Chanukah and Christmas:

Creating Meaningful Family Traditions  

Wednesday, Dec. 7, and Monday, Dec. 12

7-9 p.m. 

Free!

Chanukah and Christmas evoke vivid memories and family associations. This workshop is a chance to share and explore ways to create new family traditions while respecting and honoring each of your values and memories in the process.  

This workshop is geared toward couples and parents in interfaith families. All are welcome to join. 

We're offering two locations for this important and informative event. Please choose the location that is most convenient for you. Refreshments will be served at both. 

Wednesday, Dec. 7:                        

JFS Children's Room                        

475 Franklin St., Framingham

Faciliated by Rabbi Lev Baesh, consultant on issues of diversity and inclusion.

Monday, Dec. 12:

Panera Bread 

91 Medway Rd., Milford

Facilitated by Nancy Fried-Tanzer, M.Ed., Jewish family educator and program specialist at JFS of Metrowest.

Register online by Dec. 6 for Framingham or Dec. 9 for Milford at bostonjcc.org/metrowest.

For more information, please contact metrowest@jccgb.org
or 508-879-3300. 

Have you had or adopted a baby in the last six months? Are you expecting soon, or do you know someone who is?

Let us welcome your baby to the Metrowest Jewish community with a visit and a gift!

Welcome Baby! has welcomed 142 new babies to our community already! Welcome Baby! visits new parents with babies aged newborn to 6 months and gives them a complimentary gift basket filled with high-quality baby gifts. Welcome Baby! connects new parents to resources, family activities, and new friends. If you have a new baby or know someone who does, and would like to connect, sign up here!

добро пожаловать! 

Engaging Our Russian Jewish Families
in Jewish Community Life

JFN is excited to announce our latest outreach program! A grant from the Genesis Fund is enabling us to reach out to Russian Jewish families throughout Metrowest. By developing collaborative relationships, we are identifying and connecting with members of this large and vibrant community through engaging programming and activities. 

As part of this program, JFN is also doing special "Privet Malish" visits -- Welcome Baby! visits with gift baskets and resources tailored for Russian Jewish families. 

If you are interested in learning more about our programs or "Privet Malish," or if you know someone who is, please contact our Russian community connector, Luba Olshan, for more information.   

С Днем Хануки!   

Chanukah Party Russian-Style

Thursday, Dec. 22
6 p.m.
Free!

Join us as we celebrate this festive holiday with crafts, games, and storytelling in Russian and English -- fun for kids of all ages! Enjoy some traditional Chanukah treats, too, like latkes and jelly doughnuts.

If you'd like to help us brighten the holiday for those in need, please feel free to donate a small nonperishable item to the JFS food pantry.

JFS Children's Room
475 Franklin St., Framingham

For more information or to RSVP, please contact Luba Olshan. 

Play Dates and Get-Togethers

with Heidi, Nissa, and Amy!

Free!

South Area (Connector: Heidi Anderson)

Central Area (Connector: Nissa Weiss) 

Playtime Meet-Ups

Every Tuesday morning, Dec. 6, 13, and 20   

9:30-11:30 a.m. 

Please join Nissa for this weekly drop-in playgroup. Perfect for kids up to 4 years, and for moms, dads, and caregivers of all ages! A light snack will be provided for the kids.   

(Please note that there will be no playgroup on Dec. 27, during school vacation week.)  

JFS Children's Room 

475 Franklin St., Framingham 

Shalom, Shabbat!

Thursdays, Dec. 8 and 22  

4:30-5:30 p.m.

Welcome Shabbat with music, laughter, and friends of all ages! With a little bit of Hebrew and a whole lot of fun, Nissa will lead singalongs and play time in a warm, inviting setting.  

Shalom, Shabbat will be roaming around Framingham this month. Please be sure to mark your calendars with the correct location:

Dec. 8:

(Religious school entrance)

300 Pleasant St., Framingham

North Area (Connector: Amy Kohen) 

Monthly Drop-In Playgroup in Acton 

by Julie Wolf, JFN Newsletter Editor 

This month, we knew we wanted to interview someone from an interfaith family who had perhaps weathered the stormy seas of the "December dilemma" already. With Christmas falling smack-dab in the middle of Chanukah this year, it's an issue that is at the forefront of many of our minds. I usually talk to someone I've never met in person, and often we don't meet face-to-face until long after the interview is over. But this month all I did was spin around in my office chair and set my sights on the guy in the office chair next to me, my husband, Keith Wagner. Keith grew up in a non-Jewish family in a non-Jewish town in South Jersey. He has no plans to convert to Judaism, but he has his own yarmulke and wouldn't think of eating bread on Passover. Together we're raising Jewish children in a Jewish home, and Keith is as much a part of that as I am. In this interview, he talks about his personal decision to embrace Judaism for our family, but how that decision hasn't always come without a cost.

Keith, Julie, Benjamin (7), Rachel (10), and Lila (5) in a rare photo of all five of us, taken at Lila's preschool graduation in June 2011.     

How did a nice Protestant boy like you find yourself in a menorah-only home?  

When we were dating, observing the Jewish holidays was important to you, so I did it. End of story, full stop. We did try, that one year, to observe both holidays -- I went out and got a little tabletop Christmas tree with votive candles -- but apparently it didn't work for you.   

You boxed it up and put it away and told me not to worry about it. Do you ever miss celebrating Christmas in your own home?

The idea of not celebrating in my own home -- the observance of the tradition more so than the religious observances -- didn't bother me so much, since I knew that there would always be Christmas at my parents' house. I guess I do miss celebrating it some -- mostly for the atmosphere. I like the lights on the tree. I have very vivid memories of the smell of evergreen in the house. It was always a very peaceful season, it seemed to me, after the bustle of the celebrating and the extended family get-togethers.

