Web Magazine Interfaith Families and Preschools

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Issue 199: January 4, 2007

Read More The Big Decision

By Abby Spotts

For this interfaith family the question was to JCC, or not to JCC?

Read More Get 'Em While They're Young: Preschools Get First Crack at Families

By Sue Fishkoff

Preschools can shape a child's Jewish future, but the Jewish community is largely ignoring the opportunity.

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ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

More Articles on Interfaith Families and Preschool

Our Braided Heritage By Debbie Popiel White

When your child is black and Jewish, it's important to provide a strong sense of identity. Growing Number of Non-Jews Teach the Aleph-Bet at Preschool By Sue Fishkoff Non-Jewish teachers committed to Jewish education are the norm in many preschools.

From Our Article Archive

When Children Raise Jewish Parents By Christina Pertus Hendelman

A skeptical non-Jewish mom learns more about Judaism in her 3-year-old's classroom than in any adult class or religious service. Kapler Looking to Rejuvenate Career By Jeff Goodman In this artricle from 2004, professional baseball player Gabe Kapler relates how his family's religious life changed after his mother started working at a Jewish preschool.

News

Get 'Em While They're Even Younger: Groups Reach Out to Babies Too By Jacob Berkman Parents of newborns make terrific Jewish recruitment targets, says new study. Conservative Day Schools to Admit Patrilineals? By Sue Fishkoff The Solomon Schechter schools debate making their

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admissions more flexible for the children of non- Jewish mothers.

Arts and Entertainment

Interfaith Celebrities: For Peet's Sake By Nate Bloom Amanda Peet is pregnant--in real life and on-screen- -and Liev Schreiber stars in a new movie and an old TV show. All-Ages Music: Entertainer Dan Zanes Performs for Adults and Children Alike By Suzanne Chessler The former Del Fuegos rocker isn't Jewish, but he's raising his kids as Jews with his wife. Picture This: A Children's Book with a Message of Interfaith Healing By Cheryl Coon The Cave of Reconciliation tells Abraham's story from the Jewish and Muslim perspective.

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For more information, visit our Parenting Resource Page.

Toddlers as Teachers? By Martha Kimes

Jewish preschools build Jewish identities. And not just for the children who attend-- often, for their parents as well. Jewish preschools, especially those that reach out to interfaith families, tend to motivate parents towards integrating Jewish practices into their homes and becoming more active in the Jewish community.

When Doug and Francine Sumner married in 1992, Doug understood that Francine's Jewish heritage was an important part of her identity. They committed to raising their children as Jews, despite his devout Christian background. Doug remains a spiritual and observant Christian, but he is very involved in his children's Jewish education and practice, and describes himself as "a Jewish father and a Christian man."

Francine was raised culturally, but not religiously, Jewish. Before enrolling their oldest son in a Jewish preschool 10 years ago, "I knew what Passover was, but I didn't even know that there was a Sh'ma," she explained. From her son's preschool teachers, she began to discover and appreciate Jewish rituals and traditions. "It's where I learned my Judaism."

Now, her family has incorporated Judaism into many aspects of their lives. As active members of Temple Chai in Phoenix, Ariz., they attend Shabbat services regularly, and on the occasions that Francine can't go, Doug takes the children himself. Francine sat on the temple's board Doug Sumner is not Jewish, but he and his Jewish wife of directors for years. Their children attend Hebrew Francine are raising their three children, Gabrielle, 10, Zachary, 6, and Jacob, 12, as Jews. Francine says of Jacob's school and participate in the temple's youth group. And enrollment in Jewish preschool 10 years ago: "It's where I Francine is now also a teacher at the Temple Chai learned my Judaism." Childhood Center, educating a new crop of young families about Judaism.

The Sumners are hardly the only interfaith family that has forged a deeper connection to Judaism after choosing to send their children to a Jewish preschool. Paul and Michelle Tran agreed before marriage that their children would be raised Jewish and that they would have a Jewish home, although he is not Jewish. When it came time to make a decision about their children's education,

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Jewish preschool just seemed right-- Michelle knew that others there would share the same values, with a focus on family and community, and she believed that the children would receive a higher quality education. Paul and Michelle are very involved at their children's preschool: she is a room parent, and both can be spotted front and center at most school events. Paul enthusiastically participates in school activities, because, as Michelle puts it, "Even though he's not Jewish, he's part of the family too, and we're a Jewish family."

Although their connection to their children's Jewish preschool hasn't necessarily increased their religious observance, it has drawn the Trans to become more involved in the Jewish community. Now that their kids are in school, "anything that's Jewish out there, we go to," she reported, including the preschool's monthly Tot Shabbat (Sabbath) services, temple programs, and community holiday events.

These stories of increased involvement are echoed by many other interfaith families who send their children to Jewish preschools. In her years as director of the Temple Chai Childhood Center in Phoenix (which currently has a 40 percent enrollment of interfaith families, and 10 percent who are non-Jewish), Debbie Popiel White has seen countless families who have begun to celebrate Shabbat because of their children, many of whom bring home a freshly-baked challah from school each Friday afternoon.

"I've learned a lot about Judaism, especially about the different holidays, through the kids," said Joe Miller, whose sons attend a Jewish preschool. "The things that they bring home from school have often spurred some important conversations in our home about appreciating differences between people and respecting the beliefs of others."

Respecting diversity among families is clearly a key to attracting interfaith families. Nancy Bossov, now Director of Early Childhood Education for the Union for Reform Judaism, used to be the director of a Jewish preschool. "I liked to envision my culturally diverse population as a 'mini UN'," she said. "It was a controlled environment where we were able to really and truly have a community where everyone was engaged in the values and morals and ethics of Jewish life. It didn't matter if you went to church on Sunday or the mosque on Friday." Commenting on the numerous non-Jewish children who attended her school, Nancy said that, because of their exposure to Jewish values and ideas, "I think they have a respect, understanding, and affection for Judaism that will be with them the rest of their lives."

In this tradition, Francine Sumner is trying to do for other people what her son's preschool did for her own family. Working together with Popiel White at Temple Chai, she facilitates "experience workshops" aimed at introducing Jewish traditions to preschoolers' families. "A lot of parents are afraid of these rituals and traditions," she said. The workshops, where the parents have done everything from baking challah and making candlesticks to building a sukkah and making mezuzahs, are aimed at getting parents involved and teaching them the basics of Judaism in an engaging and welcoming atmosphere. Perhaps, like Francine, some of these parents will become teachers of the next generation of Jewish preschoolers.

Martha Kimes is an attorney and writer who lives in Phoenix, Ariz. Her first book, Ivy Briefs: A Privileged And Confidential Law School Story, will be published in May 2007.

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For more information, visit our Parenting Resource Page.

The Big Decision By Abby Spotts

Long before we were married, my husband and I made the decision to raise our children Jewish. He, a non-practicing Catholic, and I, a Conservative Jew, agreed that having one religion in the home would be the best choice for our then non-existent family.

Fast forward many years later. Our sons are now 4 ½ and 1 ½. We've created a Reform Jewish home in which we celebrate everything from Shabbat (the Sabbath) to Hanukkah to Passover and many of the other holidays in between. Because our boys are fairly young, their exposure and learning about Judaism has been limited to what we have done in our home or in the homes of extended family and friends.

When it was time for us to begin thinking about sending our oldest son to preschool, we were faced with many choices. What would be the best learning environment? What level of education do the teachers have? What is the class size? What is the curriculum? And the list goes on… We began visiting preschools around our area, including our local Jewish community center (JCC). Among all the preschools we saw lots of happy children, walls adorned with colorful art projects, plenty of toys, creative art centers, and fun outdoor play areas.

However, what we saw and learned about at the JCC kept bringing us back for more. In addition to the many non-Jewish-focused learning activities, we saw children doing many Jewish-focused activities including saying the barucha (blessing) before they ate snack and a kosher lunch, doing art projects incorporating things like the Israeli flag and learning about Jewish holidays. In talking with the director, we learned in detail about the Jewish curriculum that is incorporated into the program. We also learned about the make-up of the children that attend. It surprised us that only 50 percent of the families enrolled have two Jewish parents. 34 percent of the families are not Jewish. 16 percent of the families are intermarried. Even more interesting, not all of the teachers that are teaching Jewish content are Jewish.

For us, these were important statistics. We wanted to make sure our son would be welcome within the Jewish Community Center preschool. Since it is the JCC, it follows certain rules of Orthodoxy, in that it is a kosher facility, is closed on all Jewish holidays, closes early on Friday for Shabbat, etc. In addition, the preschool itself teaches the children from the Conservative to Modern Orthodox viewpoint when it comes to holidays and customs. As an interfaith couple, we know that the majority of Orthodox Jews do not accept intermarriage, and we wanted to make sure our son would be welcome in this environment. The statistics made us feel comfortable that he would.

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My husband and I went home and thought things over. After much deliberation of the pros (we liked the facility, the staff was friendly, the Jewish program would be a great starting point) and cons (it wasn't the most convenient in terms of location for us, would the Jewish curriculum really have that much of an impact on a 3 year-old?), we decided to sign him up. (Will his college choice be this difficult??)

We have not regretted it one bit. Our son is thriving in his preschool and he absolutely loves it. In addition to learning non-Judaic content, he has learned in detail about every holiday on the Jewish calendar, including ones that we have never celebrated or discussed at home. In the fall, he came home singing Rosh Hashanah songs and telling us the Hebrew words for apple and honey (which I had to look up to verify because I didn't know them!). In the winter, he participated in a Hanukkah program, made latkes and played dreidel games. In the spring, they hold a children's seder and he learns all about Pesach (Passover). Every Friday they celebrate Shabbat with challah, candles and grape juice, and each Monday they hold a mini-Havdalah in the classroom. During Sukkot, my son even asked me, "Why don't we have a sukkah?"

