Question: Ask the Reform Rabbi - Honoring Jewish Cultural Heritage
Answer: If my understanding of your situation is correct, your husband identifies himself as a Jew, although he has no interest in observing Jewish religious practice in any way. You and your children by a previous marriage are Catholic and you and your present husband are now expecting your first child. You and your husband intend to have the baby baptized as a Catholic, but you also want to honor the child's Jewish cultural heritage in some appropriate way. You ask about the appropriateness of a bris or a Jewish baby naming.
Given your decision to have the child baptized, there can be no
question from any source that the child would not be Jewish. To
almost all Reform rabbis, the child would not be considered a Jew
unless his or her Jewish identity were confirmed by Jewish rituals in the synagogue and home.
You are correct in stating that a Jewish naming for a girl or a bris
(b'rit milah) for a boy are "religious in nature." These rituals are intended to welcome a child into the covenant of the Jewish people and are not appropriate in the case of a child who is being baptized as a Christian.
I understand that your husband may desire to have his child's Jewish
cultural heritage recognized with some ritual parallel to a baptism.
I would urge, though, that there are better ways to affirm cultural
heritage than with religious ritual.
The two of you may choose to expose your child, as he or she grows,
to some of the cultural aspects of the Jewish people -- language,
literature, music, foods, and so on. You don't have to be Jewish to
appreciate klezmer music, knishes or the stories of Sholem Aleichem.
These are the kinds of choices that might allow your child to have a
sense of pride in his or her Jewish cultural past.
It would be important for the child, though, to affirm a clear sense
of religious identity. Avoid misleading and confusing terms like
"half Jewish." If the child is to be Catholic, allow him or her to
be that religion alone. (I give the same advice to interfaith
parents who want their children to be Jewish -- let them be Jews
alone.) Children crave a sense of an identity and it is a mistake
not to give them one.
Further, I would urge you not to mimic Jewish religious rituals if
you do not wish to raise your child as a believing, practicing Jew.
For your non-Jewish child to light Hanukkah candles, for example, or
have a "mock" bar mitzvah, would make light of Judaism and your own
true religious choices.
