Customer Reviews

The Interfaith Family Guidebook: Practical Advice for Jewish and Christian Partners

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As someone about to begin an interfaith marriage, I found this book to be the most helpful of all the books I read. It has examples of how other people, from all different perspectives, have tackled many of the different problems of a Christian-Jewish marriage. It is easy to read and sparked many discussions to help us understand what we wanted. I think we now know some of the issues that are going to come up along the way, and at least now we have begun to understand where we both are and started working out ways to deal with them. I would really recommend this book. I'm even sending it to my parents so that they can also understand how this works a little more.

This book gives a realistic explanation of issues that come from interfaith marriage. It is organized well and even gives various examples of how other families work out their problems. My fiancee and I benefited greatly from this book, and we are hoping our parents will also read it to understand the important decisions we have to make in our future lives together.

Every thought, feeling, and concern that I had about my interfaith relationship was addressed in this book. The author writes a very clear and honest book about what to expect--good and bad. She explored every possible situation you may encounter in an interfaith relationship, as well as the best solutions for the situation. It opened my eyes tremendously to the possibilities for me, as well as to the questions I need to answer in order to have a fulfilling relationship. It's easy to read and a great resource to come back to.

This is a wonderful book. It has helped me to know, that with a little effort, we can make this thing work and gave us some great ideas on how to get there. It informed me about events, such as death, and what we need to do - now. As the christian partner in a blended family, this book has really helped me understand my husbands faith and the faith of his children.

I've been in a Jewish/Christian marriage for nearly 10 years, and while my spouse and I certainly have our conflicts, virtually none are based on our religious differences. We've had arguments about politics, arguments about our relationship, arguments about operating systems, but religion? Naaaaah.

When we got married, we knew--thanks to books like this one--that we might have issues to face, and so far, I think we've done pretty well with them. We share basic values and, for the most part, appreciate each other's cultural differences. In my opinion, every marriage between two people raised in different families is going to require some compromise between cultures. We're fortunate that we were prepared to make that effort.

I'm with the first review I read, discussing the Jewish-Jewish divorce rate vs. Jewish-Christian divorce rate.
It's important to note that this can be an issue even if you have a Jew and a Gentile who are both non-practicing,
because Judaism is an ethnic identity. Because if you are Jewish, there are a whole lot of people out there who don't like you, and this rich cultural history you have, and your non-Jewish partner will not "get it".
As someone with an agnostic Jewish mother and a non-practicing Christian father, who was raised nothing, I can say that it just does not work. My parents had arguments for years over the Jewish-Christian issue. They finally divorced over it. My mother found a Jewish agnostic like herself, and my father found another lapsed Christian.
I had an identity crisis for years until I discovered that I am Jewish (because of my Jewish mother) and decided to discover Judaism. When I marry I will marry a Jew because I value my heritage and I want my children to know who they are.
Spare your parents the grief, spare your kids the heartache, just do one faith and be done with it.