His learning about these things in preschool has given my husband and me the extra push to incorporate these holidays into our home. It has helped us to follow through with the commitment we made to raise our children Jewish. It has also helped to introduce Judaism to our youngest son, who is not yet in preschool. Also important, it has been a great learning experience for my husband, who is very comfortable learning about and celebrating the Jewish holidays. He has not felt a spiritual connection with his Catholic upbringing for a number of years and is slowly starting to connect with the tenets of Reform Judaism.

Attending a Jewish preschool has helped our son to understand that we (and some of his friends) celebrate the same things he is learning about and why it is that we celebrate them. In our home as a family, we now celebrate Shabbat by lighting candles and having challah; Hanukkah by lighting the menorah, playing dreidel and exchanging gifts; and Passover by attending seders--the way our son learned in school. This has helped to show him the connection between our world at home and his world at school.

As our son enters public school next year, we hope that his Jewish preschool has given him a good foundation which he will continue to build upon as he grows. We know that it has been a wonderful experience for my husband and me.

Abby Spotts lives in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, with her husband and two sons.

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Get 'em While They're Young: Preschools Get First Crack at Families By Sue Fishkoff

March 23, 2006

OAKLAND, Calif. (JTA)--Fact: Teaching torah to toddlers can lead to a lifetime of Jewish learning. Fact: Jewish preschools serve as a gateway to Jewish life for the whole family. Fact: Jewish preschools are bursting at the seams.

Yet despite these realities, borne out by research, Jewish preschools are the poor cousins in the Jewish educational family.

Teachers are paid poorly--$19,400 is an average salary, according to one recent report--and few young Jews are going into the field. Job prestige is low and communal support is lackluster. Preschools are the only formal educational venue that is not a direct recipient of Jewish federation dollars, according to a 2002 report of the Jewish Early Childhood Education Partnership.

Preschool directors around the country report that resources are being squeezed even as classrooms are bursting with new children.

More than 1,000 schools across the United States educate some 122,500 children, a number which has doubled in the past decade.

Still, changing the name from “preschool” to “early childhood education center”--as many are doing to emphasize that there's nothing “pre” about meeting the developmental needs of 2-to-5- year-olds--hasn't done much to raise the profile of a field that many people still think of as glorified baby-sitting.

In addition, say a growing number of experts, a tremendous outreach opportunity is being squandered.

The Jewish community is trying hard to find unaffiliated Jews and bring them in, but it is paying “scant attention” to the preschool families already in the system, says Pearl Beck, director of “Jewish Preschools as Gateways to Jewish Life,” another 2002 study funded by the Jewish Early

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Childhood Education Partnership. JECEP was a temporary organization that had been created to study and advocate for increased attention to preschools.

The lack of commitment to the world of early childhood education is insulting, wrong and self- defeating, say experts in the field.

Their view is supported by a spate of recent studies that show that Jewish early childhood education not only influences the future course of a child's Jewish development; it can have a profound impact on the Jewish behavior and practice of the entire family.

Rabbi Ed Feinstein, the senior rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, Calif., acknowledged both the lack of respect for--and the vital role of--Jewish educators at a recent gathering of Reform teachers and directors.

“You're the first adult outside the family a child bonds with, the first professional that will encounter these young families,” Feinstein told the 150 women gathered in San Diego last year for the annual conference of the Early Childhood Educators of Reform Judaism.

“Your responsibility is much more than the child, it's to teach the family how to be a family, a Jewish family. That's your sacred responsibility.”

Ilene Vogelstein, special projects director in the early childhood department of the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education, known as CAJE, goes even further.

“The early childhood experience, as the start of Jewish practices at home and the understanding of Jewish values, is the gateway for the family to move into future Jewish experiences,” she says.

The snowball effect is overwhelming, the research shows: Parents of children in Jewish preschools are more likely to join a synagogue; they are more likely to enroll in adult education courses; and they often begin lighting Shabbat candles and celebrating Jewish holidays at home because of what their kids learn in the classroom.

Conversely, Jewish families with children in non-sectarian preschools tell researchers they celebrate fewer Jewish holidays and feel less involved Jewishly.

Take Sarah Ritthaler's family. Her 5-year-old son, Daniel, attends preschool at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center in San Rafael, Calif. Ritthaler's husband is not Jewish, and a condition of their marriage was that she be allowed to raise the children Jewishly.

“The impact has been profound,” she says of her son's preschool experience.

“My husband didn't know what a sukkah (wooden hut) was, and now he's building one in the yard because Daniel at 3 years old came home and said, 'Where's the sukkah?'”

The family also now celebrates Shabbat every Friday evening.

“We live on a Jewish calendar because of this place,” Ritthaler says, holding her son in her lap as his teacher shows the class a chart of the Hebrew months.

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“What gives me chills is our son identifying as a Jew. People say, why spend the money at this age? But I'm seeing before my eyes the unfolding of a Jewish soul.”

The latest findings on the impact of Jewish preschools, released by the Auerbach Central Agency for Jewish Education of Greater Philadelphia, surprised even those who directed the study, according to Helene Tigay, the group's executive director.

The study surveyed parents of 4- and 5-year-olds at 25 of the 48 preschools in the greater Philadelphia area. Among the key findings from the 218 survey forms that were returned:

z 70 percent said they are now more aware of the Jewish calendar; z 41 percent said they starting lighting Shabbat candles; z 27 percent have begun attending synagogue services; z 62 percent said that engaging in observances that included their children is “more of a priority;” z 51 percent indicated they are “more aware” of positive feelings about being Jewish; and z 93 percent said they plan to send their children for further Jewish schooling.

The 2002 “Gateways” study by the Jewish Early Childhood Education Project Partnership, which interviewed parents of preschoolers at JCCs and Reform and Conservative congregations in Detroit, Chicago and Baltimore, found similar results. Nearly 70 percent claimed they were doing “something different” in terms of Jewish observance or lifestyle, and had an “increased interest” in Jewish education as well as an “enhanced sense” of Jewish community.

The impact on the children themselves is equally dramatic. Kids who go to Jewish preschool have a higher chance of remaining Jewishly involved throughout their lives, says sociologist Steven Cohen of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

In an analysis of the early childhood education data from the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey, directed by the United Jewish Communities, the umbrella group of North American Federations, Cohen found that more than 40 percent of Jewish children who go to Jewish preschool continue on to Jewish day school.

He also found that 86 percent of Jewish preschoolers go on to day schools, supplemental Hebrew school, and/or Jewish camp.

While preschool doesn't necessarily convince parents to continue a child's Jewish education--they might have done that anyway--Cohen says the linkage is clear.

“Very few families that send their kids to Jewish preschool drop out of the Jewish educational system,” says Cohen, who analyzed the data for a December 2005 report for the Avi Chai Foundation, which supports Jewish education.

Rabbi Josh Elkin, director of the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, a group focused on day-school education that is looking at the links between day schools and preschools, says that it is clear from research how profound an effect early childhood education can have on a child in general.

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While there is a lack of hard data on the Jewish programs, he says, anecdotal evidence shows “there is a lot of hard-wiring of Jewish identity and Jewish values that takes place in many Jewish early childhood programs.”

When Fred and Allison Greenbaum moved to Stamford, Conn., they chose their home because it was close to one of the city's best public schools.

But after their oldest son, Richie, spent two and a half years in the Gan Yeladim nursery school run by Chabad-Lubavitch of Stamford, they decided to send him to a non-denominational community day school.

It was obvious, Allison Greenbaum says, that he wanted to be in a Jewish environment.

“We started him in the public school, but he was drawing pictures of boys with kippahs, and he'd point to mountains and say, look, that's Har Sinai,” the mountain where the Bible says Moses received the 10 Commandments.

“I saw it was so much a part of him, so much he had enjoyed and was now missing--the singing, the traditions.”

If he hadn't gone to preschool, she says, “day school wouldn't have even been on our radar.”

In addition, the family, who was totally unaffiliated, has joined a local Conservative congregation and Allison Greenbaum now sits on the board of the local federation.

The preschool connection is particularly important among non-Orthodox families, who are, experts say, less likely to continue their child's Jewish education than Orthodox parents.

Preschool does not greatly influence the Jewish behavior of most Orthodox families, says Rabbi Moshe Krupka, national executive director of the Orthodox Union. Since Orthodox families are already observant and affiliated, preschool complements a Jewish home life and “sets the foundation for a lifelong pursuit of Jewish knowledge and practice,” he says.

According to CAJE figures in 2004, of the 122,500 children in Jewish preschools, nearly 104,000 are Jewish. According to CAJE figures, one in four Jews under the age of 6 attends a Jewish preschool.

While different studies give different numbers for the under-6 Jewish population in the United States, experts in the field generally cite the CAJE figure of 430,000.

Of the Jewish children in Jewish preschools, 29,000 are in Orthodox schools. Nearly 75,000 are in Conservative, Reform, JCC and other community-run preschools. Many, if not most, of those families are unaffiliated; many observe few if any Jewish rituals at home.

But despite the increased interest and connection to Jewish life that families of preschoolers display, the organized Jewish world isn't following up on that interest, say those involved in the field.

