Secular Jewish traditions for kids?

September 6, 2021 8:26 PM

How do people who were raised Jewish but are no longer religious foster a sense of Jewish identity in their kids? Any good traditions or holiday celebration ideas?

I was raised Jewish- Hebrew school, bat mitzvah, summer camp, the whole nine yards. But my parents are very secular and did almost nothing to celebrate Jewish holidays or Shabbat outside of lighting the menorah. Everything else we either went to temple, ignored, or (rarely) went to someone else's house. So I don't have any family traditions to continue.

My spouse is from a Catholic family and they're *really* into holidays, so I'd like to have some Jewish traditions to balance things out. I have a few ideas, but I'm interested in hearing what other people are doing for more inspiration.

posted by Gravel to Society & Culture (10 answers total)

My cousin is Catholic and her husband is Jewish, and they seem to merge a lot of holidays. She seems very cognizant about it. She lights the Menorah. They celebrate all the holidays, Jewish and Christian alike.

My husband's family was Jewish but very secular. He hated anything related to any holiday and only celebrated it when I insisted (because I was raised Catholic).

I think, for me, I like Tori Avery. Maybe that will inspire you.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 8:52 PM on September 6, 2021 [2 favorites]

Reading aloud from Marx, Kafka and Hannah Arendt usually works for me as a secular Jewish tradition. But on the whole there is not a lot out there for you because Judaism is a religion first and foremost so there are no secular Jewish traditions. Of course, you can celebrate ‘Seder’ or ‘Rosh-ha-shana’ without saying the prayers or reading from the book, but this is not secular by any stretch of imagination. To be a secular Jew is to mostly connect to Judaism through the stomach so yes, cooking Jewish food is one way to build some sort of secular Jewish identity.
posted by slimeline at 3:29 AM on September 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

Having and making decorations for the Sukkah;, decorating the house with flowers and making flower crafts for Shavuot, as well as discussing the importance of lifelong learning; getting a Shofar and blowing it around this time of year; planting a tree for New Year of the Trees, if it’s the right season where you are
.
posted by acantha at 5:18 AM on September 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

Apples and honey for snacks around the high holy days (happy new year!) and volunteering or donating to a local food bank or otherwise contributing to combatting hunger in the community.

Latke cooking party for Hanukkah (grate stuff and drain it ahead of time, during the party someone is cooking them a few at a time and storing extras in a warm oven but people come and eat them fresh and hot, kind of like a pancake breakfast but potato pancakes and at night with drinks and mood lighting).

Make brisket and then engage in the traditional argument about how to make the best brisket and whose is best and how all others are inferior.

At the dinner table do not hesitate to begin debating esoteric and fraught topics, include any children present and teach them history at the drop of a hat, emphasize education and having multiple opinions on everything throughout their lives.

Sukkot and Passover can both be done semi-secular. Sukkot is a lovely excuse for backyard camping, learning about nutrition, having a deck party with lots of snacks, and going for a walk and talking to neighbors to get the parts for a lulav. Passover can be a dinner with friends with lots of wine during which you recount the story and talk about slavery, freedom from bondage, how we need to mutually uplift all peoples, what slavery looks like today and how to help those people, etc. Oh and also be sure to invite a new friend each year.

There are plenty of different songs you can sing with or to your kids depending on age but a lot of them are very religious in their lyrics. For some people this is a problem, for others it isn’t. Probably a bunch of Jewish summer camp songs you will loosely remember, too.

Yiddish is a really cool language with fantastic swear words and gorgeous metaphors in its figures of speech, so if your family is language-inclined you can study it and use loan words (I will often refer to someone as a mensch and then have to explain that I didn’t insult them.)

Many congregations have large volunteering and social networks that welcome non-congregants. Check out your local options and ask about participating to help out at things like food and clothing drives, charity auctions, organized tours and trips, etc. A lot of time in my experience Jewish volunteers keep their work deliberately secular apart from just saying “hey, we are Jewish and are here to help” as a contrast to a lot of Christian style charity.
posted by Mizu at 5:36 AM on September 7, 2021 [8 favorites]

I don’t really agree that we have to code everything as religious. The religious and secular both evolved together, in continuous tension/stimulation.

