December 2024
Rabbi Miriam Wajnberg
This year’s confluence of holidays offers the community an opportunity to open our hearts to interfaith couples and families
More than 20 years ago, the American TV show The OC introduced Chrismukkah. Chrismukkah blends two holidays from distinct faith traditions—Christmas and Chanukah— allowing the character Seth Cohen to celebrate both of his family’s heritages. While TV is not real life, the experience of Seth Cohen’s family is not unique. Especially in years like this one, when Hanukkah begins on Christmas Day, interfaith families seek to celebrate in ways that honour multiple faith traditions.
According to the 2018 Survey of Jews in Canada, nearly a quarter of married Canadian Jews have a spouse who is not Jewish. This number increases to one-third when looking at married Jews ages 18-29, the youngest age cohort surveyed. Researchers Fern Chertok and Matthew A. Brookner predict, based on this generational shift, that “the Jewish intermarriage rate in Canada is just a generation behind the rate in the United States and will inevitably match US levels,” where two-thirds of non-Orthodox adults married since 2020 are in interfaith marriages. Regardless of what emotions these statistics raise, the reality is that interfaith families are a growing part of the Canadian Jewish landscape. Even when a household is exclusively Jewish, their circle of family might include extended family members who celebrate holidays from other religious traditions, due to interfaith marriage or conversion.
In the past, the phrase “the December dilemma” framed how interfaith couples and families decided how to celebrate December holidays. This framing starts from a place of negativity – that to be an interfaith family, to have multiple heritages and holidays that your loved ones celebrate, is—at its core—a problem. Today, interfaith couples and families see December as an opportunity to share traditions with family, and to bring in more light when it is so desperately needed.
Longtime Hamilton resident Tova Vertes does exactly that. “My husband and I blended families, children, pets, houses, and religion. Our families come together to bring both our traditions and cultures into the home. My husband's relatively secular family comes from Norway and the Bahamas. Except for Christmas, when his father reads from the Bible, salted Norwegian lamb graces the table and we dance around the Christmas tree. In the midst of all this, we welcome Chanukah. We light the menorah as an entire family, have latkes occasionally beside Bahamian mac and cheese, and enjoy the Christmas tree lights. The Norwegian trolls sit at the base of the tree while our blue and silver baubles and homemade Magen David ornaments sparkle.” Vertes and her family observe both holidays with each other, sharing traditions and forming new ones.
For Lauren Schreiber-Sasaki, the Associate Director for Jewish Community Inclusion and Engagement at Toronto’s Miles Nadal JCC, this year’s proximity of Hanukkah and Christmas is an opportunity to create new rituals of meaning-making for families that celebrate both holidays. “You could make havdalah (the ritual traditionally used to mark the transition from Shabbat or a holiday) to separate between Christmas and Chanukah at nightfall on December 25. We’re closing a distinct time, and opening a distinct time. It’s a way of using Jewish technology to acknowledge the reality families live in.” In her work with the Jewish& program at the Miles Nadal JCC, Schreiber-Sasaki runs programs that aim to meet the unique needs of interfaith families. “The Santa Claus Parade goes right past our building, so we always hold an event called ‘Cookies and Cards’ on the same day, to allow families to decorate cookies and make holiday cards – for any holiday – while watching the parade from inside.”
18Doors, a nonprofit that supports Jewish interfaith couples and families and their inclusion in Jewish communities, offers online and programmatic resources for couples and families thinking about the December holidays. At https://18doors.org/tag/hanukkah/, families can find resources for grandparents, recipes, conversation starters, and a guide for talking about Christmas trees. In partnership with the Miles Nadal JCC and others, 18Doors is offering a Zoom program, open to interfaith couples throughout North America, entitled “December Together: A Conversation by and for Interfaith Couples about Navigating the December Holidays.”
18Doors, along with its organizational partners throughout North America, strives to build Jewish communities of belonging, in which interfaith couples and families can be wholly themselves, finding ways of connecting with their Judaism and other faith and cultural heritages. The month of December, and this year’s confluence of Hanukkah and Christmas, offers families and communities an opportunity to respond with compassion, curiosity, and openness to interfaith couples and families.
Rabbi Miriam Wajnberg, a Hamilton resident, is the director of professional development at 18Doors.
