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More Families Choosing to Do Both

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We have known for years that a significant percentage of interfaith families choose to practice both religions. In just one recent example, a study released this fall of the Jewish community in Northeast Florida (including Jacksonville) found 42% of interfaith families raising their children “Jewish and something else,” versus only 28% raising them “Jewish only.”

What Jewish Community Studies Do, and Do Not, Tell Us

And there’s reason to believe that these Jewish community studies undercount the “doing both” families. These studies are usually funded by Jewish federations trying to figure out how to attract and keep families in the Jewish fold. And part of the sampling is based on recruiting people already affiliated with Jewish institutions, thus skewing the results. These studies undercount families that choose both religions but are wary of joining Jewish institutions. I have written about these sampling issues in the past.

Nevertheless, these Jewish community studies are the best up-to-date statistics we have on interfaith families (beyond national statistics from Pew Research and PRRI). And now, the Center for Radically Inclusive Judaism (CFRIJ), has done the work of compiling and analyzing statistics from 15 of the Jewish community studies since 2020. CFRIJ’s Edmund Case writes that their new analysis underscores how people in interfaith relationships “do not feel very connected to or part of the Jewish people or their local Jewish community,” that they “persistently feel othered and excluded” in Jewish communities, and that “policies that restrict participation contribute to not feeling belonging.”

More Families Choosing Both

But from the perspective of interfaith families doing both, the most interesting part of the new CFRIJ analysis is Table 10, towards the very end of the report, showing the percentage of married interfaith couples who are raising kids “Jewish and another religion.” The new analysis looks at 11 studies from 2015 to 2020, and 15 newer studies from 2020 to 2024. For the earlier set of studies, an average of 16% of such couples were raising kids with more than one religion. For the more recent set, the average for raising kids with more than one religion had climbed significantly, to 26%. And that did not include the most recent study from the Jacksonville Florida area (with 42% raising kids with both).

In short, more and more families are, even as measured by these skewed studies, choosing both religions.

Interviewing Both Partners

Historically, another issue with Jewish community studies has been that they tend to survey the Jewish family members, and erase the experience of those with other identities. But at least now, there is more acknowledgement of that bias. The CFRIJ analysis brings attention to an important qualitative study last year in Los Angeles, entitled “Parenting When Jewish and Something Else.” While the title clearly signals that this is still a study commissioned and conducted by Jewish entities, the “something else” parents are finally included. The researchers interviewed both members of 20 interfaith couples.

The researchers described how “Couples’ indication of the importance of being Jewish in their family life was not necessarily an indication of how they are raising their children.” In fact, they found that “three of the nine couples who indicated that being Jewish is ‘very important’ are raising their children as Jewish and something else.” It was gratifying to see researchers finally come to this conclusion. In theory, it should help to finally put to rest the myth that interfaith couples only do both when they don’t care about religion.

(Almost) Acknowledging Interfaith Family Communities

The LA study includes an entire page of quotes from parents raising children with both religions, about why they made this choice. The entire report is worth reading closely for anyone following this evolving field. One participant described their decision-making process this way: “We took a class, read Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family, saw a therapist and met with a Reverend a couple of times. It took four years. My husband wanted to have a clear picture before we got married and I wanted to agree that it would always be unfolding.”

To my knowledge, this is the first time any Jewish community study has acknowledged my work (or, even indirectly, acknowledged the existence of interfaith family communities). It seems to have happened almost inadvertently, as they quote a parent who actually researched the options for raising interfaith children. But as interfaith families continue to choose both, this pathway will be increasingly hard to ignore.

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is the author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2014), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on bluesky @susankatzmiller.

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The Being Both Movement at 30

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IFFP’s Superband at the 30th Celebration

In the beginning, in the 1980s, a lot of skeptics wondered whether there would be an enduring need for upstart interfaith communities created by and for interfaith families. If churches and synagogues would only be more open to interfaith families, the thinking went, maybe people would just join inclusive churches and synagogues instead. The desire to do all the extra work of creating independent communities would fade away.

But three decades later, that is not the way this story has evolved.

On October 18th, a thriving Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington (IFFP) celebrated its 30th anniversary. IFFP is the youngest of the “big three,” founded a few years after the Interfaith Community in the NYC metro area, and The Family School in downtown Chicago. All three of these communities were founded by interfaith families, for interfaith families who wanted to celebrate both religions. And all three are still serving those families.

All three communities have continued to evolve in serving Jewish and Christian families over the decades. In Chicago, a second community, the Union School, spun off in the suburbs. In the New York metro area, an innovative Long Island chapter found a home on a campus that includes Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities. And in DC, the pandemic inspired the creation of online programming, including dual-religious education for interfaith children anywhere in the country, or the world.