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“Unfortunately, and it continues to baffle me, many of the Jewish institutions--the philanthropists, the federations--only see a 2-year-old, they don't see the family,” says Vogelstein of CAJE. “It's a package deal. What we do in early childhood programs will have an impact, in a positive or negative way, on the entire family.”

Preschools are a great way to reach the key 20- and 30-something demographic that the Jewish community is trying so hard to engage, says Tigay of the Auerbach agency.

JDate and hipster Purim parties are all well and good, but many young Jews are home with the kids.

“Early childhood education is the ultimate opportunity to reach young Jewish adults,” she says. “You don't have to go to bars to reach them. Their kids are in Jewish nursery schools.”

Helen Cohen, director of the Frances Jacobson Early Childhood Center at Temple Israel, a large Reform congregation in Boston, agrees.

“Parents at this stage are open and eager to do the best for their child,” she says. “Once they get to religious school, the momentum somewhat wanes. We get them when they're just starting out, and the enthusiasm is high, the motivation is high.”

The history of Jewish preschools in America show how things have changed. A handful of preschools were set up in the 1930s to provide working mothers with day care for their children. Those early schools were non-denominational, communal schools, focused more on integrating the children of Jewish immigrants into American culture than instilling Jewish identity, which it was assumed they would get at home.

The first Orthodox and Conservative preschools appeared in the late 1940s and early 1950s, followed later by Reform preschools, says Rena Rotenberg, founder of the early childhood department for Baltimore's board of Jewish education.

The preschool at Congregation Beth Hillel-Beth El in the Philadelphia suburb of Wynnewood, was set up 45 years ago by young parents who “wanted play opportunities for their children in a Jewish setting,” says director Ann Altus. “The goals were different than today--it was to serve members' needs.”

Today, when people live far apart rather than in the close-knit Jewish neighborhoods of their grandparents, preschools can fill an important community-building function, she says.

Young Jewish parents develop social circles with other parents from their kids' preschools, and that often leads to greater Jewish community involvement. “People want to connect with others like themselves,” Altus says.

Very few Conservative and virtually no Reform preschools require families to belong to the sponsoring congregation. In contrast, families who enroll their children in a congregation's religious school are expected to be members.

Nancy Bossov, director of early childhood education for the Union for Reform Judaism, estimates

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that just half the parents of kids in Reform preschools are synagogue members.

Many synagogues, in fact, establish preschools precisely to bring new members into their congregations.

When Ganon Gil, a 50-year-old independent Jewish preschool in Beachwood, Ohio, was absorbed by a nearby Reform congregation two years ago to bolster membership, just three of its families were temple members.

This year, reports preschool director Lori Kowit, that number jumped to 25. The synagogue leadership is ecstatic, she says.

Some synagogues encourage the process by reducing congregational dues for their preschool parents, by including membership in tuition or by giving priority enrollment in the schools to temple members.

Parents might join a synagogue to secure a place for their child in a popular congregational preschool, or to receive tuition discounts, but that doesn't mean they stay.

Some join only while their children are in preschool, then drop their membership--and pull their kid out of Jewish school--until third or fourth grade, when the child needs to start bar or bat mitzvah training.

Rabbi Jan Katzew, lifelong Jewish learning director for the Union for Reform Judaism, says there is a precipitous drop-off in the Reform community after preschool: 10,000 4-year-olds are enrolled in pre-K classes at Reform congregations around the country, but just 4,000 are enrolled in the first year of religious school.

That's even worse, he says, than the drop-off after bar and bat mitzvah.

To stem that tide, the Reform movement is developing a continuous curriculum that goes from preschool through seventh grade, to emphasize that preschool is part of a lifelong learning process.

“If we're going to take Jewish education seriously, it has to be coterminous with Jewish life,” he says. Preschool directors and teachers are often key to helping parents move permanently into the Jewish community--or to driving them, and their children, away.

“We need to be putting tons of money into training our professionals, not just to work with kids, but with parents,” says Tigay of the Auerbach agency.

Early Jewish childhood education experts agree that while a lot more resources need to be invested in bolstering early childhood education and cultivating the families involved, the situation has recently begun to improve.

“The whole field has been elevated significantly in the past three to five years,” says Steve Kraus, director of day school, congregational and communal education initiatives at JESNA, the federation system's organization focused on Jewish education.

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Indeed, more Jewish colleges are offering early childhood certification and degrees, and more preschools are obtaining national accreditation. There are new funding initiatives, such as the Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative, which is running a pilot program to help reach out to Jewish families, and Project Kavod, a joint project of CAJE and the Miami federation, which last year researched work conditions for preschool teachers in southern Florida.

The Reform and Conservative movements have hired national coordinators for their preschools in the past few years. And three years ago, the Early Childhood Educators of Reform Judaism became the first professional organization for Jewish preschool teachers and directors.

Cathy Rolland, president of that organization, says 10 years ago she was making $20,000 a year as a preschool director. Today, she says, directors in the larger schools can make $75,000, and almost all of them have been brought into the Reform movement's pension plan.

“Now we're fighting to get pensions for our teachers,” she says.

“We're finally getting the lay leadership as well as the rabbis to understand that Jewish identity begins with us, not with the religious school. So many of the rabbis are from the old school and don't take us seriously. But we're getting in new young rabbis with families, and it's changing.”

While preschools are still not receiving the multi-million-dollar gifts that go to Jewish day schools, that may not be far off, says Kraus.

The December 2005 Avi Chai study, “Linking the Silos,” proposed that federations, philanthropists and Jewish educators work more closely to improve communication between themselves and the entire Jewish educational system, from preschool through adult learning, to capitalize on the momentum created when a child is first placed in Jewish preschool.

Teachers and directors have to talk to parents, day school directors have to talk to preschools, synagogues need to work with federations, and the entire Jewish community needs to recognize how each institution feeds into the next.

And it all begins with the 2-year-olds.

“Preschool directors have the opportunity,” says researcher Cohen, “to change these Jewish students' lives.''

Sue Fishkoff is the West Coast correspondent for JTA. Formerly a features writer and New York correspondent for The Jerusalem Post, her first book, The Rebbe's Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch (Schocken, 2003), was named one of the best religion books of 2003 by Publisher's Weekly.

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Our Braided Heritage By Debbie Popiel White

My daughter Gabriella is the light in her parents' eyes. A sister to her two big brothers. A joy to her grandparents. A kind friend. Bright, talkative, inquisitive. She is all these things and she is also black and Jewish.

The combination makes for an interesting heritage and for some interesting choices in hairstyles as well. So as I sat watching my daughter's hair get braided into cornrows the other day I couldn't help but think about how those braids, entwined together, represented some of her many attributes. I saw in them strands of my husband, myself and my daughter's Judaism.

Gabriella is a 4-year-old who reminds me to recite the Sh'ma nightly and teaches her Christian cousins about how the Torah has all the stories in it that God wrote. When I picture her as a grown-up I think of her as being a strong woman who knows who she is and is Jewish above all. Why? Simple. Her parents chose to send her to a Jewish preschool.

One thing I discussed with my husband when I met him eight years ago was my steadfast desire to raise my children Jewish. It was no secret that at the time I was a teacher at a Jewish preschool and had a young son who was clearly being raised Jewish. Being upfront about these things wasn't so much a preparation for our life together as much as it was a sharing an important part of who I was that anyone close to me needed to know about. Gregory noticed my faith immediately, and while he came from a strong Christian family he himself did not observe any faith. He knew that to be with me meant that our children would be Jewish.

A few years later I left teaching to earn more money in the corporate sector and Gregory and I began to merge our families together. We each had a son from a first marriage who was 5 at the time. Blending two existing children, two races and two religions was not an easy feat. When we learned we were pregnant, I became anxious about raising a mixed-race child to be Jewish.

Not only did we decide to raise our daughter Jewish, but based on my previous experience sending my son to a Jewish preschool, we decided that the best place for her to be while we were at work

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was in the care of a Jewish preschool with an infant room. Having a husband who neither understood Judaism nor wished to embrace religion of any sort was challenging, but we agreed that as a mixed-race woman our daughter would need to be strong in her identity.

While my husband was not overly enthusiastic about sending our child to a Jewish preschool, he liked the strong family values and commitment to education that he saw in my belief system, felt welcomed as an African-American man in the Jewish preschool environment, and recognized this was best for our child through my encouragement. Gradually my concerns about how our daughter would be accepted as a mixed-raced Jewish child diminished, and my husband's outlook helped turn my anxiety to confidence.

Although we had had the conversation that we would raise our children Jewish at the beginning of our relationship, explaining that choice to my mother-in-law, who sings in a church choir, brought more anxiety. Fortunately, although unsure about how we would do it, she was supportive and interested in learning more. So onward we forged!

Since that time, I am fortunate to have gone back to my own roots in education and taken on the role of early childhood director at my daughter's preschool. You might think that as an active member of the Jewish community, incorporating Judaism into my home life would have been simple. However, for a mixed-race, second-marriage, blended family, incorporating Jewish rituals is just as difficult as it is for any other interfaith family. Take, for instance, the year that the first night of Hanukkah fell on Christmas Day. What do you celebrate and more importantly, how? We had a tree in honor of my husband's son, Damien, who in his other home celebrates Christmas. On Christmas day, we awakened to gift giving and eggnog. That evening, we had latkes and menorah lighting. It was a long day filled with lots of food and gifts. Honoring each holiday in a meaningful way other than opening gifts is a challenge too, so we took time to clean out our closets and donate to those less fortunate.

