Technically speaking, my kids are Jewish.
I say technically because we’re not planning to raise them as such.
We’re not planning to raise them as Christians either, which would make even less sense considering I haven’t been to mass since I was seven years old.
What we are planning to do is to embrace the cultural aspects that stem from both of our backgrounds, to celebrate the big holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah, and Rosh Hashanah (skipping the Easters, Good Fridays, Yom Kippurs, and the like), the feasts that accompany certain sacrosanct days on the calendar, the stories and the legends, and even the little toast I make to the Pope every time I open a bottle of wine.
And when they’re old and well-informed enough, our children can choose their own paths of faith, which, of course, can include no path at all. So long as they’re good people who consider the needs of others just as equally as they do their own, my kids can be Jewish or Catholic or Buddhist or Universalists or Satanists or whatever the heck they want.
Of course, one small part of me hopes that they choose to follow their Jewish heritage, to be welcomed into the faith as a man and/or woman when they’re teenagers, if for no other reason than I’ll get to send out invitations for the Venutolo-Mantovani Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. And that will be hilarious.
But, as Judaism travels down the maternal line (or so I’m told), my kids are technically Jewish because their mother, my wife, is Jewish.
(How funny to use the word “technically” in a sentence on faith, the least technical of all the endeavors?)
Emily calls herself a “Food Jew.”
That is, she enjoys the cultural touchstones that come with being raised Jewish but little else. In our ten-plus years together, I’ve never once seen her go to temple, though she did fast for Yom Kippur our first few years together.
“I love a challenge,” she’d say with a laugh.
But she enjoys the traditions and loves spending time with her family. And so, in that regard, she is Jewish.
I was raised Italian-Catholic until my mother’s own crises of faith coincided with some early reports of rampant sexual abuse in the church.
Much to my delight, I was yanked from any and all religion shortly after my first holy communion.
But even if you never set foot in a church or a synagogue, it’s impossible to have been raised by Italian-Americans or Jews in the 1980s and 90s as Emily and I were, without having at least some of the traditions imprinted on our DNA.
Because whether you’re Jewish or Italian-Catholic, you know, the guilt, the guilt is so fucking real.
Every night last week, we let our son handle the lighting of the Hanukkah candles on a menorah he made himself.
Carefully, I lit the first one and handed it to him, guiding his not-quite-four-year-old hands to each of the other candles until its wick took the flame, while Emily and her father sang a traditional Hebrew hymn.
Directly behind our son, our big Christmas tree stood, alit with what look like a thousand tiny white lights. Atop it, a small metal Star of David, glowing with its own blue lights.
The scene was a metaphor for our children.
Not quite Jewish, not at all Christian. Two kids who are part Italian, part Polish, part Russian, part Mayflower Brit, born from parents who were raised in New Jersey and North Carolina, who went to college in Philly and met in New York City.
Two kids who will eat The Feast of the Seven Fishes the night before they open their Christmas presents and enjoy the Jewish tradition of Chinese food for dinner.
Two kids who will have no other directive than to be good people, whatever path they choose.