Keeping the faiths:

Intermarried parents teach two religions at Bay Area Sunday school

It’s 10 a.m. Sunday, and five sixth- and seventh-graders are gathered with their parents in the Atherton living room of Amy and Jeff Crowe. It’s Amy’s turn to teach.

“OK, who would like to lead the Sh’ma?” she asks. Twelve-year-old Ben Levison raises his hand, and delivers the Hebrew declaration of faith.

“Now, who wants to do the Lord’s Prayer?” Crowe continues. Jay Dumanian, also 12, intones the words of this central Christian prayer — one based, according to Jewish scholars, on key Jewish prayers including the Kaddish and Shemoneh Esreh.

It’s an unusual beginning for a Sunday school class. But this is the Bay Area Interfaith Sunday School, where intermarried parents take turns teaching their children the traditions, holidays, history and values of Christianity and Judaism.

It is one of several such programs nationwide, including much larger, longstanding interfaith schools in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. All of them are responding to the same reality — the 31 percent (42 percent on the West Coast) of Jews who are intermarried, according to the 2000 National Jewish Population Study.

But in contrast to most intermarried families, which decide to follow one (or no) religion, the parents associated with these interfaith schools have decided to teach their children about both religions.

It’s a difficult course, requiring a great commitment, as well as steely nerves, on the part of the volunteer teacher-parents. The organized Jewish community tends to oppose raising children in two faiths. In Solomonic fashion, the Reform movement’s position is to choose one faith — either one — rather than risk confusing the kids.

“After 10 years of doing this, I’ve gotten used to the people who nod and smile and turn away,” says Crowe, a clinical psychologist. While pointing out that no study has yet measured the long-term effects of raising kids in two religions, she echoes other parents in the group who say they respect Jewish opposition to interfaith education, but feel it’s the only way they can respond with integrity to their complicated family situation.

“Not every kid can do this,” she says. “Not every parent can do it. This is not something we’re trying to sell.”

When both spouses are committed to their respective faith traditions — Amy Crowe is Jewish, while her husband, Jeff, is Catholic — the idea of “abandoning” one or the other is, these parents say, not an option.

“Our experience is, if each parent is not attached to his or her religion, they don’t stay with us,” says Sherri Plaza, whose two children joined the school last December. “The parents have to be clear about what they want. We don’t want them working it out here.”

The Bay Area school was organized six years ago by three Catholic-Jewish couples, when their children were in first grade.

“We’d tried all kinds of things before this,” says Los Altos parent Linda Geiger. “Like most intermarried couples, my husband and I thought we had it all figured out. Then our children came along, and we realized we didn’t. We searched for a congregation where we both could feel at home, we put the kids in church Sunday school, but Matt wouldn’t go. He hated it. He much prefers this.”

Other families have come and gone, but the core group remains, enhanced by several newcomers. Now 11, 12 and 13 years old, these older children meet twice a month in rotating homes in San Mateo, Los Altos and Fremont.

A younger group of four children in second, third and fourth grade meets once a month. It is actively looking for new members, mainly to relieve the teaching burden on the parents.

Usually the classes are taught by two parents, a Jew and a Christian. In contrast to other interfaith schools, where parents teach their own religions, the Bay Area parents make a point of each trying to teach both traditions.

That’s why Amy Crowe finds herself this Sunday leading a class about Jesus’ parables. Last year’s curriculum focused on Judaism. This year the children are learning about Christianity, which puts a special burden on the Jewish parents, who have to learn almost everything they’re about to teach the kids.

“What’s a parable?” Amy asks the class.

“A story to teach a lesson,” answers Matthew Geiger, 13.

“Who taught parables?” Amy continues.

“Jesus,” responds 11-year-old Ethan Plaza.

“And Confucius,” adds Jay Levison.

“Yes!” Amy smiles. “Jesus didn’t invent it as a form of teaching. Parables are an ancient Jewish teaching tool as well.”

Today’s lesson, which highlights the points at which Christianity and Judaism intersect, is typical. The parents tread carefully to avoid proselytizing or offering interpretations not acceptable to the “other” faith, while not watering down their own religious beliefs.

That doesn’t mean the children don’t have faith, however. One little boy in this class says he thinks of Jesus as his savior but also feels Jewish. Another boy says he believes in God and in being a good person.

Some of the children attend other religious schools, some have been confirmed in the Catholic Church, and others go to synagogue (mostly on the High Holy Days). But for all of them, this small, tightly knit group of intermarried families is their primary faith community. It’s where they feel safe, where they can ask the questions they want without feeling weird or out of place.

“The biggest difference is, we’re not sending our kids to religious school, just dropping them off,” says Jim Levison, father of 12-year-old Jay. “We’re here with them, teaching them. For me, it’s been a great learning experience.”




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