Creating Your Jewish/Christian Ceremony

Celebrating Interfaith Marriages by Rabbi Devon A. Lerner
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.)

4.5/5

Today I'm linking up with Blonde Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday!