Beyond Chrismukkah
The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
The rate of interfaith marriage in the United States has risen so radically since the sixties that it is difficult to recall how taboo the practice once was. How is this development understood and regarded by Americans generally, and what does it tell us about the nation’s religious life? Drawing on ethnographic and historical sources, Samira K. Mehta provides a fascinating analysis of wives, husbands, children, and their extended families in interfaith homes; religious leaders; and the social and cultural milieu surrounding mixed marriages among Jews, Catholics, and Protestants.
Mehta’s eye-opening look at the portrayal of interfaith families across American culture since the mid-twentieth century ranges from popular TV shows, holiday cards, and humorous guides to “Chrismukkah” to children’s books, young adult fiction, and religious and secular advice manuals. Mehta argues that the emergence of multiculturalism helped generate new terms by which interfaith families felt empowered to shape their lived religious practices in ways and degrees previously unknown. They began to intertwine their religious identities without compromising their social standing. This rich portrait of families living diverse religions together at home advances the understanding of how religion functions in American society today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mehta explores how interfaith marriages between Christians and Jews help illuminate "the ways in which Americans navigate the meanings of religion' and culture' in their daily lives" in her comprehensive debut. Mehta begins with a 1988 legal case that established the limits of "religious expression" that a divorced parent could show to their children if those children were raised in a different religion. Mehta traces back from this point to explain how interfaith marriage had rapidly changed in the postwar era. Her analysis is thorough and impressive, dipping into how interfaith families navigate holidays and dissecting representations of interfaith marriage within popular culture (her analysis of the reception of the 1972 TV show Bridget Loves Bernie is particularly revealing). Mehta's exploration of how religions are passed down from generation to generation will help readers understand how recent decreases in religious devotion and increased secularism in America has shifted social norms around marriage. However, stories of actual interfaith couples are largely absent (save a brief use of case studies near the end), which seems like a glaring omission. Mehta's expansive book will be enlightening for academics interested in the subject of marriage in relation to religion and interfaith dialogue, particularly Jewish-Protestant and Jewish-Catholic dialogue.