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IFFP’s 30th Celebration

Our communities, started by young couples seeking dual-faith education for their children, are multigenerational now. At IFFP’s 30th, we celebrated members who grew up as children in our community and returned as teachers and Board members. We sang with grandparents who have joined in order to be with their grandchildren. We applauded our four founding mothers, all grandmothers now. And IFFP’s spiritual leaders, a rabbi and a minister, danced the hora with members visiting from Philadelphia and New Jersey who usually join the community on zoom.

Meanwhile, over these three decades, the most progressive Jewish institutions have become far more welcoming of interfaith families. That’s good news. An interfaith couple who want to raise Jewish children should be able now to find communities eager to support them. Churches, too, have become more used to accommodating interfaith families. More interfaith families in the US now include Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or Pagan family members. And some families who celebrate both family religions may be able now to find two communities (say, one Jewish and one Christian) to accept them.

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IFFP’s 30th Celebration

But it turns out, feeling excluded from other communities is not the only reason families keep joining interfaith communities. And it’s not why they stay, even when their children are grown. What makes dedicated interfaith families communities so compelling, still?

Singing, contemplating, sharing joys and concerns, in a room filled entirely with interfaith families, remains a powerful experience. Equal participation by family members of any religion or none (rather than welcoming an “out parent” as a guest) continues to support family unity. Allowing children to learn about both of their religious heritages still satisfies both spiritual and secular parents. The sense of balance, the deeper literacy around religious synergies and differences, and the emphasis on bridge-building and peacemaking, all continue to inspire.

So, we’re still here.

And, interfaith families are choosing to do both–to be both–in growing numbers. Stay tuned for more on that in the next post.

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is the author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on bluesky @susankatzmiller.

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Being Both: 12th Anniversary Reflection

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Twelve years ago today, Beacon Press published my first book, Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family. The hardcover and ebook editions in 2013 were followed by the paperback in 2014, the Interfaith Family Journal in 2019, and the audiobook in 2022.

On this blog twelve years ago, I wrote, “My dream is that the book will inspire a national conversation around the fact that many interfaith families are choosing both religions.”

In short, I have been living that dream.

I was so very fortunate that just as the book was being released, the New York Times published my controversial Op-Ed, which helped stimulate that national conversation. And in those first months, my book launch tour took me to Boston, CT, NYC, DC and California.

In the years since, I have been able to speak to audiences around the country and the world, including in Toronto, Salt Lake City, Portland OR, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Charlottesville, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, Spokane, Asheville, Fort Worth, and, online in the UK and Morocco. I have taught or guest lectured at a dozen seminaries and universities. And I have appeared in documentaries, on television, on radio, and on more than a dozen podcasts.

As each year goes by, Being Both only feels more relevant. And in the current dystopia, each time I engage in this conversation about why interfaith families are so inspirational to me, it provides a moment of hope. Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to the national organization Spiritual Playdate, which works to build peacemaking skills in children. (I’m now on their Board of Advisors). And just yesterday, I spent an hour zooming with a podcaster in a cabin in northern Wisconsin, recording a Being Both episode for the local affiliate of the Interfaith Alliance.

Now more than ever, we need to to connect with each other across boundaries and divisions. Together, we need to find ways to sustain our spiritual lives and remain connected to the rest of the natural world, without fear of religious fluidity, multiplicity, or hybridity. We need to continue to find new ways to celebrate diversity, empathy, love, and peace.

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is the author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on bluesky @susankatzmiller.

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The Interfaith Heritage of Zohran Mamdani

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Last night, New York City chose the young, brilliant, and dashing Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary for Mayor. The City is now likely to have a new Mayor who is a democratic socialist, who speaks truth to Trump’s power, who stands up for Palestine, and who has galvanized the youth vote. His win is a rebuke to Trump, to those who try to paint criticism of the Israeli government as antisemitism, and to all centrist Democrats.

Mamdani identifies clearly, and proudly, as Muslim.

And, his heritage is interfaith.

His mother, groundbreaking filmmaker Mira Nair, grew up in India in a Hindu family, attending Catholic schools. Her films include the interfaith/interracial romance Mississippi Masala, and Monsoon Wedding. His father, the esteemed Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani, is a third-generation East African of Muslim background, from the South Asian community in Uganda. Zohran is their only child. South Asian Hindu and Muslim interfaith families have a very specific history, informed by India’s ancient pluralism, the pain of partition, and the recent rise of Hindu nationalism. There are many others better positioned than I to explain this history and sociology.

