Susan Katz Miller's Blog, page 21
August 21, 2014
Interfaith Education for All: A Review of Being Both
In my public speaking, I often point out that interfaith children need interfaith education, but also, when you think about it, all children need multifaith education in order to become more effective bridge-builders and peacemakers. In the UK, government-funded schools are required to provide multifaith education for all children. Here in the US, we take a very different approach: because of the separation of church and state, religion is rarely taught in public schools. I understand the ben...
August 11, 2014
Ten Reasons Couples Join Interfaith Family Communities
Protestant and Jewish grandparents hand down the Torah at an interfaith Bar Mitzvah. Photo stephaniewilliamsimages
In yesterday’s Washington Post, Michelle Boorstein reports on Washington DC synagogues “trying to make room for interfaith couples.” Note the use of the word “trying” here. The article does chronicle significant progress in the Jewish community in welcoming interfaith families, and that is cause for celebration. But it also recounted poignant stories about families trying to conne...
July 23, 2014
Interfaith Children Speak Out: #JewsAndArabsRefuseToBeEnemies
In order to write Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family, I interviewed Jewish and Christian, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Christian, and Buddhist/Jewish/Christian families. This week, I was thrilled to see Jewish and Muslim adult interfaith children emerging on twitter–coming out, as it were, and speaking out about how love can prevail, even in a context fraught with geopolitical tension and violence.
In response to the current crisis in Israel and Palestine, two stud...
July 17, 2014
A Response to the Pew Poll on “Favorite Religions”
This week, Pew Research released a poll in which they asked people to rate how “warm” or “cold” they feel about various religions. I wrote a response, from the perspective of someone in an interfaith family, over on HuffPost today. If you have a chance, post a comment over there:
I’m an interfaith child, raising interfaith children. As part of a three-generation interfaith family, I am the product of American pluralism. Celebrating more than one religion does not make me feel alienated or apat...
July 3, 2014
Interfaith Ramadan: Jewish and Christian Meets Muslim
Beads collected in Senegal, Mauritania, Mali and Benin. Photo: Susan Katz Miller
One of the great joys of writing Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family has been the opportunity to develop relationships with interfaith activists who are Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, and more. While acknowledging our differences, we tend to share a belief that love can prevail over hate, and that life is richer and fuller with all of us in conversation, and working together.
My personal...
June 25, 2014
A Rabbi for Interfaith Families, for UUs, for All of Us
A few months ago, I had the honor of interviewing Rabbi Chava Bahle about her historic selection as a rabbi to lead a Unitarian-Universalist (UU) community. We talked about her background as one of the handful of rabbis working directly with an interfaith families community raising children in both family religions. For almost ten years, she has been the rabbi at Chicago’s Interfaith Family School.
Now you can watch Rabbi Chava tell her story at a recent TEDx talk in Traverse City, Michigan. S...
June 10, 2014
Women, Religion, and Interfaith Families
Why have most founders of interfaith family communities been women? Historically, how has the male domination of religious institutions affected interfaith couples? And does the idea that an interfaith child must be defined by the religion of the mother (in Judaism) or the father (in Islam) make any sense given the reality of families with one parent, with two fathers, with two mothers, or with non-binary gendered parents?
These are a few of the questions I explore in a new essay written for G...
May 27, 2014
Video: An Interfaith Boy, an Interfaith Community
When my mother, an interfaith families pioneer, watched this video, she said, “Well Sue, you don’t need to go out on speaking tours anymore–just have everyone watch this video instead.” I think she was kidding. I mean I hope so. But she has a point, because this charming and thoughtful credo, in the voice and words of a 13-year-old, makes the case for interfaith education, in under five minutes. So please do watch “The Interfaith Musings of Raphael B.”
I have known Raphael since he was a small...
May 9, 2014
Musings of an Interfaith Mama
I am honored to have a post today on Beacon Broadside, the excellent blog put out by Beacon Press, my publisher. Take a look…
The author and her mother in 1961.
After touring colleges with my second and final child this spring break, I am suddenly aware that I am approaching the end of an era. Parenting has felt like an endless and all-consuming way of being for me, a role I took on with great joy in my thirties, after years as a journalist. In motherhood, I became a PTA President, a leader in...
May 4, 2014
Listen, Include, Engage: Progress for Interfaith Families
My parents, interfaith family pioneers, still kicking and strumming at 83 and 89
A couple of years back, the venerable Jewish Daily Forward published a blogpost in the form of a letter attacking my family for celebrating Christmas. I waited several days before responding. Meanwhile, readers and bloggers rushed in to decry the “snide” “condescending” “offensive” “anti-interfaith family” tone of the original post. One wrote that it “paints a scary picture for interfaith families in the Jewish co...
