by karina ioffee
correspondent
After dating for slightly more than over a year, Maggie Herman, 31, and Michael Zapler, 35, knew they wanted to tie the knot. But when they looked around for guidance on how to go about having a Jewish wedding, all they could muster was a handful of sites on the Internet. “We didn’t really have a point of reference where all the information we needed was available,” recalls Herman, a San Francisco sales executive.
Using www.JewishMilestones.org, they connected with Arik Labowitz, who served four years as rabbinic assistant at Beth Chaim Congregation in Danville, and worked with him for months in preparation for the ceremony.
Last October, the couple were married at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco while 80 of their closest friends and family looked on.
To make sure other Jewish couples don’t find themselves in the same predicament, Palo Alto’s Albert L. Schultz Jewish Community Center is holding a Jewish Wedding Fair, co-sponsored by the Union of Reform Judaism, Project Welcome, and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
The free event will take place 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 25 at the Lucie Stern Community Center.
The fair will bring together ketubah artists, chuppah makers, simcha bands, decorators and others to ensure that every betrothed couple walks out with enough information to tackle the big day without losing their sanity.
“Our goal is that anybody who is getting married can come in and get their wedding planned in one day,” said Stephanie Brown, the JCC’s director of special events.
But the event won’t be all logistics.
In addition, workshops will be offered to educate future brides and grooms on such topics as what constitutes a Jewish wedding, how to find a rabbi and options regarding an interfaith ceremony.
“Many people want to have a Jewish ceremony, but don’t know where to begin,” said Karen Kushner, who will be teaching the “What Makes a Wedding Jewish?” workshop. Kushner is director of Project Welcome, a local outreach program created by the Union for Reform Judaism.
“Is it a Jewish wedding if you break a glass and stand under a chuppah? Is it when you say the blessings? When you sign the wedding contract?” Kushner will answer those questions and others.
The ultimate decision, of course, is up to the couple. But a desire to include Jewish tradition in a wedding indicates a desire for a Jewish life, Kushner says.
“The ceremony lasts one day, but a marriage, hopefully, goes on for many years.
For Herman and Zepler, both Jewish but unaffiliated with a synagogue, the time leading up to the ceremony was a chance to learn about the rituals that make a Jewish wedding.
“We worked with Arik for months and learned a lot of things we didn’t know about,” recalled Herman. Among them were the birchot erusin, the blessings of betrothal, and bedeken, the lifting of the veil. The latter is taken from the story of Jacob, who thought he was marrying Rachel but discovered that he had in fact wed her sister, Leah.
Undoubtedly, marriage has changed since the times of the patriarchs. Today, roughly 50 percent of couples marry a partner of another religion, and many are eschewing traditional Jewish ceremonies in lieu of something more casual, like a nondenominational wedding or a commitment ceremony, according to Brown.
Yet Kushner, who co-authored “How to be a Jewish Parent: A Practical Handbook for Family Life” with Anita Diamant, views the trend of Jews marrying outside the faith not so much as a problem as an opportunity to reach out to new families and teach them about Jewish traditions and culture.
“A lot of people have grown up without much knowledge of Judaism and need help from the Jewish community to bring up their kids in a Jewish way,” she said.
Project Welcome sponsored its first Bay Area Jewish Wedding Fair last year at the Peninsula JCC in Foster City; by rotating the location, organizers hope to reach an even broader audience.
Rabbi Jay Weiner, executive director of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s Northern California and Pacific Northwest regions, is also eager to bring his message to the masses.
“Conservative congregations have a stigma of not being a warm institution, but anybody who would visit us would see that it’s not true,” he said. “We want to welcome people, whether they are intermarried, interfaith or anything else, and help them live a Jewish life.”
Despite that, Conservative rabbis refuse to marry interfaith couples, arguing that two religions cannot be fused in one marriage. Instead, the couple must decide to have a strictly Jewish wedding to be married by a Conservative rabbi.
“Performing a sacred ceremony and joining a person who is not part of the tradition is impossible,” Weiner said.
Despite the divisions among Jewish leaders, one thing remains clear — everyone is eager to entice new congregants and help guide them in planning one of the most important days of their life.
“Just making the choice to attend the Jewish wedding fair versus another fair already shows the commitment to having a Jewish life,” Weiner said.
Fair features vendors, workshops for couples
The Jewish Wedding Fair will take place 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 25 at Lucie Stern Community Center, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. Admission is free.
Workshops include:
11:15 a.m.–12 p.m. “What Makes a Wedding Jewish?” with Karen Kushner of Project Welcome.
12:15–1 p.m. “How to Pick a Ketubah,” with Ellen Bob of bob and bob judaica.
1:15–2 p.m. “Two Faiths, One Ceremony: A Guide to Interfaith Ceremonies,” with Rabbi Mychal Copeland of Stanford Hillel.
2:15–3 p.m. “Tips and Pitfalls that Make or Break a Wedding,” with Rabbi Moshe Levin of Conservative Congregation Ner Tamid in San Francisco.
3:15- 4:00 p.m. “Finding Your Perfect Fit … in a Rabbi,” with Dawn Kepler, director of Building Jewish Bridges.
For additional information about the fair, visit www.paloaltojcc.org.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California