Ohhh, fuuudge. [Laughs.] Well, A Christmas Story is more about celebrating a great movie and an under-acknowledged humorist than it is about the religious holiday.

And about getting your tongue stuck to a frozen lamppost. Did you go to church a lot when you were growing up? Was there much diversity in your town? We don't see too many electric menorahs in the windows in your parents' neighborhood when we visit. Did you know anything about Judaism or Jewish holidays when you were a kid? 

I went to Sunday school every week all the way through high school, with regular Sunday services. There were extra activities as well -- church dinners, social outings, an annual baseball night to see the Phillies. I was in the church choir for a bunch of years (can you imagine? I don't know how that happened). We would go to a local retirement home every Christmas and sing carols for the residents, deliver little Christmas tree ornaments that the church would make. I guess I was fully engaged with the community.

I honestly didn't know much about Judaism in my formative years. There was one Jewish kid (that I knew of) in my middle school, Joel Sacks. His mom was the den mother for the school's Cub Scout troop. (I lasted for about two weeks -- I think I bought the book and got halfway through my pine derby racer before deciding it wasn't for me -- Cub Scouts, not Judaism.) But I never discussed religion with him.

In retrospect, I imagine now that it must have been hard for him, the lone Jewish representative in our grade. Different practices and traditions weren't really part of my vocabulary at the time -- I wasn't curious about that sort of thing then. Catholicism probably dominated, then a smattering of other denominations -- Presbyterian, Lutheran. I remember one year the reverend at our church hosted a seder on the Friday before Easter, to give everyone in the congregation the experience of what went on at the Last Supper. A hard-boiled egg features prominently in that recollection. (I did not develop a lifelong affection for matzoh from that experience.) I didn't develop a better understanding of Judaism until college, when I made a few Jewish friends and celebrated my first Hanukkah.

When we got married, our rabbi said he felt that an interfaith family should choose one religious tradition in their home, which we already knew intuitively, I think. Why do you think this is beneficial to the kids, and also to the parents? 

The two traditions are related at a very bedrock level, but they're too different to exist comfortably next to one another in the same home. Comparative religions is a great college course, but for little kids who are developing a sense of self and identity, a single set of beliefs is better. It's easier for them to grab onto, rather than having to spend a lot of time discussing and reconciling the differences, and then leaving the kids to negotiate all that in their own heads. When you focus exclusively on one religion, there's more stability and consistency, and I think that's important for kids.

Is it beneficial for the parents? It depends on the parents. For me it works fine, but if you have two parents who have a very strong sense of religious identity, I think it would be very difficult for one to totally abdicate their tradition. Following just one tradition has certainly made me more religious, or identify more with religion, at least from a service-attending, community-participating perspective. With Rachel in the junior choir, and with the Hebrew school's service attendance requirements, I've been to more organized religious services in the last 12 months than I'd been to in the 20 years after high school.

The "December dilemma" is a huge topic for many families, and such a painful one sometimes. In our case it was your parents who had a hard time. Things are better now, but it will never be a really comfortable subject. For some non-Jewish partners who fully embrace raising their children Jewish, it's  still hard to let go of Christmas. Is there anything you can share from our experience that might help couples who are negotiating this for the first time?

I don't know. Again, it depends on the partners and on their families. Every situation has to be different, I imagine. Certainly the decision to choose Judaism is something you should agree upon very early, probably even before marriage. I mean, both of the rabbis we interviewed to marry us broached the question, and one even required that we sign a contract stating that we'd raise our children Jewish. I don't recall when we had our discussion, but it was before Rachel was born. It made it easier to negotiate the holidays once the kids were in the picture.

The people who are going to be most distressed by a decision to choose one religious tradition over the other are probably going to be the in-laws, the grandparents. I don't know how, or if, you can cushion that blow for them. If your families are the type who'd be amenable to such a suggestion, consider including them in your celebration. But you have to decide what's best for you as a couple, and for your family as a unit, then stand by that decision. Support your partner. They and your kids are the ones you're making this decision for.

Any favorite things about Hanukkah? I'll go first: I love the latkes, but I hate how the frying makes the house smell. On a serious note, it makes my heart happy to hear you say the blessings over the candles with the kids. Your turn. 

Workshops for Women 

Taking Charge, Making Changes:

Money Management for Women

2 Wednesdays (Dec. 7, Dec. 14) 

9:30-11 a.m.

Free

Register here!

At the Movies  

Sarah's Key 

7:30 p.m. 

Join our North connector, Amy Kohen, at Temple Beth Sholom for a special screening of the film Sarah's Key, adapted from the beloved novel by Tatiana de Rosnay.

Sarah's Key tells the story of an American journalist's simultaneous discovery of a shameful part of France's past during World War II and how one Jewish girl's life was forever altered by the horrific events that happened in Paris during the summer of 1942. 

Admission is $5 for Temple Beth Sholom Sisterhood members, $8 for all others. Refreshments will be provided. 

50 Pamela Rd., Framingham

Tot Shabbat

Celebrate Tot Shabbat this month at Temple Beth Am in Framingham at a service designed especially for families with preschoolers and younger children.

Friday, Dec. 9

5:30 p.m.  

Temple Beth Am

300 Pleasant St., Framingham 

For more information about this Tot Shabbat or to get the schedule for the rest of the year, please contact Julie Wolf. 

Jewish Family Network is a collaboration of Jewish Family Service of Metrowest and the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston with generous support from the Metrowest Jewish Community Fund, Clare and Richard Lesser and Combined Jewish Philanthropies. Interfaith families, single parents, people with disabilities, and GLBT families are welcome.