What I do know is that I recognize in Zohran Mamdani the positive qualities so often instilled by interfaith roots and extended family. He is a bridge-builder who pulled together a coalition of New Yorkers of every race and religion to win. He speaks Spanish, did campaign videos in Hindi and Bengali, and put up posters in Yiddish. In Mamdani’s case, I believe his “interfaithness” is amplified by his experience as an immigrant, and his connections to both his South Asian heritage and his early years spent in Africa.

And in the political landscape of 2025 so notable for lack of empathy, Mamdani’s empathy is front and center. He has promised to focus on non-profit grocery stores, affordable housing and transportation for all. (And, no other candidate has made a rap video expressing appreciation for grandmothers). I am not saying that every interfaith kid is going to be more empathetic than every monofaith kid. But I am saying that growing up informed by multiple perspectives, seeing through multiple lenses, makes it harder to “other” the stranger.

Today, I ran across a 2020 video conversation with Mamdani’s mother, Mira Nair, when she was directing a series based on Vikram Seth’s novel A Suitable Boy. (The story features a Hindu and Muslim interfaith romance). Nair explains, “What for me was very, very important is to show the syncretism–the absolutely interwoven culture that Hindus, Muslims, and India comes from–the plurality that we all breathe and live in, whether it be in our language, or our music, or our poetry, or our culture, or our friendships. And it is this syncretism that I see being almost actively dismantled. But we cannot let that happen.”

I am inspired by Nair’s bravery in upholding syncretism as a cultural good. Western (colonial) theologians have long vilified syncretism as counter to religious integrity. But then again, the whole concept of binary, either/or “religion” is a Western concept, deserving of deconstruction.

Zohran Mamdani’s win is giving hope. Hope that Americans (including more and more Jewish people) will call out the ongoing destruction of Gaza. Hope that a new generation will lead us out of the disaster that is current American politics. And for me, hope that the increasing complexity of our racial, cultural, and religious identities will usher in an era of renewed creativity, and empathy.

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is the author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on bluesky @susankatzmiller.

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Reclaiming My New Orleans Family

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My Jewish family left New Orleans four generations ago, after a series of tragedies. But today, I feel a spiritual connection to the city, and I am doing all I can to reclaim my heritage there. To understand the gothic drama of this story (my husband suggests I write it as a ghost story), you have to go back 150 years, to my great-great-grandparents, Newman and Gusta Adler.

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The Adler saga is now included in the marvelous Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, which opened in New Orleans in 2021 in the middle of the pandemic. Last week, I returned to New Orleans to attend the opening of a new special exhibition at the Museum, entitled “Most Fortunate Unfortunates: The Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans.” The exhibition is based on the 2023 book of the same name by author Marlene Trestman, chronicling the first purpose-built Jewish orphanage in the country, known affectionately as “the Home.” Through photos, video, clippings, and objects from the orphans and their descendants, the exhibition documents how this orphanage helped raise 1600 children in New Orleans, from 1856 to 1946.

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The Adler sisters are numbers 204 to 209 in this registry, Most Fortunate Unfortunates exhibition, Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience.

Six of those orphans, numbers 204 to 209 in “the Home” registry, were the Adler daughters: my great-grandmother and her five sisters.

When I was growing up, my grandma would tell of how her mother, Sarah, remembered being lifted from the deathbed of her parents, Newman and Gusta. The couple died within hours of each other in 1867, in one of the yellow fever epidemics that descended on the city each summer and fall. The new exhibition includes a clipping from the New Orleans Picayune describing how, as Newman and Gusta lay dying, “the little ones seemed to run about uncared for by anyone.” Ten days later, Jennie (age 13), Theresa (11), my great-grandmother Sarah (8), Lena (5), Mary (3), and baby Rachel Adler entered the orphanage.

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Most Fortunate Unfortunates exhibition, Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience

I first told a brief version of this story, on this blog, back in 2011. I’m glad I did, because in 2020, I got a message from author Marlene Trestman after she came across that blog post. We started to correspond, and she told me she was researching a book on the New Orleans orphanage, and that she already knew about the Adler sisters, and had some information on them. She was wondering what information I had. We began to exchange stories and photos, and zoomed, and even met up in person.

Since then, I have been a bit obsessed about preserving the history of my New Orleans family. My family had forgotten, somewhere along the line, about baby Rachel. But now, thanks to Marlene, I know that Rachel died only a few months after her parents, and I have been able to visit her New Orleans grave in a special section of Hebrew Rest Cemetery #1 for orphans from “the Home.” I also learned the truly sorrowful story of the death by fire of one of the other sisters, Mary, after she was adopted. And I found the graves of my great-great-grandparents, buried together at the old Tememe Derech cemetery up on Canal Street, near other yellow fever victims.

