When Monet Monaghan married Ken Gregg, their religious differences were not much of a consideration.
“Now that we have children,” she says, “we want to find ways to integrate religion into our lives. Ritual is helpful for children.”
Gregg grew up with a strong Jewish cultural identity. Monaghan, who was raised Christian, says she is more attracted to Judaism than to Christianity. But despite her interest and her husband’s support, Monaghan was not sure where to go.
What she needed was “a forum to explore religion in our home.”
Luckily for her, such a forum exists, through a national program called Stepping Stones.
The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco implemented the program last fall to help interfaith families explore how Judaism can play a part in family life. The program allows the non-Jewish partner to experience what it might be like to raise children in the Jewish tradition before making a commitment.
The program is free, with a $150 annual fee per family to cover the cost of supplies.
Started in Denver in 1985, the program is available in 16 communities nationwide. It was introduced by the JCC, with funding from the Jewish Outreach Institute’s Jewish Connection Partnership and the Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation. Rabbi Aliza Berk served as the San Francisco program’s first director.
“The ultimate goal is to feel comfortable and to help people come away with how Judaism can enhance their lives,” Berk said.
Berk began the program in the fall with 12 families, all with children under the age of 6. Nine families remained when the program completed its first year in June, with three dropping out for personal reasons.
While most Stepping Stones programs in other cities focus on families with children of kindergarten age or older, the San Francisco program served primarily parents of preschoolers.
The parents “didn’t want to wait. They wanted to figure it out sooner rather than later,” says Rosanne Levitt, interim director of the Stepping Stones program and director of the S.F.-based Interfaith Connection since 1986.
Ed Leighton, who grew up Orthodox, and his Catholic-raised wife, Jayne, didn’t want to wait. They have been sending their 4-year-old twins to JCC programs for three years. And though Leighton went to Hebrew school as a child, he wanted his family to learn — and he wanted to relearn — the basic elements of Jewish culture, tradition and history. He also wanted to do so in an environment that would be sensitive to the needs of dual-heritage families.
Like Monaghan, Jayne Leighton decided to bring their children up Jewish because a good deal of her husband’s family perished in the Holocaust and she thought it was important for the faith to be passed on to future generations.
One of the strengths of the program is that it involves everybody. In an interfaith relationship, Levitt said, the non-Jewish partner often agrees to raise the children as Jews without having a full understanding of what that means — and without being given a chance to explore the issues. Other non-Jewish partners may be reluctant to make that commitment because they are not sure they will be fully accepted in the Jewish community.
Both Monaghan and Jayne Leighton compliment the program for not pressuring the non-Jewish partner into conversion. And other than giving the families the opportunity to experience what it would be like having a Jewish home, Monaghan said the program did not have “strong agendas because [conversion is] such a personal decision.”
Because joining a synagogue is often an integral part of the Jewish community, synagogue exposure was a large part of the Stepping Stones program. In San Francisco, Reform Congregations Emanu-El and Sherith Israel, Conservative Congregation Beth Sholom, and Conservative-Reform Congregation Beth Israel-Judea sponsor the program, along with the S.F.-based Bureau of Jewish Education and the JCC.
In 1999-2000, the program met for one semester at Sherith Israel and another at Beth Sholom.Rabbis from the four congregations talked with the families and gave them tours of their synagogues. In addition, other Jewish community leaders spoke.
Though the program did not take the families to synagogue services, they were encouraged to attend.
Levitt pointed to some of the hurdles faced by many interfaith couples contemplating synagogue membership. One of them is financial concerns, “because there are membership fees to join [a synagogue]. This is a foreign concept to many non-Jews because in a church there is no joining fee.”
She also pointed to a “missing link” in the Bay Area between outreach programs such as Interfaith Connection and long-term commitments to the Jewish community, such as synagogue membership or JCC involvement. Her goal is for Stepping Stones to serve as that link.
Interfaith Connection is a discussion series about raising children in an intermarried family, about holidays and how to perform some of the Jewish rituals at home. Stepping Stones offers more of an in-depth lesson and immersion into the Jewish experience.
Emphasizing that the group has made his family more comfortable with Judaism, Leighton said, “The class has done justice in our eyes…Jayne is willing to join a synagogue. The family will observe the holidays, go to Shabbat services, become regulars in a temple and join a chavurah.”
Meanwhile, because Berk will not be returning to direct the program in the fall, Leighton said the selection of a new director is crucial. He and his family would commit to Stepping Stones for another year if the new director steers clear of previously covered ground.
Leighton would like to learn more about Jewish history, not only during biblical times, but also during the Inquisition and the Holocaust. He would also like to learn more about Israeli current events.
And before joining a synagogue, Leighton said he would like to explore what makes it unique. Panel discussions featuring members of different congregations would be helpful.
Monaghan, who is happy with the sense of community she received from the program as well as the opportunity to discuss interfaith issues in depth, intends to participate for a second year.
Discussing the program’s first year, Levitt said, “It is too soon to tell” how successful it has been. She estimates that some families will join a synagogue, some will continue on for a second year and others are moving out of the Bay Area. Nationally, however, more than 50 percent of the participating families join synagogues.
Isabelle Gregg, Monaghan and Gregg’s 4-year-old daughter, is unconcerned with such matters. What she is interested in are the arts and crafts projects, holiday stories and songs she has learned in the children segment of the program, led by Amy Abramson.
Only 10 months after beginning the program, Isabelle walks around her San Francisco home making up songs as little children often do. What makes her mother so happy is Isabelle has absorbed information from the program. It is not uncommon to hear a made-up melody consisting only of the words “Shabbat Shalom.”