Gabriella's comment on the celebration was "We get to do both!" "Yeah and we get to do this for eight days," added her brother Samuel. "Christmas is eight days too? Yippee!" she shouted in glee.

Learning to celebrate who we are and being respectful of and honoring our differences comes directly from the school Gabriella attends. Christmas is not a bad word at her school. There are many interfaith families and some non-Jewish teachers, so they are very inclusive in their approach, which helps my immediate family enormously. Gabriella was the first person to say during circle time last year, when the topic came up about who was Jewish in the class (since one of the teachers was not), "My daddy is special. He's not Jewish, but God made us all special."

B'tzelim Elokim, being created in the image of God, is a strong theme in the school. Gabriella's teacher in the threes class tells a beautiful story about creation that incorporates diversity into it. She begins with the sun that is yellow and the grass that is green, stopping along the way to ask, "What if the sun was yellow and the grass and the trees were yellow too?" To which the children answer loudly and excitedly "BORING!" She then continues, asking that same question all the way through the story and asks finally, "What if God created us all the same color?" Of course, the children reply, "Boring!" The lesson of being created in the image of God and being grateful for being different is reinforced. Gabriella recognizes the shade of her skin in comparison with her friends and family as they hold their arms against each other and in her sweet sing song voice always ends with, "But we all look like God." She can draw this conclusion because of the strong values she has learned in a Jewish preschool where her friends accept her with no distinctions made

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about her color, putting my anxiety to rest.

At home, our daughter explains to her father what holidays she is learning about, and he is learning from her. Last Purim, upon giving our non-Jewish neighbors the Mishloach Manot (gift) basket she made at school, she politely told them, "They're meesh lock baskets." Oblivious to their perplexed looks she happily skipped away singing, "meesh lock, meesh lock, meesh lock."

My mother-in-law visits often and spends time at the school learning how to bake challah and recite the blessings. We say motzi (prayer over bread) at the dinner table nightly and my husband is the one who prompts my daughter to lead the prayer. Her education has become our family's education.

We have figured out a way to make raising our daughter Jewish in an interfaith family work and our family has thrived. Our child has brought us together in our rituals. Her brother Damien relearns the prayers each time he visits and knows his sister is Hanukkah and he is Christmas, as he puts it. We are incorporating Judaism into our lives while teaching our family that our differences can bind us together. We may not have the same religions or holidays, but we share our love for family, good food, belief in one God and enjoyment of spending time together. Holidays can be celebrated together, and we have discovered that certain shared foods can help represent some of the rituals. One of our favorites is using sweet potatoes, a staple in African-American food, for our latkes on Hanukkah.

Next year, Gabriella will go to kindergarten in our local public school. I am confident she has the strong identity necessary to succeed in a non-Jewish world. If we had chosen another course for her early education I am not sure I would have been able to make as definitive a statement. I know that the self-esteem she has learned through B'tzelim Elokim will shine through and let her teach others about her beautifully braided heritage.

Debbie Popiel White, originally from New York, is a graduate of Hofstra University and the Director of Early Childhood Education at Temple Chai Childhood Center in Phoenix, Ariz. She is married to Gregory, and their blended family includes 11-year-olds Samuel and Damien, and 5-year-old Gabriella, who is enrolled at the Temple Chai Childhood Center.

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For more information, visit our Parenting Resource Page.

Growing Number of Non-Jews Teach the Aleph-Bet at Preschool By Sue Fishkoff

March 23, 2006

SAN LEANDRO, Calif. (JTA)--It's 10 a.m. Friday morning at Temple Beth Sholom's preschool, and teacher Diane Acquistapace is helping a dozen toddlers get ready for Shabbat.

“You put your challah in, you put your challah out, you put your challah in, and you shake it all about,” they sing, arms high above their heads as they turn slowly, doing their own rendition of the hokey-pokey.

Turning to an Asian boy to her left, Acquistapace asks, “Simon, what do you like best about Shabbat?”

“Challah!” Simon shouts.

“Madison, what do you like best?”

“The candles!”

Then they all crowd around a pint-sized table to light candles, eat fresh-baked, chocolate-chip challah and sing Shabbat songs, in English and Hebrew.

Acquistapace, who is not Jewish, knows all the songs. She should, after eight years teaching in this Conservative congregation's preschool.

“I'm Catholic, but I've learned so many things about the Jewish religion,” she says. “It's so exciting. I never knew what Shabbat was. I love Chanukah, lighting the candles.”

Of the eight teachers at this San Francisco Bay area preschool, seven are non-Jews. So are many of the children they teach.

That's not unusual in the world of Jewish preschool.

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According to 2004 figures from the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education, 15 percent of the more than 122,500 children in Jewish preschools in this country are not Jewish: about 10 percent in Reconstructionist and Conservative preschools, 20 percent in Reform schools, and 44 percent in preschools run by Jewish Community Centers and Ys. Virtually all children in Orthodox preschools are Jewish.

This isn't referring to children of intermarried parents, rather the children of two non-Jewish parents.

And many of their teachers aren't Jewish either: 30 percent in the JCC preschools, 10 percent to 25 percent in Reform schools, and 12 percent to 20 percent in Conservative schools, according to the CAJE figures. The percentage is highest in the western United States, where almost 40 percent of preschool teachers are not Jewish.

That sets up an interesting scenario: Plenty of classrooms where non-Jewish teachers are introducing non-Jewish children to Jewish history, values and customs.

Does it matter? The question is important at a time when Jewish preschools are gradually being recognized as a critical factor in developing a strong Jewish identity both in the toddlers and their families.

The answer? Yes and no.

On one hand, Jewish early childhood experts acknowledge that they'd rather have Jewish teachers to act as living role models for the children. But finding Jewish teachers is becoming increasingly difficult.

Lyndall Miller, coordinator of the Jewish early childhood education certification program at Gratz College in Melrose Park, Pa., says that few younger Jews are going into the field because of low salaries and benefits.

“Synagogues will find themselves in trouble keeping their early childhood programs,” she says. “We're all in our 40s and 50s. Who will be coming in? It'll be almost all non-Jewish teachers. And the community will miss this amazing opportunity to acculturate children to Jewish life at a time when children are learning how to do Jewish, which translates into being Jewish.”

On the other hand, every preschool director interviewed insists that her non-Jewish teachers are dedicated, hardworking and often know more about Judaism and the holidays than their Jewish colleagues.

Certainly, they say, any qualified teacher can learn the level of Jewish and Hebrew knowledge required to teach such young children.

“I have one non-Jewish teacher,” says Laurel Abrams, director of the Jennifer Rosen Meade Preschool, a Reform congregational school in Bellevue, Wash. “She's been here 13 years and she knows as much as the Jewish teachers.”

But Abrams, like most directors, teams her non-Jewish teacher with her Jewish ones, to make sure

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there's always a Jewish teacher in the classroom.

Rabbi Jan Katzew, director of lifelong Jewish learning for the Union for Reform Judaism, points out that non-Jewish women have a long history of educating Jewish children, dating back to biblical times.

Shiphra and Puah, the two midwives who defied Pharaoh and refused to drown Jewish male infants, “might not be Jewish,” he says. “And Pharaoh's daughter, who was clearly not Jewish, was pivotal in rearing Moses.”

“Without explicit support from non-Jews, we would have had no Moses, no Torah and no Judaism, at least as we now know it,” he says.

Jewish preschools have changed radically over the past 20 years. According to the Jewish educational nonprofit JESNA, most Jewish preschools in the early 1980s were synagogue nursery schools, half-day programs that sought to socialize the children and introduce them to a few basic Jewish concepts. Teacher retention was high, and most were certified in early childhood education and had bachelor's or master's degrees.

Today, preschools are run by a variety of agencies, as well as by synagogues. The booming student population of children up to 6 years old has outstripped the supply of qualified teachers, who are less educated and less likely to stay in the field than their predecessors.

“Unfortunately,” a recent JESNA report states, “it has become increasingly difficult to find sufficient numbers of Jewish teachers to teach in those programs.”

It's the “unfortunately” that has some educators squirming.

“That's a loaded question,” says Ina Regosin, founding director of the Early Childhood Institute and dean of students at Hebrew College in Newton, Mass., which has offered a teaching certificate in early Jewish childhood education for 20 years.

“You can't have a Jewish school of excellence without excellently trained early childhood Jewish educators, people who speak Hebrew, who model Jewish values, who are living microcosms of what that means. If a non-Jew can do it, fine, but it's not what I would choose.”

Dena Hoenig, director of the preschool at Congregation Agudas Achim, a Conservative congregation in San Antonio, Texas, disagrees.

“I've been very fortunate to have excellent teachers,” Hoenig says of her school, where four of the 12 teachers are not Jewish. “The parents don't even know which teachers are Jewish and which are not.”

Hoenig's preschool was created in 1997 by five families, four of them non-Jewish, as a “mother's day out” program, she explains. As the school grew to 60 children, so did its percentage of Jewish families, to 85 percent.

“Especially in San Antonio, there's a shortage of Jewish early childhood educators,” she says. “It's

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a problem all the synagogues face.”

One of her teachers, Marcie Kane, is a practicing Catholic who has been teaching at Jewish preschools for nine years. She took the job because, she says, “it was just a really good school,” and she stayed because she loves it.

“I had to learn Hebrew, the aleph bet, the Jewish songs, all the holidays,” she says. “Sometimes I'd have to learn something and then teach it the next day. But because I'm not Jewish, I'm really trying to learn more. Some of the Jewish teachers have forgotten things that I'm learning. I say, you don't know that? Here, let me teach you!”

