Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

Inspired Jewish Weddings

Home > Facebook Live > Page 2

Everything You Need to Know about Planning an Interfaith Jewish Wedding {Facebook Live Recap with 18Doors}

by

Planning a Jewish wedding can be tricky. Planning an interfaith Jewish wedding? Even trickier. That’s why I’m so happy to share my latest Facebook Live all about how to plan your perfect celebration, one that combines your two backgrounds in a unique way that’s totally, 100% you.

On this Live, I spoke with Rabbi Robyn Frisch and Nicole Wasilus of 18Doors, a wonderful organization dedicated to empowering interfaith couples and families to engage in Jewish life. No one knows more about interfaith Jewish weddings than these two, and I learned so much from speaking with them.

If you’re in the midst of planning your own interfaith celebration, or suspect you might be soon, you can’t do any better than to watch the recording of this fantastic session – and for easy browsing, I’ve recapped the highlights for you below.

There’s so much information to be gleaned from this Live, but if you’ve got a particular question that isn’t answered, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the wonderful 18Doors team – they’ve got 26 rabbinic fellow spread throughout US and Canada, and they’d love to help you out however they can, wherever you are in the world. 18 Doors’ sole mission is to help interfaith Jewish couples and families, so this is really what they’re here for!

Read on for some of Rabbi Robyn and Nicole’s interfaith wedding wisdom…

Getting Started

Rabbi Robyn and Nicole emphasized that, at the very beginning of wedding planning, it’s important to start by talking to your partner and hearing what they have to say. You should do this before you reach out to officiants, and before you start involving your families.

What exactly might you want to discuss? Consider talking through the following:

  • Which traditions from your background are important to you, and are there any that aren’t?
  • Is there anything about your partner’s tradition that you’d especially like to include, or that would make you uncomfortable to include?
  • Is there anything you especially liked or didn’t like from other weddings you’ve attended?
  • Are there any important people you’d like to honor in your wedding? What are some ways you might like to do that?

Rabbi Robyn and Nicole also recommend checking out Anita Diamant’s The Jewish Wedding Now for reference and ideas.

Above all, it’s important to start having these conversations early, and to keep communication open throughout the planning process.

Continue ReadingContinue Reading

Everything You Need to Know about Planning an Interfaith Jewish Wedding {with 18Doors}

by

Here at Smashing The Glass, we get so many questions from couples looking for guidance on planning their interfaith Jewish weddings. Wedding planning can be a daunting process for anyone, but interfaith couples can face all kinds of extra challenges, from navigating tricky family situations to simply not having a clear roadmap for what your ceremony might look like.
 
That’s why I’m so excited to tell you that this Wednesday, May 19, at 9:00 am PDT / 12:00 pm EDT / 5:00 pm GST, I’ll be chatting on Facebook with Rabbi Robyn Frisch and Nicole Wasilus of 18 Doors, a wonderful organization dedicated to empowering interfaith couples and families to engage in Jewish life, all about how to plan your perfect interfaith Jewish wedding.  

Some of the topics we’ll cover include:

  • Starting the conversation about what’s important to each of you in planning out your ceremony
  • Choosing an officiant
  • Special considerations for interfaith couples planning a wedding (for example, ketubot)
  • Examples of creative touches interfaith couples have used to incorporate background of partner or put a spin on Jewish tradition
  • Advice for navigating family conflict 
  • Discussion of the traditional elements of a Jewish ceremony and what considerations interfaith couples may want to make when deciding whether or not to include each one
  • Understanding elements of the Jewish ceremony in an interfaith way 

Continue ReadingContinue Reading

Everything You Need to Know about Jewish Genetic Carrier Screening {Facebook Live Recap with JScreen}

by

I’m delighted to share with you my latest Facebook Live, all about the most important wedding planning task that might not have made it onto your checklist: Jewish genetic carrier screening. While genetic screening certainly isn’t as much fun as, say, cake tasting, if you’re planning on having children it’s one of the most important steps you can take in securing your family’s future. 

On this Live, I spoke with Hillary Kener Regelman, Director of National Outreach at JScreen, a US-based not-for-profit at-home education and carrier screening program for Jewish genetic diseases. Hillary spoke with us for the first time this past July, and we had such an informative, empowering conversation about what JScreen does, how genetic carrier screening works, and what it all means for Jewish and Jew-ish couples.

We wanted to make sure all the newly engaged couples are able to benefit from her knowledge, so we brought her back for another session – where she went through the basics, answered questions from the audience, and filled us in on some recent updates at JScreen, like their new cancer susceptibility panel.

Hillary strongly believes that genetic screening should be an essential item on every couple’s wedding to-do list, and now that I’ve gotten to know her and JScreen, so do I!

