know how to treat a woman well.” I learned that they were also stereotypically regarded as ‘mama’s boys.’

I became fascinated by the all of the ways in which Jewish culture is characterized and defined—especially since some secular Jews offhandedly dismiss the religious component. My partner is not a serious practitioner of his faith, which I am grateful for, I suppose, not that I would’ve minding his going to temple regularly or seriously honoring the Jewish holidays or even fasting—though keeping a kosher kitchen would’ve been a big adjustment for me. Since I’m not a practicing Catholic, the two of us on the religious fence somehow seems more manageable than one or both of us strongly devout.

Eventually, as the relationship progressed—that first meeting of the parents behind us—we began speaking in earnest about our future. It had been clear early on that the relationship had legs, and as we both wanted to get married eventually, I started pressing him about what that would mean for us, a Jewish boy and a Catholic girl: What kind of ceremony would we have? Where would we do it? Would he want me to consider converting for him? I assumed I knew the answer to the last question—no—since my partner’s belief in a higher power is more muddled than my own fluid thoughts on the subject, but when we got to discussing how a non-denominational ceremony would affect our parents, he nonchalantly told me that on the day his sister had married her husband, who was raised Catholic like me, his mother had said, “Well, he’ll never be one of us.”

His mother, tiny and chatty and sweet, but not effusively so, could also, apparently, be quite cutting. I had spent little time with my partner’s family, but I hadn’t sensed anything odd or off about his brother-in-law’s interactions with the Jewish family he’d married into.

Anyway, what did that even mean? ‘Not one of us’? I reasoned that converting to Judaism was a moot point for me—for us—unless we decided to have kids, and neither of us wants children. In my few visits to Florida, I’d never received the cold shoulder from his mother, but neither had I gotten a sense that she was interested in me all that much either. Was she just waiting for him to settle down with a nice Jewish girl? Perhaps she saw me as temporary.

As it was obvious to both of us that I wasn’t going anywhere, I boldly broached the topic with my partner.

“So, were you supposed to marry a Jewish girl, or what? Did you parents ingrain that in you when you were growing up and started dating?”

Accustomed to my out-of-the-blue questions, he simply looked up from his laptop and said that although it wasn’t an issue that had been discussed directly, it was implied. “I don’t remember anybody saying this outright,” he admitted, “but it was definitely the model I grew up with.”

Uh huh. Seeing the confused (and, I don’t know, hurt?) expression on my face, he pulled me onto his lap and promised me that he didn’t care, that he wouldn’t be disowned or anything like that.

“You’re my little shiksa,” he said affectionately, and though I understood the root of the word to be derogatory, I heard it as a term of endearment.

I began to wonder if his mother had simply given up on his marrying one of his own, or if perhaps I was just fooling myself. While I was happy to celebrate Hanukkah with his family last year (when the first night of it happened to fall on Thanksgiving), I don’t really get it, nor, if I’m being honest, do I care to. And yet, maybe that was the exact problem. The not caring would certainly peg me as an outsider. If he were any more invested in his faith though and wanted me to take the same interest in it as his other passions—baseball, Marvel comic book movies, barbecue—I certainly would.

On Christmas Eve at my house, when my large, boisterous family partakes in a meatless Polish meal as is tradition on this holiday, and my meat-loving man says he thinks the pierogis should be stuffed with pork or beef and not just potato, cabbage, or cheese, I patiently try to explain that that’s our way. There’ll be a roast on Christmas day, I assure him. There, he’s the outsider, but it’s in such a small way and on a such a small, insignificant level (to us, at least) that I hardly think it matters or even really affects him.

My family has embraced him as far as I can see. There was a time when my parents would have been adamant about my marrying a Catholic man (or at least a Christian), but as time’s gone by, and my faith has lapsed, it’s been years since my father has threatened not to pay for a wedding if it’s not in the church. My sister, who married a Presbyterian three years ago, chose to have a traditional Catholic ceremony because she says, “Mom would’ve been crushed if I hadn’t.” It was just easier that way.