Vivi Deren, director of the Chabad-run Gan Yeladim preschool in Stamford, Conn., says each of her classrooms has an early childhood expert, usually non-Jewish, teamed with a Jewish teacher, who is responsible for the Jewish learning. Her Jewish teachers are Torah-observant, young Lubavitch women.

It's about authenticity, she says. “When it comes to talking about what matzah means, it's only the Judaic teacher” who should explain that to the children, she says. “And I only hire Judaic teachers who live it. It's not a question of just being Jewish.”

Jewish education expert Lois Shenker, author of Welcome to the Family, told a recent convention of Reform preschool educators that it's crucial for Jewish teachers to “live their Judaism” all the time, not just in the classroom.

That doesn't mean they all have to be Jewish, she says.

When she directed the JCC preschool in Portland, Ore., none of her teachers were Jewish. She says she'd rather have a skilled non-Jewish teacher than an unskilled Jewish one.

“Jewish values and observance are not, by and large, in conflict with Christianity. So if teachers can buy into it, and they're skilled teachers, that's fine,” she says.

But, in her view, it's crucial that the directors of Jewish preschools be Jewish, particularly when there are large numbers of non-Jewish teachers.

Eloise Hull, director of the preschool at The Temple, Congregation Ohabai Shalom in Nashville, Tenn., might disagree.

One of the few non-Jewish preschool directors in the country, Hull is a practicing Christian who grew up in a fundamentalist church in Lancaster, Pa., and went to Bible college for her early childhood education degree.

Now she's on the national board of the Early Childhood Educators of Reform Judaism, the professional body for Reform Jewish preschool teachers and directors, and is deeply committed to the project of educating Jewish preschoolers.

Hull doesn't see any conflict between her personal beliefs and heading a Jewish preschool, although she admits it would be “more difficult” beyond the preschool level, once teachers get into the realm

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of theology.

“We were always taught Jews are God's people, and what I do at the temple isn't that different than being an educator in a Christian school--the values, the stories, the heritage, it's all something I'd want children to know, Jewish or not. I feel very comfortable advocating for these things.”

About half the 106 children and three-quarters of the teachers in her school are not Jewish. She had to chastise some of those teachers, she admits, when she found out they were bringing Christian Bibles to class and even taking their pupils to Sunday school.

“When I hire teachers, I say this is a Jewish school, this is what we talk about and this is what we don't talk about, so are you comfortable with that?” she says. “And I tell my parents, we're celebrating Jewish heritage here.”

Why would Christians send their children to Jewish school?

There are no barriers preventing non-Jewish parents from sending their children to non-Orthodox, and even some Orthodox, preschools. Few Conservative preschools, and virtually no Reform or JCC preschools, require families to affiliate.

That open-door policy, combined with the reputation of Jewish preschools for high-quality early childhood education, has attracted many non-Jewish families.

Nancy Bossov, director of early childhood education for the Union for Reform Judaism, sees it as a positive trend.

“I'm delighted we have the opportunity to raise an entire generation of non-Jews that know about Judaism and are comfortable with it,” she says.

When Edna Vaknin was hired as the preschool director at Beth Sholom, the San Francisco Bay area school, eight years ago, the school was on the verge of collapse with just seven children in the school, all of them Jewish.

In an effort to bolster enrollment, she decided to open the doors, advertising as a “strictly Jewish” school that was available to anyone.

“I said, 'We don't celebrate Halloween or Christmas and we keep kosher, but we want you to be part of us, to show you what we're all about.' “

Today the school has 60 children of mixed backgrounds. Last year, a couple who were both Christian ministers sent their child, and used to show up every Friday for the school's Shabbat program.

Another parent, Carol Orth, is a practicing Christian who enrolled her 2-year-old daughter, Carmen, because she heard good things about the school from friends.

“It's a loving environment,” she says, as she balances her daughter on her lap during pre-Shabbat festivities. “I'm raising my child Christian, but I want her to grow up in a God-loving environment.

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She can learn the Old Testament here.”

In San Diego, Lynn Parker says she chose the preschool at Temple Solel, a Reform congregation, for her son in part because it was more multicultural than the local Christian schools.

As a Christian married to a Hindu, she wanted her son in that kind of mixed atmosphere.

When their son brought home apples at Rosh Hashanah, dipped them in honey and taught his sister the songs he'd learned in preschool, Parker says she was pleased. She even bought him a menorah when he asked for one, and set it up alongside the family's Christmas tree.

“He sings the songs, talks about the Torah and all the things he's learned, and we like it,” she says.

“As much exposure to different cultures he can get, the better for him--and for us. We're learning, too.''

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For more information, visit our Spirituality Resource Page.

When Children Raise Jewish Parents By Christina Pertus-Hendelman

Three years ago, while pregnant with my first child, I wrote an essay for InterfaithFamily.com describing my feelings concerning this child's religious prospects (Intermarried and Pregnant: Thoughts about Our Child's Religious Future). The future seemed gloomy. If we had managed to skillfully maneuver around any potential religious conflict through our childless, French-Catholic- Texan-Jewish marriage, the arrival of this baby was about to expose several issues. For Aaron it was my broken promise to convert prior to our marriage. It was also my now-suspicious pledge to raise our children as Jews. What if I broke this promise, too? For me, the thought of doing just that became dominant when I convinced myself that I was allowed to change my mind. How on earth could I deprive my child of Christmas, my beloved childhood celebration? Why should I be denied the right to expose my child to my faith, my roots? The truth was Aaron had no idea how to start paving the way for a Jewish household and I, in turn, didn't want to help him, feeling that, despite classes and many holidays spent with his family at his Conservative synagogue, Judaism was still foreign and, let's be honest, unappealing to me. This is what happened next:

Tess's birth triggered our worst episode. Her naming took place in Aaron's synagogue back in Texas and, because I, her mother, was not Jewish, Tess needed to be converted. I felt deeply hurt, convinced that I was being punished for not having converted myself. Furthermore, why do this when the Reform movement allows a father to pass his religion to his child? Angry and totally ill prepared by a rabbi who had no interest in my emotional well-being, I took my daughter to the mikvah, the ritual bath used for conversion ceremonies. It took Aaron four attempts, while mother and child screamed hysterically, to immerse our six-week-old baby in the water to the satisfaction of the rabbi.

Two years later, during which our religious life amounted to very little, I became pregnant again, this time with a boy. With this news, we were heading towards the second-most-difficult episode of our intermarriage. While my stand against circumcision had always been very firm, needless to say, Aaron felt differently. No matter how much I would try to reason with him on the subject, I was met with a silence. What he could not express, what I initially could not comprehend, was the depth of emotions behind circumcision. It is the hallmark of Jewish men, no matter how barbaric or irrational the procedure

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seems to me. We compromised; Noah's bris happened at the hospital. He was not converted.

Our religious future seemed gloomy indeed. Both Aaron and I were tired and disappointed, stuck in a theoretical tug of war with no end in sight. It was Tess who provided the way out of our religious paralysis. She was in need of a preschool. The JCC offered a spot. Reluctantly I said yes. After a slow adaptation, it became clear that this was going to be a transforming experience for daughter and . . . mother. Along with Tess, I became a three year old again and began my real apprenticeship in Judaism. I learned more about Judaism in Tess's classroom than in any other classes or service. I took notes and borrowed creative ideas about Jewish holidays, each duly celebrated as the year went by. I learned beautiful Jewish songs and began to understand and appreciate the meaning of common prayers and blessings. Each week the celebration of Shabbat, Sabbath, with our toddlers was a moving and spiritual experience that I had so missed all these years. This was a Judaism that finally appealed to me, accessible, warm and real. And then it struck me; I was slowly becoming part of a welcoming Jewish community.

This experience has been a blessing for our family in many ways. First, it has given us a much- needed template to start our own traditions. Each Friday, led by Tess, we celebrate Shabbat and light candles, covering our eyes and inviting a dinosaur to have Shabbat with us. What a joy to see little Noah beaming when we start singing "Bim Bam." Aaron, delighted to see such change in his household without much effort on his end, had to dust off and reinvent the Judaism of his childhood, and he loves it! As for me, there is a certain relief to know that I have finally found a Judaism that I feel comfortable embracing. The way towards religious harmony in our life is still long. I have not given up on convincing Aaron to celebrate Christmas in our home, and should we have another boy, I will, again, state my piece against circumcision. But in some profound way the experience has allowed me to feel whole with my husband, maybe for the first time in our married life.

Christina Pertus Hendelman lives in Mountain View, California, with her husband Aaron and their Texan-French-Norwegian children, Tess, almost four, and Noah, twenty-one months. This article was an entry in the InterfaithFamily.com Network's Essay Contest, "We're Interfaith Families...Connecting with Jewish Life."

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Kapler Hoping to Rejuvenate Career By Jeff Goodman

This article originally appeared in The (Boston) Jewish Advocate and is reprinted with permission.

(Editor's update: Since this article appeared in 2004, Kapler has retired to become manager of the single-A Greenville Drive, Shawn Green joined the New York Mets, Jason Marquis joined the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the first time since 1918. Since Kapler joined the Red Sox, fellow Jews Kevin Youkilis, Adam Stern and Craig Breslow have been on the roster for stretches of time.)