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Headstone of Rachel Adler, 1866-1867, Hebrew Rest Cemetery #1, New Orleans

When I arrived in New Orleans, no one from my family had visited those graves in generations. I have to wonder if the sadness of all that transpired kept my grandparents and parents away. But now I have visited the double-grave of Newman and Gusta more than once, and I’m working on gravestone conservation.

When Marlene’s book came out in 2023, it included photos I provided of my great-grandmother Sarah Adler, and her husband, my great-grandfather Rabbi Emanual Michael Rosenfelder, who was the Hebrew teacher at the Home. Yes, you read that right, she was one of his orphan pupils, and just shy of 17 when they married. And I’m very glad they did. By all accounts, they had a happy marriage, with eight children, including the last two (one of whom was my grandmother) born after he had lost his eyesight. (This fact scandalized Sarah’s sisters Theresa and Lena, according to family lore).

When Marlene had her book launch event at the Museum in 2023, my husband and I made sure to be there. In the permanent exhibit, we found a display about the orphanage, with a touch screen including Sarah Adler’s story, and the photo I provided. In the photo, she’s wearing a locket. As the Museum’s Executive Director Kenneth Hoffman was walking by, I said to him, “I have that locket! I ended up with it when we emptied my grandmother’s house. Wouldn’t it be great to see it displayed alongside the photo?” And he replied, “It certainly would. Let’s talk to Marlene about that, because she’s preparing a special exhibition on the Home.”

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Most Fortunate Unfortunates exhibition, Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience

And so the locket is now displayed next to the photo, in the special exhibition, curated by Marlene and the Museum’s Exhibits Curator, Michael Jacobs. There’s also a touch screen there with many of the orphan stories, including the story of Sarah and the Rabbi. I feel tremendous gratitude toward the museum, and everyone in New Orleans who has taken care to preserve the history, the cemeteries, and the communities, in the long absence of my family. Those people include Kenneth, Michael, Marlene (a New Orleans native), architect Jacob Rosenzweig who helped map the Jewish cemeteries of the city, and author and cemetery preservationist Emily Ford. At the opening, eating triangular pimento cheese sandwiches and toasting the exhibition and exclaiming with these new acquaintances over all of our connections, I felt verklempt. I felt home.

So now I am back in Washington DC, and I know what it means to miss New Orleans. I already miss the light, the food and music, our new connections, and yes, the cemeteries there. The special exhibition “Most Fortunate Unfortunates” will be up through January 2026 at the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience. It seems inevitable that I will return.

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is the author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on bluesky @susankatzmiller.

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Interfaith Families and Identities in Pew’s New Religious Landscape Study

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Graphic: Pew Research

It has been a full decade since Pew released their last national Religious Landscape Study, so the arrival this week of the 2023-24 version sent everyone in the religion world scurrying to see what has changed, and what has not.

For me, these studies are always an opportunity to look at how Pew is viewing interfaith families and interfaith identities. And this year, I asked Pew some follow-up questions, about people who claim more than one religion, as I did ten years ago after the last study.

The top story nationally was that both the dramatic decline in Christianity, and the rise in “religious nones,” seem to be leveling off, at least temporarily, in the last five years. In terms of interfaith marriages, there was little change. As was the case in the 2014 study ten years ago, about a quarter of married U.S. adults are in “mixed religious marriages.” The largest subset of mixed religious marriages continues to be Christians married to those with no religious affiliation (atheists, agnostics, “nothing in particular” etc.). Couples who are living together but not married had a higher interfaith rate, at 38%.

The Pew Religious Landscape studies, like many other surveys, tabulate people as having a single religious identity. This is evident in the fact that you can add up the people adhering to the religious identities they list, and you will get 100%, never more. As always, I was curious about what happens when people try to claim more than one religion on this new survey, so I submitted questions about this to the researchers.

 Gregory A. Smith, Senior Associate Director of Research gave the following explanation:

Yes, respondents were able to volunteer that they identify with more than one religion.

Overall, 0.5% of respondents volunteered that they identify with more than one religion. This includes 0.1% who identify with more than one Christian tradition (e.g., both Protestantism and Catholicism, or both Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity), 0.3% who identify with both Christianity and another religion (e.g., Judaism or Islam), and 0.1% who identify with multiple non-Christian religions (e.g., Judaism and Buddhism).

In terms of our coding, we put the first two of these groups (those who identify with more than one Christian tradition and those who identify with both Christianity and another religion) in our “Other Christian” tradition. And we put the third group (those who identify with multiple non-Christian religions) in the “Other world religions” tradition.