What is genetic carrier screening?

Hillary began by explaining what exactly genetic carrier screening is – and what it’s not. First, it’s not a diagnostic test. JScreen’s reproductive panel won’t tell you if you yourself are at high risk of developing various diseases. Rather, JScreen’s testing lets people know if they are healthy carriers of genetic diseases who have mutations that they could potentially pass on to their future children.

Who should get screened?

The short answer: everyone planning on having children! While genetic screening is sometimes thought of as being relevant only to Ashkenazi Jews, the truth is that anyone, regardless of background, can be a carrier of one or more genetic diseases (and even as far as Jewish genetic diseases go, plenty affect Sephardi and Mizrahi populations). JScreen‘s pan-ethnic panel tests for all kinds of genetic diseases, not just those common among Jews – so it’s absolutely smart to get screened even if one or both of you are not ethnically Jewish.

Your parents may have done testing themselves, but even if that’s the case it’s still important to do it yourself before starting a family. So many more diseases are testable today than even five years ago – even if you yourself were screened a number of years ago, it’s worth considering retesting with JScreen. You can always look at the list of all the diseases they currently screen for and compare it to what you’ve already been screened for.

Continue ReadingContinue Reading

Everything You Need to Know about Jewish Genetic Carrier Screening {with JScreen}

by

Here at Smashing The Glass, we’re passionate about genetic carrier screening. If you’ve started thinking about growing your family, it’s something you might have heard of. You may even have considered getting screened yourself. But we’re well aware that the process can seem intimidating, expensive, and scary. It doesn’t have to be any of those things, though! Knowing whether you’re a carrier for any genetic diseases – and what your options are going forward if it turns out you are – is actually really empowering!
 
That’s why I’m so excited to tell you that this Tuesday, February 2, at 9:00 am PDT / 12:00 pm EDT / 5:00 pm GDT, I’ll be chatting on Facebook with Hillary Kener Regelman, Director of National Outreach at JScreen, a US-based not-for-profit at-home education and carrier screening program for Jewish genetic diseases.
 

GET EMPOWERED

Hillary spoke with us this past July, and we had such an informative, empowering conversation about what JScreen does, how genetic carrier screening works, and what all this might mean for you. We wanted to make sure all the newly engaged couples are able to benefit from her knowledge, so we’re bringing her back – plus, she’ll be filling us in on some recent updates as JScreen continues to expand their testing repertoire (including testing for cancer susceptibility genes like BRCA).
 
JScreen‘s mission is to give individuals and families easy access to information convenient home testing (so you can get the process started even in lockdown) at a reasonable price point. Screening for over 200 genetic diseases – including those that are commonly found in Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi Jewish populations – is performed by a certified laboratory and results are reviewed and reported to participants by genetic counselors, so if it turns out you are a carrier for a disease, your counselor will be there to talk you through the options (and there ARE options!).
 

Continue ReadingContinue Reading

Everything You Need to Know about Jewish Genetic Carrier Screening {Facebook Recap with JScreen}

by

I’m so excited to share with you my latest Facebook Live with Hillary Kener Regelman, Director of National Outreach at JScreen, a US-based not-for-profit at-home education and carrier screening program for Jewish genetic diseases.Jewish genetic screening is SUCH an important topic for every couple thinking of having children, and I’m so glad Hillary was able to help demystify the process.

I admit it isn’t something I knew much about before speaking with Hillary, but after chatting with her I see both how essential testing is to every couple’s family planning process AND how easy and accessible JScreen has made it. They’re on a mission to put genetic screening on every prospective parent’s radar and to clear up the misconceptions so many of us have about the process – and after chatting with Hillary, I’m totally convinced that, as she says, genetic screening should be an essential item on every couple’s wedding checklist.  

What is genetic carrier screening?

Hillary started off by explaining exactly what genetic carrier screening is – and isn’t. It’s not a diagnostic test. Rather, JScreen’s testing lets people know if they are healthy carriers of genetic diseases who have mutations that they could pass on to their children.

Who should get screened?

While genetic screening is sometimes thought of as something relevant only to Ashkenazi Jews, the truth is that everyone planning on having children should get screened, regardless of background (and, as far as Jewish genetic diseases go, there are plenty that affect Sephardi and Mizrahi populations too).

JScreen offers a pan-ethnic panel, testing for all kinds of genetic diseases, not just those common among Jews – so it’s very much worth screening if one or both of you are not ethnically Jewish.

And even if your parents did testing, it’s still important to do it yourself before starting a family, since so many more diseases are testable today than even five years ago (which means that if you yourself were screened a number of years ago, it’s worth considering retesting with JScreen).

Continue ReadingContinue Reading