The rate of interfaith marriage in the United States has risen so radically since the sixties that it is difficult to recall how taboo the practice once was. How is this development understood and regarded by Americans generally, and what does it tell us about the nation’s religious life? Drawing on ethnographic and historical sources, Samira K. Mehta provides a fascinating analysis of wives, husbands, children, and their extended families in interfaith homes; religious leaders; and the social and cultural milieu surrounding mixed marriages among Jews, Catholics, and Protestants.
Mehta’s eye-opening look at the portrayal of interfaith families across American culture since the mid-twentieth century ranges from popular TV shows, holiday cards, and humorous guides to “Chrismukkah” to children’s books, young adult fiction, and religious and secular advice manuals. Mehta argues that the emergence of multiculturalism helped generate new terms by which interfaith families felt empowered to shape their lived religious practices in ways and degrees previously unknown. They began to intertwine their religious identities without compromising their social standing. This rich portrait of families living diverse religions together at home advances the understanding of how religion functions in American society today.
Nonfiction
Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States
December 18, 2018
Discussion Questions
Jewish communal concerns over the rising rates of intermarriage have spawned numerous studies, policies, and initiatives that focus on minimizing its negative impact on Jewish continuity. Samira Mehta’s Beyond Chrismukkah approaches the topic without this parochial lens, contextualizing Jewish-Christian marriage from the perspective of American religion and teasing out the role played by both faith and religion in impacting it. In doing so, she provides fresh insights into how couples from various faith traditions, ethnic backgrounds, and races build meaningful lives together by navigating cultural differences, choosing which rituals to observe, and finding — or creating — supportive communities to reinforce their efforts. She also illuminates the role of media messages, statements by national religious bodies, and local clergy in impacting the attitudes, decisions, and reactions of individual couples and their families. Finally, thanks to in-depth interviews with fifty interfaith families, Mehta convincingly and movingly illustrates how individual families navigate larger issues to create meaningful lives.
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