The trick I think is to find what adds meaning/connection to your lives, because that is what we’ll be communicated to your children.

I think family Friday dinners with challah and candle lighting can be a great way to bring a Jewish rhythm into a Christian dominated world. It also feels less like setting up major symbolic holidays against one another. But there’s no dearth of possibilities. If you are into music as a family there is so so much there. History, literature, folk stories, texts, arts/calligraphy, etc.
posted by Salamandrous at 6:02 AM on September 7, 2021 [4 favorites]

I’m Jewish in the same way you are, my husband is Catholic in the same way I am, and I have to say a big part of this is that Jewish holidays…suck. Oil lamps and war stories vs. Santa???? Shank bone vs. giant chocolate bunny???? There’s absolutely no contest. I send my kid to Jewish preschool, I will send her to Hebrew school, then everything Mizu said is spot on. When she’s older I would like to observe Shabbat in a way that just involves a nice meal and eliminates screens and focuses on us connecting as a family.
posted by tatiana wishbone at 12:57 PM on September 7, 2021

Shana Tova! Tonight we did our annual Rosh Hashanah celebration. We host a pop-up dinner on an Island in the Mississippi -- white linen tablecloths, flowers, the good china, folding tables and chairs. We light candles and sing a blessing. Bless the kids. Bless some wine. Eat a food none of us have ever tried and sing shehechianu. Eat some chocolate challah and say ha-motsi. Eat some apples and honey and say that brachot. Then we have a huge feast. Then we make a parade and march down to the river singing Avinu Malkeinu and carrying what's left of the challah. Down by the riverside we blow the shofar and do Tashlich. (And take golden hour photos.) Then we watch the sun fade from the sky and eat honey cake. It's awesome.

I love Jewish ritual amd holidays; I could talk about this for days.....
posted by shadygrove at 9:52 PM on September 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

Some of my parents were Jewish, the rest of them were secular/atheists. The most impactful Jewish celebrations on me, at least, were not things we hosted ourselves, but were tied to the tradition of when we visited other (sometimes more or less secular/religious/traditional) households for holidays, as it was a great way to dip into the community and connect with other Jews without having to pretend faith or otherwise grapple with complicated religious beliefs. A large part of most of the celebrations is the hosting of fellow Jews, the gathering of both friends and strangers, so it works out very well. I still carry on with it as an adult, and it's continued to enrich my life every time I make the effort. (Just make sure to pitch in!)
posted by foxtongue at 8:09 AM on September 8, 2021

If you're in the US or Canada and your kids are under 12, sign your kids up for PJ Library. Every month, your kid gets a book in the mail.

They are typically thematic to the time of year--my kid's latest (came yesterday) is a book about Sukkos. They do sometimes have religious content, but to me, it's usually fairly mild. Last month's Rosh Hashana book, for example, has one page where the family goes to the synagogue and hears the shofar, but the rest is about celebrating with family, watching the sun set on the year, saying Shana Tova/Happy New Year, having a meal together, dipping apples in honey, etc.

Most books have some extra content on their website and they have additional activities and ideas there, too. There are also holiday guides that could help you shape the year ahead. The books can sometimes be hit or miss, but it's fun to have something come every month.
posted by carrioncomfort at 9:52 AM on September 8, 2021

Pish, Jewish holidays only suck because they aren't widely observed. Dressing up for Purim and waving around noisemakers is cool and fun *if you have people to do it with*. If none of your classmates believed in Santa and all thought you were weird it would take a lot of the light out of that, too.

I guess I'm arguing for finding a liberal religious community that you can join for festivals and things, singing songs, storytelling, etc. We go to my shul's Purim shpiel and laugh even though my partner is not Jewish and actively a-religious.

For home ceremonies, what's been described is good. Lighting candles on Friday night is also a nice way to take a break and declare the work week OVER. And every year I tell myself I will build a Sukkah, and every year I laze out, but if I just bought or built a kit ONE YEAR I could use that every year after...
posted by Lady Li at 5:01 PM on September 8, 2021 [2 favorites]