If you add those who identify with multiple Protestant denominational families to the other responses described above, it brings the total share of people who volunteered identifying with more than one religious tradition or more than one Protestant denominational family to 1.1%.

So, people who claim Judaism and Buddhism were coded as “other world religions.” And people who claim Christianity and Buddhism are coded as “other Christians.” Of course, this makes no sense whatsoever. And I am sad to report that this is exactly how people were coded in the last major Pew survey in 2014. I pointed out how nonsensical it was ten years ago, and yet, it has not changed.

The other problem is that the question that Pew continues to ask in these surveys, ““What is your present religion, if any?” uses the singular “is” and immediately sets a tone discouraging anyone from checking more than one box. The dominant exclusivist mindset–the research framework–that says everyone must have one, and only one, religious identity continues to deform and erase those who claim multiple religions.

I see some hope in the fact that Pew did include a new section allowing people to claim connections to multiple religious traditions “aside from religion.” The study report reads: “we asked respondents if they think of themselves as Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim or Hindu for reasons ‘aside from religion’ – for example, ethnically, culturally, or because of their family background. Respondents had the option to say they felt connected to any of these five religions, or to none of them.”

I appreciate this new effort to try to capture some of the complexity of religious identity. However, the idea that this additional religious connection must be described as “aside from religion,” continues to promulgate the exclusivist binary framework that you can only claim one religion. And the bizarre fact that they did not allow people to claim a connection to Protestantism “aside from religion” leaves out an entire universe of people who think of themselves as connected to any Protestant denomination because of their family background, or their partner’s practice. This would appear to stem from the colonialist idea that Protestantism is the default, “neutral” religion without ethnic or cultural content or context, as opposed to “others” who have (exotic) cultures.

But I can only imagine that Norwegian-Americans raised Lutheran in Minnesota would beg to differ with the idea that Protestants have no culture, as would anyone married into an African Methodist Episcopal family. In my own family, the progressive East coast Episcopalianism of both my mother and husband’s family have definitely had an influence on me–this is a culture to which I feel connected. But I would not have had any way to express that in this Pew survey, other than claiming both Judaism and Christianity, and being coded with “other Christians” despite being raised as a Jew and currently belonging to a synagogue.

So here’s hoping that in ten years, with the next big Pew study, our understanding of the rise of complex interfaith families and identities will have evolved. I stand, as always, willing to work as a consultant on this important matters.

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is the author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on bluesky @susankatzmiller.

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From Outlaw to In-Law: Book Review

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I am afraid I am not the least bit objective on the topic of Tanya Sadagopan’s new book, From Outlaw to In-Law: How Multicultural Couples Can Become Agents for Social Change. My hearty endorsement is printed on the back cover:  

“…the first book to document at length how interfaith couples are inspired to become activists. It is an important addition to the growing body of literature detailing the lives of interfaith couples, and how their bravery and compassion helps to create a more fluid, less rigid, social landscape.”

I was first introduced to Tanya Sadagopan in 2020 by our mutual friend and colleague, author Duane Bidwell. Sadagopan, a UCC minister married to an Indian-American Hindu, was looking for more interfaith couples to interview for her thesis, for a doctor of ministry (DMin) degree. And so I ended up reading drafts of the thesis, and had the great honor of serving, with Bidwell, on Sadagopan’s thesis committee. Now, that thesis has been transformed into a book (with an excellent foreword by Duane Bidwell).

For many years, I have been writing about interfaith families as bridge-builders and ambassadors, and the skills we build in interfaith activism, conflict resolution, and peace-making. But because my work grew out of personal experience, it has focused more often than not on Jewish and Christian families. Sadagopan’s book advances those ideas about interfaith families doing social justice work, through the lens of someone with theological expertise, and showcasing a greater diversity of interfaith families.

Research for the book was based on surveys of 56 interfaith couples from 10 countries around the world. Sadagopan followed up with in-depth interviews with eight couples, including partners with Muslim, Sikh, UU-Buddhist, UU-Hindu, Buddhist-Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu, Hindu-Atheist, Jewish, Catholic, Catholic-Protestant, and Christian identities. (There are even charming photos of these couples in an appendix). The book interweaves this research with memoir, including lively, and often dramatic, anecdotes from Sadagopan’s almost thirty years of marriage to her South Asian-American husband. She describes how they went about “sharing in each other’s faith traditions and rituals while raising our children in both religious traditions.”

