by amy lederman
I listened as my niece chanted her Torah portion with confidence and grace. Our family sat together — three generations crowded into the front row, the older children holding the younger ones on their laps. Her parents beamed with pleasure, unconsciously leaning forward in their seats, getting as physically close to their daughter as possible without standing on the bimah themselves.
In that same row sat little 5-year-old Sarah, who spent most of the service opening and closing the prayer book and curling the tzitzit of her father’s tallis around her pudgy fingers. She wore a navy blue kippah on her head, cocked precariously to one side. Printed on it in gold letters were the words, “The Army of HaShem.”
At first glance, this didn’t seem unusual or noteworthy. Many children wear head-coverings in synagogue. In fact, color-coordinated kippahs with my niece’s name on it were handed out at the beginning of the service.
But what struck me as significant was the fact that Sarah is a Chinese American Jewish 5-year-old wearing her own kippah, proclaiming that she was a member of God’s army. Something about it touched me to the core.
Maybe it was the fact that Sarah’s mother was born in China, where she couldn’t practice any form of religion, but she agreed to Sarah’s conversion to Judaism because it was important to Sarah’s father and his family. Or maybe it was that Sarah’s parents sent her to a Jewish preschool, even though it was quite costly and a half-hour drive from their home.
I think it was something deeper, however, that touched me. Watching Sarah helped me soothe my fears about the negative impact of intermarriage on the health and survival of the Jewish community.
Don’t get me wrong. I am an optimist by nature and believe deeply in the vitality and continuing evolution of the Jewish faith and people. But I have read the somewhat depressing statistics of the 1990 Council of Jewish Federation’s Population Survey, which states that of the 5.6 million Jews in America, more than 2 million live in households identified as non-Jewish. And that before 1965, only 10 percent of Jews married non-Jews, but since 1985, the number has skyrocketed to 52 percent. The most difficult pill to swallow is that 54 percent of all Jewish children in America under the age of 18 are being raised as non-Jews or with no religion at all.
I know that if and when (God willing!) my daughter asks me for advice about choosing a suitable life partner, I will definitely tell her to look for someone with values similar to hers. Because in reality, marriage is hard enough for two people who share comparable values, without adding stresses like the Chanukah-Christmas dilemma or what to do about circumcision, baptism, confirmation and b’nai mitzvah.
Watching Sarah heartened me; it made me proud to think that she is recognized and accepted by the Jewish community as a full member. But her acceptance as a Jew is possible only because of the commitments and choices that her parents have made for her since birth.
From her formal conversion at a mikvah to the Jewish preschool she attends, from lighting candles on Shabbat at home to becoming a bat mitzvah, Sarah will be given continuous opportunities to learn about what it means to be Jewish and to love her Jewish traditions, culture and community And through these experiences, Sarah will come to identify herself as a Jew.
Of course, there are no assurances that her parents or any other interfaith couple will adopt only Jewish practices in their home. Some couples try to create a theological melting pot, offering their children the rituals and traditions of both religions. Depending upon the degree of parental and family involvement, the amount of religious training and the ability to communicate openly about the dilemmas that are bound to arise, it can teach a child to accept both faiths as equally important and to identify herself as “half and half.”
For families who seek to establish an authentic appreciation for the traditions of both parents, the fact that Judaism is the foundation upon which Christianity and Islam were built can serve as a springboard from which to explore the similarities, connections and differences between faiths.
There is a concern, however, which arises when a child is left to choose which religion she wants to become. From the rabbis and counselors I have spoken with, giving a child the choice can create a very difficult and traumatic situation, especially when it may ultimately feel like she is making the choice between her mother and her father.
Placing that burden of responsibility on the shoulders of a child can result in inner conflicts and emotional turmoil that have lasting, negative effects. For this reason it is recommended that the determination of a child’s religion is a decision better left to the parents than the child.
If an interfaith family makes the commitment to live a Jewish life and create a Jewish home, it relieves the child from pitting one parent against another and provides a constant source of moral guidance and identification with Judaism and the Jewish community.
Amy Lederman is a nationally syndicated columnist, author and Jewish educator based in Tucson.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California