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Celebrating Interfaith Marriages: Creating Your Jewish/Christian Ceremony
The first comprehensive wedding guide specifically for the Jewish/Christian couple who wants to honor both religious traditions in their service, vows, and readings.
Saying "I do" is one of the happiest moments in a couple's life together--but planning that trip to the altar can be a stressful ordeal. The minute an engagement is announced two full clans want to celebrate the union their way! When one of those families is Jewish (50 percent of whom now marry outside their faith) and the other is Christian, the religious details can increase the pressure on the bride- and groom-to-be. Celebrating Interfaith Marriages provides all of the expert advice on how to combine elements of the two faiths so everyone can rejoice with the bride and groom on their wedding day.
Devon Lerner draws from her twenty years of officiating interfaith weddings as she discusses the significance of vows and traditions unique to both faiths and suggests how to incorporate them into a service that is balanced and beautiful. She provides Christian and Jewish services readers can mix and match, as well as custom-bled ceremonies contributed by couples who have worked with her over the years. There's a chapter on how to avoid crashes on issues like location, when the ceremony takes place, and whether the bride and groom should see each other before meeting at the altar. A full section of readings, both biblical and secular, are here too, as well as anecdotes that will reassure and amuse. No interfaith couple will want to be without this essential handbook when they plan their special day.
Saying "I do" is one of the happiest moments in a couple's life together--but planning that trip to the altar can be a stressful ordeal. The minute an engagement is announced two full clans want to celebrate the union their way! When one of those families is Jewish (50 percent of whom now marry outside their faith) and the other is Christian, the religious details can increase the pressure on the bride- and groom-to-be. Celebrating Interfaith Marriages provides all of the expert advice on how to combine elements of the two faiths so everyone can rejoice with the bride and groom on their wedding day.
Devon Lerner draws from her twenty years of officiating interfaith weddings as she discusses the significance of vows and traditions unique to both faiths and suggests how to incorporate them into a service that is balanced and beautiful. She provides Christian and Jewish services readers can mix and match, as well as custom-bled ceremonies contributed by couples who have worked with her over the years. There's a chapter on how to avoid crashes on issues like location, when the ceremony takes place, and whether the bride and groom should see each other before meeting at the altar. A full section of readings, both biblical and secular, are here too, as well as anecdotes that will reassure and amuse. No interfaith couple will want to be without this essential handbook when they plan their special day.
288 pages, Paperback
First published April 19, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 2, 2013
"Interfaith marriages," Rabbi Lerner says, "are a fact of life." To which I can attest. I'm a Southern Baptist communicant; my beautiful bride is Jewish, and we got married in April 2006.
This is the book we bought to set up our ceremony, and a very helpful and useful book it was. Rabbi Lerner (bless her heart) has been doing interfaith marriages since 1979, according to the book jacket, and she is an unfailing source of help and enlightenment.
I can only speak from my side of the aisle, of course. I'd never been to a Jewish wedding, and all I knew was that you broke a glass at the end of it. I knew a bit more about Christian ceremonies, but I didn't know enough to design a whole ceremony without help.
Rabbi Lerner covers the waterfront, explaining every aspect of the traditional Jewish wedding and the traditional Christian wedding (including denominational differences) and then explaining how the traditions often conflict. For example (I didn't know this) guests stand when the bride walks in at most Christian ceremonies; they don't at Jewish ceremonies. (They sat at ours, but it was mostly because the musicians didn't switch from the processional music to "Here Comes The Bride" for some reason.)
She also includes very nice sample ceremonies that other interfaith couples have used, any of which you can use as a guide for your wedding. Like most people who use the book, we didn't adopt 100% of anyone else's ceremony; we mixed and matched to make up our own, including some very old parts (the blessing over the wine) and some very new parts (the "unity candle", which one of Rabbi Lerner's sources describes as a Hallmark touch.)
Probably the best part of the book is the third part, which is set up as a "menu" - one from Column A, one from Column B. Rabbi Lerner breaks out each of the different elements of the wedding ceremony and gives multiple options for each element, everything from vows to prayers to blessings, with both English and Hebrew given. (And handy transliterations for those of us who can't read Hebrew, although I warn you that you may sound like a goober reading Hebrew in transliteration.)