Gabe Kapler has as much pride in his heritage as any other Jew, but sometimes he wishes that he'd be known more for his accomplishments on the baseball field rather than being thought of as a "Jewish" baseball player. "I'd like to be recognized as a baseball player first, but that's out of my hands," the 27-year-old outfielder said. "However, I do feel really lucky to be looked up to. Carrying the torch is special."

There aren't many active Jewish major leaguers. Shawn Green, an outfielder with the Los Angeles Dodgers, is really the only household name. Other prominent Jewish players include Philadelphia Phillies catcher Mike Lieberthal and Atlanta Braves pitcher Jason Marquis.

At one time, Kapler was on track to be right there with Green among the game's elite players. However, the former Minor League Player of the Year has been traded twice and released once in the last three years. Now he's hoping to revive his career after being picked up by the Red Sox in late June. Through Tuesday, he was hitting .295 with two home runs and nine RBIs in 17 games for Boston.

The sculpted, 6-foot-2, 210-pound Kapler, who graced a couple of bodybuilding magazine covers early in his career, actually grew up with a Christmas tree in his Los Angeles home. His level of religious observance changed significantly after his mother began working at a Jewish preschool. "We started practicing a little more and attended a Conservative synagogue," said Kapler, who had a Bar Mitzvah. "I feel really proud of my heritage and my bloodlines."

Kapler was anything but one of those "can't miss" kids growing up. He was fortunate to earn a college scholarship to Cal-State Fullerton, one of the top baseball programs in the country, but he didn't stay on campus for long.

"I had a hard time in terms of partying and not quite being focused," Kapler admitted. "Being 17 and acting 17, I was home before the spring semester began. I wasn't going to class or practice and

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got caught doing things I shouldn't have been doing."

Kapler took a year off and then went to junior college in 1995 at Moorpark College. He led the team in nearly every offensive category before being drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the 57th round.

Kapler excelled in the minor leagues, including a 1998 season when he batted .322, hit 28 homers and drove in a minor-league-best 144 runs. He was in the majors by the end of the '98 season.

It didn't take long for comparisons to begin with Tigers legend Hank Greenberg, a Hall of Fame slugger who is considered to be one of the greatest Jewish baseball players of all time.

However, the future in Motown didn't last long as Kapler was shipped to Texas for established slugger Juan Gonzalez a little more than a year after making his major-league debut. Kapler strung together a 28-game hitting streak upon arriving in Texas and then hit 17 home runs, drove in 72 runs and stole 23 bases in 2001. A sub-par '02 saw him once again traded--this time to Colorado in the middle of the season.

Kapler lasted less than a season with the Rockies before being released and picked up by the Red Sox. He started with a flourish, collecting a pair of doubles, a triple and two homers in his first nine at-bats with Boston.

Kapler is enjoying Boston thus far, and he'll have little difficulty staying grounded. He knows all about quick starts after becoming the first player in Texas history to hit home runs in his first two at-bats upon joining the Rangers.

"It's been a short period of time, but it's been a great start here in Boston," said Kapler, who is serving as Boston's fourth outfielder. "I have a little callous on me from what I've been through in the past, though."

Kapler is the ninth Jewish ballplayer in Red Sox history and the first since Brian Bark pitched in Boston in 1995. He is also hoping, down the road, to become the second Jew, following Larry Rothchild of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, to manage in the major leagues on a non-interim basis.

Although he would rather be known as a ballplayer first, he doesn't hide his roots. On the back of his left leg, he has a star of David tattoo that reads, "Strong Minded." On the other leg there are two dates: The start and end of the Holocaust.

Although his wife, Lisa, is Catholic, his two children will know the history of Judaism. "They both go to the preschool that my mom teaches at," Kapler said. "They will definitely know where they came from and will be proud of their Jewish roots."

Just like their father.

Jeff Goodman is a former national sportswriter for the Associated Press who is currently a full-time freelancer residing in Boston.

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For more information, visit our Parenting Resource Page.

Get 'Em While They're Even Younger: Groups Reach Out to Babies Too By Jacob Berkman

NEW YORK, Dec. 5, 2006 (JTA)--It wasn't long ago that the Jewish organizational world came to grips with the idea that the best way to reach unaffiliated families was by getting them to enroll their toddlers in Jewish early- childhood programs.

But a new study says it's even better to get to them as soon as their babies are born.

Released in November by Brandeis University's Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, the study looked at programs in 10 Jewish communities aimed at engaging first-time Jewish parents.

Statistically, American Jews become parents later in life than the general population--often after both parents are professionally established--and new parenthood involves a certain amount of social isolation, according to Mark Rosen, who conducted the study.

Parents often need something to ground and assist them in the period of upheaval after childbirth, Rosen said, and if the Jewish community can provide proper programming, it can engage parents in the community long- term.

"It's at a point in their lives when you can seize the moment because their whole life turns upside down," Rosen told JTA. "It's a real opportunity, but it starts with giving them a sense of Jewish peoplehood, this sense that 'I belong.' "

Rosen conducted on-site interviews with some 100 professionals running programs such as Shalom Baby--through which federations give parents gift baskets shortly after their child is born--and Parents' Place, a drop-in resource center of the Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco that serves about 30,000 people a year.

The most effective programs offer parents support from peers, Rosen said, since several sets of parents moving closer to Jewish involvement at the same time can provide momentum.

But much of the success is predicated on hiring a good professional who cares about the parents with whom he or she is working, Rosen said, adding that it's often best to run programs outside of

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synagogues because they can be intimidating for the unaffiliated.

The key is creating programming that's engaging not just for children but for parents, he said.

It's a technique employed by Chabad-Lubavitch. Chabad rabbis, who are charged with personally reaching out to every Jew in the vicinity of their outposts, typically set up discussion groups for young parents, according to Nachum Kaplan, director of Chabad's central education office.

Those meetings break the ice and help feed children into Chabad's 160 early-childhood programs, a number that has doubled in the past six years, Kaplan said.

"Whether it's reaching out to this group or reaching out to parents of early-childhood-program children, it's the same," Kaplan said. "It means reaching out to couples where they are."

Where young parents are tends to be centered on their children. Chabad has more than 7,000 children enrolled in early-education programs, which means it has some 5,000 families it can reach through them, Kaplan said.

The eight volunteers working the Shalom Baby program of the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in San Diego have contacted some 1,300 new parents since the program started five years ago, coordinator Judy Nemzer said.

Each year the volunteers distribute 270 to 300 baskets containing candlesticks, grape juice, toys, tzedakah boxes and a series of publications about raising Jewish children, along with information about JCC programming.

In a survey completed in September, the JCC found that 83 percent of those who received the baskets responded positively, 78 percent intended to enroll their children in Jewish preschools and 78 percent planned to join a synagogue.

Before the parents were contacted, only 29 percent had been affiliated, according to data from local gynecologists and word of mouth, Nemzer said.

The San Diego JCC has found that play groups are among its most successful infant programs. It now has 35 such groups, each with 15 to 20 mothers, Nemzer said.

In Denver, 50 out of the 200 children enrolled in the Robert E. Loup Jewish Community Center's preschool had been participants in Shalom Baby, according to Caron Blanke, who runs the program there.

Such programs can be cost-effective because they are volunteer-based, Rosen said, yet few communities use the programs and they are often underfunded.

Rosen's study is being examined by a number of Jewish educational and outreach institutions as a way to bring empirical evidence--and attention--to a trend they've already noted.

The Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, a foundation dedicated to improving Jewish day schools, has been working to develop "pipeline grants" to get day schools to form relationships

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with local early- childhood centers to feed children into the schools, executive director Rabbi Joshua Elkin said.

Doing so brings a Jewish child's potential entry point into the day-school system to about 2 years, 9 months, Elkin said. Rosen's research, though, brings the entry point down to birth.

"Mark's research points at a much bolder direction," Elkin said.

Still, the need to reach out to these families is greater than what the organized Jewish world may know.

The 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey suggested that there were about 45,000 to 50,000 Jewish families with newborns, according to Len Saxe, director of the Cohen Center. Allowing for methodological errors in the study and for differing definitions of what it means to have a Jewish baby, Saxe said the actual number of such families could be twice as high.

Reaching out to new parents has become a key tactic in bringing interfaith families closer to the Jewish fold, according to Paul Golin, associate director of the Jewish Outreach Institute.

The interfaith outreach world has been invigorated by the 2005 Greater Boston Jewish Community Study, conducted by Brandeis University's Steinhardt Social Research Institute. That survey showed that in Boston, where the community makes a point of reaching out to interfaith families, some 60 percent of intermarried families are raising their children Jewish.

The New York-based JOI administrates www.themotherscircle.org, an online community of 400 non-Jewish mothers who are raising their children Jewish. It's designed to give them peer support and connect them with educational resources, such as how to bring up a Jewish child, how to tell non-Jewish grandparents that they are raising children Jewish and how to prepare for a brit milah.

"The Jewish community is now recognizing this opportunity," Golin said. "If the community is open to these young families, it can make a connection that can last lifetimes. It's an opportunity we often miss."

But Donald Sylvan, president of the Jewish Education Service of North America, warns that the opportunity is valuable only if the community figures out not just how to bring in new parents, but how to guide them further into the community afterward.

"It's the best time if and only if there is an institutionalized follow-up to make sure the parents you are engaging have a road map to get to other engagements," he said. "Some communities have found that road map, and others have not.''

Jacob Berkman is a JTA national staff writer based in New York. An award-winning journalist, he is the former managing editor of the New Jersey Jewish Standard. He also worked for the Baltimore Jewish Times and the Forward newspaper.

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For more information, visit our Parenting Resource Page.