Sadagopan’s research describes how interfaith couples are inspired to stand up for those who are marginalized. She writes, “By advocating for the one they love within the communities that would traditionally exclude their partner, they learned how to advocate for others who are also discriminated against. These couples teach us how deep love for their partner leads them towards the work of justice.”

From Outlaw to In-Law ends up being a rich exploration of the intersections of class, race, caste, culture, nationality, and religion in interfaith families. Sadagopan has also created marvelous resources for this book, including a table of “Leadership Skills Found in Multicultural Interfaith Couples,” an analysis of interfaith couples in Biblical text, and a table of tips for clergy on how to be allies to interfaith couples.

As our newsfeeds become ever more harrowing, we could all use the inspiration Sadagopan provides in this book. Because she connects interfaith relationships to social activism, she does not shy away from addressing conflict. She is studying and writing about interfaith couples as we all live through the “Muslim ban,” the murder of George Floyd, the MeToo movement, and the January 6th insurrection, and these conflicts are all mentioned. In a final chapter of advice for couples, Sadagopan urges, “Notice the injustices around you. Advocate for people in your community who are not being treated fairly. You have learned to do this with your partner, whom you love dearly; you can do this for others too.” This, it would seem, is exactly the moment for interfaith families, and all the rest of us, to rise up and heed Sadagopan’s call.

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is the author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on bluesky @susankatzmiller.

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Being Both: 2024 Interfaith Highlights

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As an interfaith activist, 2024 was a strange year for me (and for many interfaith activists).

Working to support interfaith families felt surreal, given the continuing destruction of Gaza. At the same time, I did not feel I could desist from my life’s work now. Sometimes the double-whammy of the continuing pandemic (I have covid right now) and the genocide made me want to give up and retire. But I did not have the heart to turn away couples who came to me for support, or religious leaders seeking to understand interfaith families. And I felt I had to follow through on projects designed to lift up the experiences of interfaith family members and multiple religious practitioners. So as we head into 2025, here are some reflections on the work of the past year.

Writing

I’m still blogging. I should probably move the blog to substack, do a podcast, create TikToks. But instead, I stubbornly continue to chronicle interfaith families, and multiple religious practice, on the blog I created back in 2009. That body of work now consists of 436 posts, and has attracted some 250,000 visitors, and more than 429,000 views. This year the blog had more views than any year since 2020. The most popular post in 2024 was my original “explainer” from 2020 on the interfaith family of Kamala Harris. Sigh.

Speaking

This year, I had the privilege of speaking once again to the Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington, and in the Interfaith Couples Workshop they host twice a year (register now for the workshop starting up this Tuesday). And I spoke to the Family School and Interfaith Union School in Chicago. I also spoke, as I do with each cohort, to the 18doors Rukin Rabbinic Fellows, a group of rabbis from across the country who are training to engage with interfaith families. And because I’m a lark, I enjoyed getting up before dawn to schmooze with a global audience about multiple religious practice at Judaism Unbound’s Shavuot Live. I also continued to appear as a guest on podcasts, including the new podcast Interfaithing, and Slate’s parenting podcast, Care & Feeding.

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Teaching

Highlights of this year included opportunities to go deep, engaging with students in several different realms. I spent five weeks in a mini-residency at a local Presbyterian church, with extended discussions on multiple religious practice and interfaith families. I spent three weeks teaching a mini-course online at the fabulous UnYeshiva, which is probably the Jewish space where I (and many others) feel most at home. And I had the opportunity to return as a guest speaker to the Religious Worlds of New York Summer Institute, a program for K-12 teachers from across the country at the Interfaith Center of New York.

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Coaching

I coach interfaith couples, other interfaith family members, and educators and clergy who want to better understand interfaith families. Highlights this year included being invited to the wedding of a couple I had coached, and then getting yet another thank you note from them, with the news they are expecting a child. I have found that supporting interfaith families in this direct way is tremendously gratifying.

Creating

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The most exciting new connection I made this year was with PhD student Dalia El Ariny, who is studying adult interfaith kids in London. Dalia and I met online last March, and spent many hours bonding over zoom, talking about our families and our interfaith activism (she grew up in Italy in a Muslim and Catholic interfaith family). Out of our common formative experiences, frustrations, and inspirations, a new project was born.

In November, we launched “Interfaith Work and Interfaith Families: A Toolkit.” The goal is to support interfaith bridge-building organizations, and academics, in engaging with people from interfaith families, and multiple religious practitioners. We are proud of this work, and plan to grow it into an interactive website in the months to come. (Read our dialogue on the creation of the toolkit, here).

Feedback on the Toolkit has been very encouraging. This work continues, so stay tuned.

