Publication Offers Tips for Interfaith Families

For most of us, conflicts over religious rights and cultural differences are the distant stuff of news broadcasts.

But for married couples such as Joan C. Hawxhurst and Steve Bertman-she is United Methodist, he a Conservative Jew-there is no escaping the tension that results when religions and cultures collide under one roof.

There are no courts of appeal for deciding nettlesome family questions: which temples or church to attend, which holidays to celebrate and in which faith to raise the children. And when it comes to generating anxiety-producing problems for interfaith couples, there is probably no month like December, which brings symbols of Christmas, the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus, and Hanukkah, the Jewish festival that heralds religious freedom.

That is why Hawxhurst has devoted the December-January issue of her bimonthly publication, Dovetail, to essays and suggestions about how interfaith couples might approach Hanukkah and Christmas.

Hawxhurst’s publication is the result of research done when she and her husband began to contemplate marriage. Its circulation is small (500 subscribers after three editions); its name is straightforward: “A Newsletter by and for Jewish-Christian Families.”

The aim of the newsletter, based at 3014A Folsom St. , Boulder, Colo., is to provide a “forum for people still asking questions, still looking for answers,” Hawxhurst said.

Perhaps the most significant practical suggestion for holiday celebrations at this time of year is this one: “Try not to combine Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations. The two holidays have nothing to do with each other.”

Hawxhurst and Bertman are part of a steadily growing group. According to Egon Mayer, senior research fellow at the Center for Jewish Studies in New York, 770,000 Jews are married to non-Jews in the United States.

Mayer considers Dovetail “a nice vehicle for families that are dealing with how to integrate religious and cultural lives.”