After that, there are suggested readings from the Scripture and from modern sources -- we ended up going with the traditional "love chapter" from the Corinthian epistles and the ninety-first Psalm.
Anyway, without going to much into the specifics, we had a lovely ceremony, and everyone congratulated us on it when it was over. (And it was short, which I think everyone appreciated as well.) A lot of thanks goes to our officiant, of course, and our families for being understanding, and of course we worked hard on it too. But Rabbi Lerner was a big help, and if you find yourself in a similar situation I cannot recommend her book highly enough.
This is the book we bought to set up our ceremony, and a very helpful and useful book it was. Rabbi Lerner (bless her heart) has been doing interfaith marriages since 1979, according to the book jacket, and she is an unfailing source of help and enlightenment.
I can only speak from my side of the aisle, of course. I'd never been to a Jewish wedding, and all I knew was that you broke a glass at the end of it. I knew a bit more about Christian ceremonies, but I didn't know enough to design a whole ceremony without help.
Rabbi Lerner covers the waterfront, explaining every aspect of the traditional Jewish wedding and the traditional Christian wedding (including denominational differences) and then explaining how the traditions often conflict. For example (I didn't know this) guests stand when the bride walks in at most Christian ceremonies; they don't at Jewish ceremonies. (They sat at ours, but it was mostly because the musicians didn't switch from the processional music to "Here Comes The Bride" for some reason.)
She also includes very nice sample ceremonies that other interfaith couples have used, any of which you can use as a guide for your wedding. Like most people who use the book, we didn't adopt 100% of anyone else's ceremony; we mixed and matched to make up our own, including some very old parts (the blessing over the wine) and some very new parts (the "unity candle", which one of Rabbi Lerner's sources describes as a Hallmark touch.)
Probably the best part of the book is the third part, which is set up as a "menu" - one from Column A, one from Column B. Rabbi Lerner breaks out each of the different elements of the wedding ceremony and gives multiple options for each element, everything from vows to prayers to blessings, with both English and Hebrew given. (And handy transliterations for those of us who can't read Hebrew, although I warn you that you may sound like a goober reading Hebrew in transliteration.)
After that, there are suggested readings from the Scripture and from modern sources -- we ended up going with the traditional "love chapter" from the Corinthian epistles and the ninety-first Psalm.
Anyway, without going to much into the specifics, we had a lovely ceremony, and everyone congratulated us on it when it was over. (And it was short, which I think everyone appreciated as well.) A lot of thanks goes to our officiant, of course, and our families for being understanding, and of course we worked hard on it too. But Rabbi Lerner was a big help, and if you find yourself in a similar situation I cannot recommend her book highly enough.
July 1, 2012
About a year and a half ago my mom sent me a copy of this book. (And by that I really mean she had someone on paperbackswap send it to me, but close enough.) At the time I hadn't really started thinking about or ceremony, but now that we're almost 2 months away it seems like the perfect time to pick it up.
I actually found this far more interesting than I expected and different than what I anticipated as well. I was thinking this would be more of a self-help type book or making an interfaith marriage work, instead it's exactly as the subtext describe, basically an instruction manual on creating your interfaith ceremony.
The book starts off by outline the important aspects of Jewish ceremony, as well as Christian ceremony from a variety of denominations. Then it includes a few sample ceremonies that are again based on Judaism and different denominations. Finally it breaks the ceremony down and gives several different passages that could be used for each aspect of the ceremony.
And since I can't write this review without at least commenting on the fact it was from my mom, there were a few times reading this where I would have loved to share items with my mom. For example there's a few wedding passages that our sourced to the Rabbi Emeritus at the temple I grew up going to. I had no idea that he was so widely known in the Jewish community, but it is interesting to see his name in print. And of course, reading this, I can't help but wish my mom was still here so I could talk about various aspects or passages I'm thinking of including, with her.
No this book isn't Anita Diamant's The New Jewish Wedding, but it's much narrower in its scope. (And Diamant's book is actually used as a source.) I do think that if your having a Jewish ceremony (interfaith or not) and you want to have some sort of say in the customizing of your ceremony you should read this book. (I even think if you aren't Jewish, but are planning on writing your own ceremony you could benefit from this.)