“Dalia El Ariny and Susan Katz Miller have made a vital contribution to the interfaith movement, by helping educators and organizers collaborate effectively with the growing number of people who identify with multiple faith traditions.  It’s long past time for us to stop thinking of religions as mutually exclusive “boxes” to check — or be stuck in.  This toolkit will help you take the next step in a journey of inclusion.  — Dr. Henry Goldschmidt, Director of Programs, Interfaith Center of New York.
“As an academic studying the intersections of religion, culture, and identity, I have been deeply engaged with the study of mixed families since the beginning of my career. I find ‘Interfaith Work and Interfaith Families: A Toolkit’ to be an invaluable resource. Dalia El Ariny and Susan Katz Miller’s thoughtful and theoretically informed approach bridges the often-overlooked gap between interfaith families, societal organizations, and academia. This toolkit challenges outdated notions of singular or binary religious affiliation, instead giving voice and justice to the complex, lived realities of interfaith practitioners. By offering practical strategies for fostering inclusion and collaboration, it serves as a crucial starting point for advancing interfaith dialogue and social cohesion across both physical and symbolic borders. — Prof. Dr. Francesco Cerchiaro, Sociologist, Nijmegen University, The Netherlands.
“I particularly enjoyed the discussion about how interfaith organisations have developed in a way that prioritises ‘within world religions’, therefore giving less space for mixed-religious heritage. As someone who tends to think in boxes or in ‘black and white’, it gave me a lot to think about. I also enjoyed the section on what interfaith families bring to the table, especially the list of skills. The section on practical actions will be most helpful for me as an interfaith practitioner, and I will use it when planning future events. Thank you so much for creating this helpful resource.” — Sophie Mitchell, Programmes Coordinator London Communities at Faith & Belief Forum.

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is the author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on bluesky @susankatzmiller.

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8 Ways to a Peaceful December in Interfaith Families

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My little sister and I, in our interfaith family in 1964.

This year, the eight nights of Hanukkah start on December 25th. Although that may sound overwhelming, this year’s timing provides space for both holidays. By the time you light the first Hanukkah candles, Christmas celebrations (on Christmas Eve and morning) will be over. And, Hanukkah does not have to compete with the busy season of holiday concerts and office parties leading up to Christmas. Instead, it falls during the relatively quiet week after Christmas. And as an extra bonus this year, college kids will most certainly be home for the whole week of Hanukkah, instead of celebrating in their dorms without family in early December. (In general, I prefer the years when Hanukkah does not overlap with Christmas, so that each holiday gets a separate celebration).

Whether you celebrate one of those holidays, or both, or neither, all of us need to cultivate empathy for our partners and family members in December, while honoring our own needs, and being mindful of how this season can trigger both joy and sadness, no matter what religious traditions you celebrate.

I created The Interfaith Family Journal, to help any and every family figure out how to honor diverse religious or spiritual or cultural roots, and formative childhood experiences, while claiming and creating a plan for December (and every other month) that works for your family. The Journal traces a five-week process of writing prompts, discussion topics, and creative activities. The result is a unique resource for therapists, clergy, and families. Here, I distill from the Journal eight ways to plan for a deeper, more mindful, and peaceful season:

1. REFLECT

Ask yourself about how you experienced December as a child. What did you celebrate? How did you feel about Christmas music, decorations, movies, in American popular culture? Were you aware of being part of the religious majority or minority? How have those feelings changed over time?

2. DISCERN

Ask yourself which of your childhood winter holiday rituals you want to continue in adulthood, or take on in the future? What traditions do you want to transmit to your children? Is this because they have religious meaning, spiritual meaning, and/or cultural meaning for you?

3. INQUIRE

Ask your partner(s) or other intimate family members or co-parents how they felt during December as children. Do you understand how your childhood experiences overlap, or diverge? What are the differences? What are the synergies?

4. EMPATHIZE

Ask your partner, if you have one, which public expressions of the season–in public town displays, on the radio, on TV–might make them feel joyful, nostalgic, sad, or alienated, this year. Do you understand why? How has this changed for them, over time? Note that secular or cultural does not necessarily mean less important than religious or spiritual!

5. SENSE

No matter what religious (or non-religious) affiliation(s) or identity you have chosen for your family or children, are there multi-sensory December experiences that you would like to retrieve, or pass down, or take on? Music? Recipes? Crafts? If you have a partner, are they okay with tasting, smelling, hearing these with you?

6. PLAN

The number of celebrations can feel overwhelming in December, especially for interfaith families. Make a plan! Which holidays this month will you spend with which extended family members (and when)? Which will you spend with friends? And which will you spend with just any partner(s) and/or kids? Make sure any partners feel comfortable with the plan.

