You can get it at interfaityfamily.com

It’s a lovely, well thought out book.

Narda and I struggle with this constantly – I do MANY things by rote. Narda is a “Jew by choice.” So she’s always asking me “WHY do we do x, y, or z.” Often, I have an answer, sometimes, however, I do not. Then I have to do my homework, and look within and say to myself, do I do this out of an obligation to tradition and history, or do I do it out of a choice that I made?

I hope that the answer is most often “Choice.”

One of the bst things about Judaism is that we are taught to question, and not to blindly accept. Hopefully, we will all raise our children with the willingness to ask questions – that’s the best we can do, right?

But the affirmation of different religions is one of the things that drew Kristin and I to the Unitarian church. Of course I’m not sure that that will instill a strong religious identity on our child, but it will give her a strong encouragement to question question question and learn.

From a complete outsider’s opinion, I would say that as long as you and S. do what you can to make certain that messages like “Jews don’t do x” are countered with stonger messages of inclusion and how Jewishness isn’t predicated on not doing certain things but rather how you feel inside, then you might just instill a strong Jewish idenity while maintaining openness to the rest of your child’s heritages. Or I could be talking out of my ass since I don’t really know much about Judaism…

You don’t say whether or not there’s much extended family on your dad’s side, but if there is, they could be a good resource for the “family traditions” of his faith.

Another possibility is ye olde queer family & other friends who are like family. Maybe you and S invite non-Jewish friends to celebrate Purim and/or other holidays of your choice with you, and ask to be included in their Easter or Christmas celebrations.