Conservative Day Schools To Admit Patrilineals? By Sue Fishkoff

Dec. 12, 2006

BOCA RATON, Fla. (JTA)--The Conservative movement's Solomon Schechter day schools are considering making their admissions policies more flexible.

Currently the 76 Schechter schools in the United States and Canada admit only children who are Jewish according to Jewish law, which means children born to a Jewish mother or those who have converted, or children whose families have committed to completing the conversion process within one year.

At the Solomon Schechter Day School Association's recent national convention in Boca Raton, school officials discussed a draft proposal that would remove that one-year deadline. The child would still be expected to convert before bar or bat mitzvah age, but it would be up to individual schools to determine how long that process should take.

"We think it has to be before bar or bat mitzvah, preferably by age 10, but we're not going to say it has to be done within two or three years," said Elaine Cohen, national consultant to the Schechter schools. "We'll leave it to the discretion of the school."

The association's board of directors "will continue the discussion" after the conference, she said, before making any policy changes.

The move is part of the Conservative movement's increased outreach efforts to the growing numbers of intermarried families.

After years of resisting more inclusive outreach policies urged by its liberal wing, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the movement's congregational arm, seems to have taken the reins of a movement in flux and is steering it in the direction of greater openness.

Early last year Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, outgoing chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, urged the movement's Ramah camps to admit the children of non-Jewish mothers. That change has

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not yet been instituted.

And last month, the movement's highest legal authority paved the way for same-sex commitment ceremonies and the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis.

Movement leaders said the day-school proposal should not be seen as a first step toward accepting patrilineal Jews, which is the term for children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers.

The Reform movement's acceptance of such children, as long as they are being raised Jewish, set off a furor among non-Reform Jews two decades ago.

The Conservative movement's intensified outreach efforts began in December 2005 at the United Synagogue's Boston biennial when Rabbi Jerome Epstein, the group's executive vice president, announced a movement-wide kiruv, or "ingathering," initiative, to make intermarried families more welcome in Conservative institutional life.

The ultimate goal is still for the non-Jews in those families to convert, with conversion seen not as an end in itself but "the beginning of a Jewish journey" that synagogues, day schools and other institutions of Conservative Jewish life should help the family take, Epstein said.

Speaking to conference delegates Monday in Boca Raton, Epstein made an impassioned plea to Schechter school directors and rabbis to be more welcoming to children of non-Jewish mothers, suggesting that the system "make a special effort to enroll the children of intermarried Jews even if they are not halachically Jewish," and then engage in concerted outreach efforts to encourage the children and their non-Jewish mother to convert "as part of their Jewish journey."

He also specified that the schools should clearly articulate "the point by which that child must be Jewish, certainly no more than a few years."

Reaction to Epstein's suggestion drew mixed reviews at the conference.

Rabbi Scott Bolton, head of the Reuben Gittelman Hebrew Day School in New City, N.Y.--which admits only children who are halachically Jewish--was one of several rabbis who believed that such a change should not be made to Schechter admissions practice ahead of more wide-ranging infrastructure changes in the movement "to share our passion about becoming Jewish."

Mildred David, head of the Brandeis School in Lawrence, N.Y., wants to bring the question to her board. She favors a more flexible conversion timetable for non-halachically Jewish children.

"If the parents want their child at the Brandeis School, it means their lifestyle is Jewish, so why should we distance them?" she asked.

Epstein admitted that his suggestion involves "a change in culture," which he acknowledged takes time.

He told conference delegates that "rabbis have been slow to come on board" with his kiruv initiative, but he expects "that within a year or two we will be in field-goal position"--that is to say, relatively close.

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Some Conservative rabbis and Schechter school directors around the country say it's about time for change. But at least one Jewish education expert outside the Conservative movement warned darkly about "a big backlash" from the movement's conservative wing when the proposed change is announced.

Still, even those Conservative leaders who are more circumspect note that leaving the decision up to individual schools means no change is required, and certainly not right away.

Some schools are going beyond the proposed changes.

In St. Louis, the city's 12 Conservative rabbis have been working since September to create a unified policy for their Schechter school "that would be acceptable to us as rabbis and livable for our school," said Rabbi Carnie Rose of B'nai Amoona.

The policy, sent to the school board this week, specifies that the school will accept a child of a non- Jewish mother up to the age of bar or bat mitzvah. The child will be assigned a rabbinic mentor who will work closely with the family, "so it will not come as a surprise" that the child will be asked to convert by age 12 or 13, or else leave the school.

The school also would admit children of non-Jewish mothers after bar mitzvah age, with the stipulation that they must convert within a year.

Ultimately, the conversation goes beyond how many years to allow a non-halachically Jewish child to remain in a Conservative school before conversion and addresses how the Conservative movement views the role of a day-school education.

The debate goes to the heart of a Conservative day school's identity. Arnold Zar-Kessler, head of the Schechter day school in Newton, Mass., said he "looks favorably" on the proposed change, and noted November's study of the Boston Jewish community, which showed that 60 percent of children of intermarried families were being raised as Jews.

"It may be that we have to reflect a different reality as time goes on," he said.

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Interfaith Celebrities: For Peet's Sake By Nate Bloom

Pregnant Peet on "Studio 60"

In early September 2006, Amanda Peet, the beautiful actress who stars on NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," announced she was pregnant. Two months later, her character on the show, Jordan McDeere, did the same.

But that's where the similarities end. On the show, McDeere got pregnant after a one-night stand that happened shortly after she was named president of the fictional TV network that shows "Studio 60." In real life, Peet, 35, is pregnant with the child of her new husband, David Benioff.

Peet was born in Manhattan to a Quaker father and a Jewish mother. She describes her upbringing as a "little bit Jewish" and a "little bit Quaker." She went to the Friends Seminary in Manhattan, a Quaker-affiliated prep school that is almost non- denominational and whose student body is about 50% Jewish.

Peet has been acting since college, but first attracted substantial Amanda Peet, one of the stars of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," was born to a Quaker father notice in 1999 as the co-star of the "Jack and Jill" TV series. Her and a Jewish mother and went to the Friends first hit movie was The Whole Nine Yards, which co-starred Seminary in Manhattan, which is also where she got married last year. Photo by Matthew Perry. Since then she has appeared in a string of REUTERS/Brendan McDermid movies including Syriana, Saving Silverman and Something's Gotta Give.

Benioff, 36, grew up in Manhattan in an affluent Jewish family. His father was once head of Goldman Sachs, the famous investment firm. Benioff got an Ivy League college degree, but chose to live a very "un-Ivy-like" life after graduation--he worked as a club bouncer for a time and then taught high school in Wyoming.

Benioff was celebrating Passover with his family when he got the news that his first novel, The 25th Hour, had been accepted for publication. Subsequently, Benioff became a full-time screenwriter and novelist. His screenplays include his adaptation of The 25th Hour for Spike Lee and his script for Troy, starring Brad Pitt.

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On October 1, 2006, Benioff and Peet married. It was the first marriage for both members of this very good looking couple. (Yes, that means the pair was engaged when Peet got pregnant.)

Peet managed to acknowledge both sides of her heritage at her wedding. The traditional Jewish wedding ceremony was held at Peet's alma mater, the Friends Seminary.

Schreiber's Big Month

Like Amanda Peet, actor Liev Schreiber, 39, is a graduate of the Friends Seminary in Manhattan. While not a superstar, Schreiber has carved out a very good career as a Shakespearean actor, as a film actor in such hits as Scream and The Manchurian Candidate, and on Broadway--where he won a 2005 Tony for best actor in a revival of "Glengarry Glen Ross."

This is a busy month for Schreiber--his new film, The Painted Veil, opens "wide," and he joins the cast of "CSI," the hit TV series.

Schreiber's first episode as a recurring member of the C.S.I. team is scheduled to air on CBS on Sunday, January 14. His character, Michael Keppler, has a fairly Jewish name, but I don't know if the character is supposed to be Jewish.

While most people assume that Schreiber is Jewish because of his last name, his father, actor Tell Schreiber, is not Jewish. His mother, artist, Heather Milgram, is a Jew and Liev identifies as Jewish.

Liev Schreiber was born Isaac Liev Schreiber in San Francisco, but quickly dropped his given first name. His father says that he was given the name "Liev" in honor of the doctor who saved Liev's mother's life. Liev's mother says that he was named "Liev" in honor of Russian author Leo (Liev) Tolstoy.

Liev Schreiber, the son of a German father and This is not the only disagreement his parents have had. They Jewish mother, is shown at the premiere of his new movie, The Painted Veil, on Dec. 13, 2006, split up when Liev was only 4 years old and his mother moved in Hollywood. Photo by REUTERS/Gus Ruelas to New York with Liev. Her move to New York was quickly followed by a nasty custody fight which Liev's mother won with the financial help of Alex Milgram, Liev's maternal grandfather.

In 2005, Liev Schreiber told The Jewish Week:

He [my maternal grandfather] came to this country when he was a young man, before 1920, before the [Second World] War. He was a butcher, and when my mother and father split up there was a very difficult custody battle. My grandfather spent his life savings to help my mother win custody.

Milgram was an old-fashioned, Reform, socialist Jew and his mother, Schreiber says, was a hippie. "She believed in all that deep stuff and that money wasn't cool and that you should live off the land. And when you live in New York, living off the land means driving a taxi," he told The Jewish

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Week. Which his mother did.

Mother and son at times lived in flats that didn't have electricity or hot water, but they always had books.

