Introducing ‘The Seesaw’

Image by Lily Padula

Elissa Strauss February 24, 2014

The Forward is launching The Seesaw, a new advice column which will focus on the real life issues faced by interfaith couples and families.

While the Jewish establishment wrestles with the communal implications of interfaith relationships, a growing number of American Jews are simply living in one. For them, intermarriage isn’t a problem or a solution but a day-to-day, Hanukkah to Christmas, bubbe to grammy, brisket to pork chop reality. Like a seesaw, life in an interfaith relationship involves a lot of back and forth and up and down, with no expectation of ever reaching an equilibrium. This is what makes it challenging, and also what makes it interesting.

Read the Seesaw

When the Forward started its legendary advice column “A Bintel Brief” in 1906, it was to help Jews navigate the foreign world that was America. In this tradition, we hope to continue to help American Jews and their partners, families and friends navigate the foreign terrain they live in now, even if it happens to be in their homes.

Starting in March, we will bring together a panel of people who have gone through it themselves: writers, experts and all-around well-meaning yentes to answer questions submitted by our readers about life in an interfaith world. Every week, we will post your questions — anonymously — along with answers from three or four of our columnists. It’s a diverse group, from James Ponet, who officiated at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding to Susan Katz Miller who wrote a book about “being both” to Jim Keen, a non-Jewish father in the midwest who is raising his kids Jewish and Laurel Snyder, author of “Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to be Kosher” — and many more.

We aim to offer a mix of insights and opinions on everything from whether you should get a Christmas tree to how best to explain circumcision to your wife’s Swedish family.

The Seesaw won’t be driven by one particular agenda or point-of-view about interfaith relationships. This isn’t about getting more people to convert, or convincing your Aunt Sharon that your kids are fine attending both Hebrew school and Sunday mass. Instead, we want to create a conversation that represents the diversity of feelings and ideas found in the Jewish community — ambivalence included.

We invite you to submit your questions about interfaith life to [email protected]. And don’t hold back! Remember, answers will be posted anonymously, so hit us up with the strange, the silly, and the altogether embarrassing. We only want to help.

Elissa Strauss has written for the Forward over a number of years. She is a regular contributor to CNN, whose work has been published in a number of publications including The New York Times, Glamour, ELLE, and Longreads.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email [email protected].

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