Converting to Judaism, however, would not be so cut and dry. The little I’ve read on the subject is enough to tell me that it would require a great amount of discipline and education, not to mention a renunciation of the religion I’ve been immersed in since I had water pored over my head in a baptismal ceremony 33 years ago.

When the time comes for us to take that next step, we’ll have to take a united front. Our wedding will probably be in Brooklyn—not in my hometown or in his family’s current place of residence, but in our home. The slight sting of not being “one of them” according to his mother may always be felt, but as long as my partner’s on my side, it won’t matter.

Stacey Gawronski is an editor at Refinery29. Her work has appeared in The Huffington Post, New York Family, Yahoo Shine!, The Billfold, xojane, and more. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their dog, Odie.

Related: I Hid My Non-Jewish Boyfriend From My Family For Over A Year

(Image: The OC‘s Seth and Summer, one of the most famous interfaith couples of all time.)

The post Interfaith Dating: I’m Catholic, He’s Jewish—And We’re Just Fine With That appeared first on Jewcy.

Actress Elizabeth Banks, most recently seen in The Hunger Games and Pitch Perfect (which she produced with her husband), sat down with Marc Maron this week for his WTF Podcast, and their conversation was pretty interesting. Banks is sharp and funny and calls the Olsen twins elves. She also opens up about her working-class Catholic upbringing in Pittsfield, MA, and eventual conversion to Judaism.

“So you met a Jew at Penn,” Maron offers a little after the 30 minute (!) mark.

“Yeah, it’s real hard,” she quips. “It’s like, throw a dart.”

There were a few Jewish kids at her high school, she explains, but most of them lived on the other side of town and went to a different middle school, so she didn’t meet them until they got to high school—which meant no bar mitzvahs for her, sadly.

“So how’d you make the ship from Jesus to Jew?” Maron asks at minute 35.

The story is sweet. Banks met Max Handelman, her future husband, her first day at college. They kept running into each other, and one night she ended up at one of his AEPi frat parties. (She says the ZBT guys were douches from Long Island who all work on Wall Street now. Also I love her.) They went on a date to a jazz club in Philly—it was one of her first rides in a taxi—where they drank bourbon and didn’t get carded. She made the first move, “and then it just went from there.”

“Now was there pressure on you to be a Jew?” Maron asks, before calling Banks a “shiksa goddess Jew.” (“People love that when the shiksas come over,” she fires back.)

“No religion meant as much to me as Judaism meant to my husband,” Banks explains. There were also the in-laws. “We got married after 10 and a half years, and for the first five years I’m positive that his father did not learn my last name,” she says. “I’m positive that his dad was like, ‘This is Portnoy’s Complaint…my son will marry a Jewish girl.” (Of course, what they really cared about was the grandkids. “My kids are Jewish, so they’re happy,” she explains.)

She went through the conversion process, studying with different rabbis. “I did not have my mikveh, so technically I’m not converted,” she admits, but it’s only because she was never in L.A. long enough at one time to have done what she calls the 11-week “You’re a Jew now class.” And she’s been practicing Judaism for so long at this point, she explains, that finalizing the institutional process seems more like a needless formality than anything else.

“I’ve been essentially a Jew for like 15 years,” she says. “I haven’t had a Christmas tree in 15 years.”

“But are you like, officially a Jew?” Maron prods.

“I’m not officially stamped, but by all accounts yes,” she explains. “My kids go to Jewish pre-school, we only celebrate Jewish holidays, I love seder.”

“Frankly, because I’m already doing everything, I feel like I’m as Jewish as I’m ever going to be.”

It’s a very Jewish way of thinking, actually. Consider yourself at home, Banks.

Here are some other gems from the interview, which is really, really long, but totally worth it:

• She took Latin for six years: “I was a real nerdball,” she explains.

• She’s a TriDelt.

• She graduated Penn magna cum laude.

• She played Pontius Pilate in a high school performance of Jesus Christ Superstar.

• Her dream rom-com co-star? Channing Tatum: “I would work that.”

Listen to the full podcast here.

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