And while Schreiber was not bar mitzvahed, he remembers going to Grandpa Alex every year for a seder. Another memory Schreiber conjures: a visit to the Lubavitch community in Brooklyn, where Alex had a friend.

"He [Alex] pretty much raised me as if he was my father, and in many respects he was my dad," he told The Jewish Week.

In 2005, Schreiber made his directorial debut with his film version of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, Everything is Illuminated. Everything is about a young American Jewish man who travels to the Ukraine to find to find the non-Jewish woman who may have saved his Jewish grandfather when his grandfather's small Ukrainian town was destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. (Schreiber says that the film was made in tribute to Alex Milgram, who was of Ukrainian Jewish background.)

The Painted Veil, co-starring Naomi Watts and Edward Norton, tells the tale of a 1920s British society woman (Watts) who reluctantly marries a shy scientist (Norton). He then takes a post in Shanghai where Watts meets and has an affair with a married charmer (Schreiber).

In real life, Schreiber, who has never been married, has been keeping steady company with Naomi Watts (who isn't Jewish) for the last two years. However, they both refuse to confirm or deny a steady stream of gossip items that have them alternately engaged or broken up.

Update on Daniel Radcliffe

As noted in my previous column--British actor Daniel Radcliffe, best known for playing Harry Potter in the blockbuster movie series, told Australian TV last month that his mother is Jewish.

On December 22, the London Jewish Chronicle reported the same news as I did and added a few details:

Radcliffe's mother is Marcia Gresham, a casting director, raised in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. The JC [Jewish Chronicle] spotted artistic talent in the family way back: the 11- year-old Marcia was featured in our pages in 1968 after winning 10 trophies and several medals for ballet dancing.

Ms. Gresham's mother, Patricia Jacobson, told the JC she was "a real Jewish grandmother" when it came to Daniel. She said: "I was proud of him before he was Harry Potter, because he's just lovely."

Last year, fans devoted entire sessions at a university conference to discussing whether the fictional Potter was, in fact, Jewish. If only they had known the truth about Daniel Radcliffe.

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And here's a story about Sacha Baron Cohen, the British comic actor who is now internationally famous as the star of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Cohen, an Orthodox Jew, has long been engaged to the charming and pretty Australian actress Isla Fisher ("The Wedding Crashers"). She has been studying to convert to Judaism and, according to some recent reports, has completed her conversion studies.

Website TMZ.com says that Fisher was recently spotted at a trendy Los Angeles store buying her sweetie a swimsuit identical to the one the new James Bond, Daniel Craig, wore in Casino Royale. It's a vast improvement over the swimwear Cohen wore when he played "Borat."

Nate Bloom writes a column on Jewish celebrities, broadly defined, that appears in five Jewish newspapers. If you have any comments or wish to republish parts of this article, please contact Bloom via [email protected].

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All-Ages Music: Entertainer Dan Zanes Performs for Adults and Children Alike By Suzanne Chessler

Reprinted with permission from the Detroit Jewish News

Special to the Detroit Jewish News

November 14, 2006

Dan Zanes is planning one show for Detroit and another for Ann Arbor, but his goal remains the same for both--invite the audience to join the singing and dancing.

Zanes, a family entertainer whose photo is part of the exhibit "Annie Liebowitz: American Music," will supplement its viewing at the Detroit Institute of Arts as he and his band take the stage 6-9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 17, for what is anticipated as a generally adult crowd.

The troupe will focus on a younger gathering, sponsored by the University Musical Society, for two performances, 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18, at Rackham Auditorium in Ann Arbor. Selections from this year's Catch That Train! recording will be included.

"I'm thinking of the evening performance as social music leaning more toward grownups, but if they bring the kids along, that will be fine," says Zanes, 45, who wants everyone to connect and have fun with his shows and defines "social" as hanging around and having a good time with each other.

"We'll do a lot of old English songs that I think are particularly well-fitted for sing-alongs. We'll get a little naughty and humorous along the lines of what we've done on the CDs Sea Music and Parades and Panoramas and what I learned at summer camp when I was a kid in New Hampshire.

"The Ann Arbor concert will be drawing from our five family CDs. There also will be a lot of singing along, but we'll be ending with a family dance party."

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Zanes, who has entertained in both cities, likes the company of diverse people as he vocalizes and plays guitar. His recordings generally have one-third original music with the rest traditional music that's been updated to celebrate different cultures.

"The songs we pick are fun, and I have an emotional connection to them all," Zanes says. "I don't think of any of it as children's music because it's not at all particular to the experiences of children.

"I actually think of my music as all-ages music, and this is what makes us different from other people in the children's field. I believe that grandparents and parents are just as important in all this as the kids."

Zanes started playing guitar when he was 8 and got caught up with rock n' roll in junior high school. Soon after starting Oberlin College in Ohio, he teamed up with Tom Lloyd, and they toured as Del Fuegos.

Rolling Stone named Del Fuegos the best new band in 1984, and they made several recordings with "Don't Run Wild" as their hit single. In 1987, Zanes married Paula Greif, video director for the Del Fuegos' song "I Still Want You."

After Del Fuegos dissolved in the 1990s, the Zanes settled in New York City. With a new daughter, he started exploring family music and learned how to record on his own.

"I didn't know I could relate to children," says Zanes, who recently appeared at New York's Carnegie Hall and soon will be at Disney World in Florida. "I think it's part of evolving over the years and genuinely caring about families and family life."

Although raised as a Protestant, Zanes focuses his spirituality on Judaism, the faith of his wife and daughter, Anna, who is preparing for her bat mitzvah next year. The family attends a synagogue in Brooklyn Heights.

"I thought it was important for my daughter to have a Jewish identity because her mother is Jewish," Zanes explains. "I enjoy being a part of the Jewish world in New York, and I've felt very comfortable with Judaism since the first time I went to the synagogue eight years ago."

As Zanes began to attend synagogue regularly, he noticed that other members of the congregation also were unfamiliar with the songs that were part of the services. He brought together a group of kids, and they recorded the religious selections so others could learn and relearn them.

Zanes' enduring favorite performance song is "The Welcome Table."

"I like it because it's a song of inclusion," says Zanes, who has worked with Sheryl Crow, Suzanne Vega and Simon Kirke. "That really says it all to me in all that I do. I think difficulties come from thinking of people as 'us' and 'them.' Music making can be a real antidote to that, and I want to spread my enthusiasm for it all."

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Suzanne Chessler is a Metro Detroit freelance writer.

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Picture This: A Children's Book with a Message of Interfaith Healing By Cheryl F. Coon

Review of The Cave of Reconciliation: An Abrahamic/Ibrahimic Tale, as retold by Pecki Sherman Witonsky, illustrated by Katie Scott (Diamond Rock Press, 2006).

The moment I opened this picture book, I fell in love. Perhaps it was the prospect of another telling of the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, one of the most thought-provoking stories among biblical tales. I'm certain that the unique and utterly charming mixed media illustrations accompanying the story drew me in. Using felt, cloth, and other found materials and combining them with pastels and watercolors, the illustrator offers what seems at first to be a child's pictorial view of the story. The illustrations seem simple but on closer inspection they offer a myriad of detail. More than one reader may be inspired to try to create his or her own illustrations using similar materials!

The story is told twice, from both the Jewish and Muslim perspectives. Maybe it was the child in me but I found this double-telling very charming, especially when accomplished by the old-fashioned low-tech method of flipping the book over and reading the story from the other direction. I'd like to think that above all, what attracted me was the opportunity to better understand what Jews and Muslims hold in common. Author Pecki Sherman Witonsky says that her idea for the book came from the coincidence of a dream, the Jewish holidays, the events of 9/11 and a conversation with a Muslim friend. Above all, she was searching for a way to tell the story of our common heritage as a means of healing.

As told here, we learn that in Jewish tradition, Abraham offers his son Isaac for sacrifice; in the Muslim tradition, it is his other son, Ishmael, whom he offers. In both versions, Abraham's inspiration is his willingness to follow the voice of God, no matter what he is told to do. In both stories, the descendents of these two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, are important leaders. Indeed, in the Muslim tradition, Ishmael is known as the "Father of the Arabs" and the founder of the Quraysh tribal line which, 2,500 years later, would include Muhammad.

Where the stories diverge, aside from the son who is to be sacrificed, is in the emphasis on important places and events in Muslim and Jewish history. Using different names, in the Muslim

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story, Allah tells Ibrahim (Abraham) to take Hajar (Hagar) and Ismail (Ishmael) south, where they would be resettled in a new land. After Ibrahim leaves Hajar and Ismail and returns to Canaan, Hajar and Ismail run out of water. Allah sends the angel Gabriel, who brings forth water from the earth by pushing his heel into the sandy soil. The place where the water gushes forth is known today as Mecca. In the Jewish story, we learn that an angel brought water to Hagar and reminded her of God's promise… that Ishmael would be known as a great bow-man and would father a great nation (Genesis. 21:19).

Whatever first lured me in, the book fulfilled all that it promised. Within the book, there are maps, family trees and a glossary of names to help the reader follow the stories. The illustrations lead you in; the story captivates; and the similarities between the Muslim and Jewish versions are intriguing. Suitable to either be read aloud to younger children and/or enjoyed by children who are advanced readers, The Cave of Reconciliation will be an excellent resource for interfaith families interested in better understanding the common origins of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Cheryl F. Coon is the author of Books to Grow With: A Guide to the Best Children's Fiction for Everyday Issues and Tough Challenges. Cheryl lives with her husband and children in Portland, Oregon.

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