When Oakland writer Ana Schwartzman and her husband, Jeff, started planning their wedding five years ago in Los Angeles, the couple enrolled in a beginning Judaism class. It was a refresher course for her and a first-time experience for Jeff, who was Jewish but grew up in an unobservant household. They also consulted Anita Diamant’s how-to book, “The New Jewish Wedding,” to help them plan the big event.
“While we found it informative, we certainly would have liked something more innovative,” Schwartzman recently reflected. Hence, while planning the details of her wedding, the idea was lodged to someday write “a book about how to create a more personal, meaningful, enjoyable wedding.”
This is how Schwartzman describes her book, “Make Your Own Jewish Wedding: How to Create a Ritual That Expresses Your True Selves,” in the introduction. Schwartzman herself is a case in point of the kind of reader who doesn’t fit the typical American Jewish stereotype. Her grandparents, from Romania and Ukraine, spoke Yiddish and raised her mother in the Jewish community of Buenos Aires. Her father was born to a Russian Jew in New York City.
“I am thus a half-Argentinean, half-American Reform Jew with Eastern European roots,” Schwartzman explained.
After signing a book contract with the San Francisco publisher Jossey-Bass, Schwartzman and co-writer Zoë Francesca got a hold of the 2000-01 National Jewish Population Survey to familiarize themselves with their audience. This report, she says, “was key in giving us insight into demographics, intermarriage and Jewish communal trends in this country.”
Without a doubt, no matter where you might find yourself in the Jewish spectrum, these two authors have got you covered in their book, “Make Your Own Jewish Wedding,” published last fall. They address readers who are from two different religious, cultural or ethnic backgrounds; religious or secular; with one parent who is Jewish and the other not; lesbian or gay.
“It was important to us that we had a sampling of couples of varying ages, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, religious views and that we included people who were on their second or third marriages, and/or had children going into a new marriage,” said Schwartzman. “These are all very real scenarios reflective of Jewish society today.”
Schwartzman and Francesca — who contributed to the book “The Meaning of Wedding Anniversaries” and recently moved from Berkeley to Oregon with her husband and three children — had a ball reading all the wedding-planning books they could find, as well as interviewing couples as they wrote the book.
“It really was a grassroots effort,” said Schwartzman. “We blasted an e-mail questionnaire out to everyone we knew, and ended up with some wonderful couples who spoke candidly and passionately about their wedding ceremonies, families and spiritual lives. We also interviewed a handful of Reform, Conservative and Orthodox rabbis and ran our work by two local rabbis to ensure accuracy; they were our advisers, really.”
The book begins with a chapter on “Looking at Yourselves,” in which the authors write, “Rather than viewing religious and ethnic differences between you and your partner as a drawback to a cohesive, meaningful wedding, you’ll soon discover how these differences can make your wedding even more personal and intentional than most conventional weddings.”
When you’re caught up in the overwhelming details of planning a wedding, Schwartzman said, it can be challenging to be creative, or remember what really matters. “Really, it is about empowering the couple to feel that there is so much in the tradition of Judaism that they can pull from, while they still be true to their own values.”
Readers are given lots of “tips” in pullout boxes scattered through the book, such as researching recipes, dances, poems and customs from the Old Country to connect to your past. There are also personal stories from the couples interviewed.
One of Schwartzman’s favorite stories is about a couple, Elinor and Sam. This will be the second time around for them, and they worry about whether to maintain the rituals of a traditional wedding, as they are older, have children and were previously married. Elinor says in the book: “After we signed our ketubah, we asked to be left alone for a few minutes. Sam and I sat across from each other, holding hands. We promised to love each other always and to show compassion toward each other in difficult times.”
Schwartzman was particularly interested in talking with couples who were most honest about how they worked through certain feelings, and how they worked within Judaism to plan their ideal wedding. “One of the things that interviewing couples gave us was knowing how important it is for couples to ask what’s important to each other. A lot of times you just go into autopilot when planning a wedding. If only we really talked about what is truly important.”
The book also includes a thorough glossary — from Abraham to Zionism — references to wedding books and Web sites; resources on interfaith issues and Jewish cookbooks; and selected blessings and prayers.
Planning details aside, Schwartzman said her main objective was “to write a book that would give couples an idea of just how much creativity can be drawn from Jewish tradition.”
Schwartzman is now completing a graduate degree in creative nonfiction though a limited-residence program at Goucher College in Maryland. Which brings her to her current project: writing a book of essays about Jewish food, tentatively titled, “Appetite.”
“Make Your Own Jewish Wedding: How To Create a Ritual That Expresses Your True Selves” (208 pages, Jossey-Bass, $19.95).