7. GIVE

Whether or not you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah as a family, December can be an inspiring time to think about helping your community and to prepare for New Year’s resolutions. Community service can help to keep the midwinter blues at bay, and shifting from a focus on consumption to a focus on giving is a mental health move. Talk to your family members about starting a tradition of December giving, or December action, to help to heal your community and the world.

8. SNUGGLE

No matter which traditions you celebrate, the scientific reality is that this is the darkest and coldest time of year in the northern hemisphere. It is probably not a coincidence that near the midwinter solstice, we try to brighten our world with the Yule hearth, Christmas lights, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa candles, or firecrackers for the Chinese Lunar New Year. So be gentle with yourself, and with your family members, as we move through the darkest days of this difficult year, until we tilt again towards the sun.

The original version of this piece was written for Psych Bytes, in 2019.

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is an interfaith families speaker, consultant, and coach, and author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on bluesky @susankatzmiller.

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Gingerbread Dreidels: Book Review

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Books featuring interfaith kids are still few and far between. So I welcome a new picture book centered on the fact that Hanukkah starts this year on Christmas Day. It’s a heartwarming addition to the small collection of books about families that celebrate both holidays. (And I have just added it to my roundup of many of those books all in one place, here).

Gingerbread Dreidels was written by Jane Breskin Zalben, an experienced children’s book author. As it happens, Zalben’s many books on Jewish family life and holidays, starring a bear named Beni, and a sheep named Pearl, were beloved in our household when my children were small, twenty years ago now.

Gingerbread Dreidels is a lovely depiction of a happy and well-adjusted interfaith family, giving equal respect to both family traditions. Both sets of grandparents arrive together to celebrate with their grandchildren. Both sets of grandparents cook traditional holiday foods. Both sets of grandparents join in singing a Hanukkah song, and a Christmas carol. And both sets of grandparents tell the central stories of their holidays. I deeply appreciate that in this story, each holiday is given its own space and integrity, even in a year when they fall on the same day–they are not mixed or mashed up, and to my great relief, no one mentions something called Chrismukkah.

I also love that the parents in this book are perfectly comfortable with letting the Christian grandparents explain that Christmas, in its origins, celebrates the birth of baby Jesus. Some books for interfaith children avoid mentioning the the religious foundations of Christmas. In my opinion, interfaith literacy benefits interfaith kids (actually, all kids), even when both parents are secular humanists (and even when the child is being raised Jewish). So I recommend this book for any and all families who celebrate both of these winter holidays. (If you really want to avoid mentioning the historical origins of the holidays, you can choose one of the books that stays on the surface–again, see your choices, here).

I also love that the brother and sister, Max and Sophie, fret a bit about how this year’s configuration of Hanukkah and Christmas will affect the number of gifts they receive. This is an honest depiction–we all know that most kids from Christian and/or Jewish families are going to think about gifts this time of year. But we also know, as adults, that they will remember singing together around the menorah, and around the tree, and the attention from grandparents, long after the gifts are outgrown and forgotten. As little Sophie declares, “The best gift is that we’re together.”

It is refreshing that this family is depicted as not the least bit confused or conflicted about their interfaith practice. And there are no outside voices in the book questioning or challenging the way they celebrate. If the story is less dramatic as a result, it frankly reflects the entirely positive interfaith family reality that more and more children experience.

It is also worth noting that the Jewish grandmother in this story is Black, and thus her son (and grandchildren) are mixed race. This fact, like their interfaithness, is not a big deal in the context of the story. In fact, it’s not mentioned in the text at all. Only in the author’s note do we learn that Grandma Gold is an Ethiopian-American Jew. As far as I know, this is the first picture book to clearly depict a Black Jewish member of an interfaith family, and mixed race interfaith children and grandchildren. While the Black grandmother in the story may seem at first glance like a performative inclusion, the significant overlap of interfaith and interracial families means this book will resonate with many families.

After the story ends, Gingerbread Dreidels includes a history of the dreidel, rules for playing dreidel, and a gingerbread recipe. There’s also a note from the author, explaining her motivation for writing the book, and how the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim holiday calendars work. The yearning for interfaith understanding and peace, felt by so many interfaith families, is evident in this note. For me, that peace feels farther away than ever this year. Nevertheless, interfaith children deserve books like Gingerbread Dreidels, infused with joy and warmth, centering their experiences. We can only hope that such books will help to inspire them to use their interfaith family skills to become interfaith bridge-builders and peacemakers in the world.

Journalist Susan Katz Miller is an interfaith families speaker, consultant, and coach, and author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on bluesky @susankatzmiller.