I actually found this far more interesting than I expected and different than what I anticipated as well. I was thinking this would be more of a self-help type book or making an interfaith marriage work, instead it's exactly as the subtext describe, basically an instruction manual on creating your interfaith ceremony.
The book starts off by outline the important aspects of Jewish ceremony, as well as Christian ceremony from a variety of denominations. Then it includes a few sample ceremonies that are again based on Judaism and different denominations. Finally it breaks the ceremony down and gives several different passages that could be used for each aspect of the ceremony.
And since I can't write this review without at least commenting on the fact it was from my mom, there were a few times reading this where I would have loved to share items with my mom. For example there's a few wedding passages that our sourced to the Rabbi Emeritus at the temple I grew up going to. I had no idea that he was so widely known in the Jewish community, but it is interesting to see his name in print. And of course, reading this, I can't help but wish my mom was still here so I could talk about various aspects or passages I'm thinking of including, with her.
No this book isn't Anita Diamant's The New Jewish Wedding, but it's much narrower in its scope. (And Diamant's book is actually used as a source.) I do think that if your having a Jewish ceremony (interfaith or not) and you want to have some sort of say in the customizing of your ceremony you should read this book. (I even think if you aren't Jewish, but are planning on writing your own ceremony you could benefit from this.)
September 1, 2016
The author is a rabbi who performs interfaith ceremonies (which is something of a rarity, for a variety of reasons), but she has obviously had input from Christian celebrants as well, as evidenced by the introduction by a Catholic priest. The book is divided into four parts. The first discusses issues involved in interfaith ceremonies - difficulties and clashes of tradition, but also some basic wedding advice (how to get a marriage license, etc.). The second provides six interfaith ceremonies; one is a sample, but five are ceremonies the author presided over. These ceremonies illustrate the first part's discussion of different ways to handle conflicting ceremonies, with some ceremonies emphasizing Jewish elements, some Christian elements, and others with a more balanced approach. The third part is a "menu" of elements of an interfaith marriage - pick the elements that you want included, and then select from several options in terms of wording. (Want an explanation of the chuppah? Here are five to choose from!) Finally, the author provides some popular wedding readings.
This is the kind of book I'm sure many couples are very glad is available. I find it interesting, but not necessarily compelling - due in part to my own religious ambivalence. It clearly is written mostly for people with a more Christian religious identity than I have. But it's a nice look at some of the options in terms of modifying the Jewish ceremony. I also appreciate the explanations of unfamiliar traditions, and the concerns over alienating those unfamiliar with the dominant tradition of the ceremony. Overall, a worthwhile (and fast!) read, and food for thought. Worth every penny I paid. (I love the library.)
This is the kind of book I'm sure many couples are very glad is available. I find it interesting, but not necessarily compelling - due in part to my own religious ambivalence. It clearly is written mostly for people with a more Christian religious identity than I have. But it's a nice look at some of the options in terms of modifying the Jewish ceremony. I also appreciate the explanations of unfamiliar traditions, and the concerns over alienating those unfamiliar with the dominant tradition of the ceremony. Overall, a worthwhile (and fast!) read, and food for thought. Worth every penny I paid. (I love the library.)
September 25, 2013
I found this book so helpful, and very practical. I am Jewish, and my (now) husband is not, so I was thrilled when my rabbi suggested this book to help us guide the flow of our wedding ceremony. It's complete with explanations behind wedding traditions of different faiths, and ways to incorporate them. One thing I liked best was the "scripts" with actual sample vows and readings. I was able to mix and match to incorporate what fit our beliefs and personalities best.
January 14, 2011
This book is super useful for those looking to craft their own ceremony--I was amazed at all of the wonderful wording options for each section. I got it from the library, then after spending the evening with it, realized I needed to buy it! A great road map for sorting out what you want out of a ceremony--after reading, I feel much more prepared for meeting with an officiant.
May 2, 2011
Matt and I found this really helpful in planning our ceremony and things to consider since he's Jewish and I'm Christian. Even without the religion involved just things for us to consider in a ceremony, this was very helpful. It had multiple passages and phrasing of popular ceremony parts for people to choose from, which was nice.
July 19, 2009
This book is an excellent introduction to creating an interfaith marriage ceremony. It describes eachof the elements of the weddings and gives a variety of language options to meet individuals' needs. Highly recommend it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews