The True Story of Nonna

Karen Fisman is the author of Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise. Below, she shares the story of the Nonna who inspired her interfaith Hanukkah story.

You can get Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise, as well as Kar-Ben's annual Hanukkah deal, 8 Books for $8, on the Kar-Ben website.

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In a couple of weeks time, I will be travelling to the remote Canadian city of Sault Ste Marie to do a reading of Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise. Sault Ste Marie, or the Soo as it is affectionately known, has a large population of second generation immigrant families. There are lots of Finns and Italians, but very few Jews. So why, you may be wondering, would I be travelling there to do a Hanukkah reading?

Well, if a book could have a birthplace, Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise would have been born in the Soo. That was where I first met Nonna, and it was also where I learned about the joy of sharing holiday traditions with non-Jewish family.

Nonna was Italian and Catholic. She had emigrated from Calabria to the Soo in the 1950's, settling in that bitterly cold city with its beautiful stark surroundings and a steel mill that provided jobs to new immigrants. When I met Nonna, she was in her seventies, and as the Italian immigrant community stuck together, I was one of the first Jews that she had ever met.

I still remember that first meeting: Nonna hugging me tight, then shepherding me to the kitchen where everyone was gathered. I was peppered with questions about my family and what I did. The topic of my Jewish identity went untouched, but when dinner was served, Nonna took me aside to share that, especially for me, she'd made her meatballs without pork that day. Several years later our son was born, and the issues became larger than pork in the meatballs. We had decided to raise our kids as Jews and Nonna struggled to understand how this would impact her grandchild. When she came to visit the new baby, she brought him a gift, a Magen David and a cross, hanging together on a gold chain as in her mind, her grandchild was both Jewish and Christian. My husband gently explained that this was not the case. There would be no baptism, but there would be a bris. Her grandchild would be raised as a Jew.

We'll never know what internal struggle Nonna might have had with our decision. We only experienced her full-on effort to understand and be a part of our Jewish lives. She visited us during the holidays, paying close attention at the Passover seders, and witnessing (though not participating in) our Yom Kippur fasts. We would visit her at Christmas, bringing along first one child and then two, excluding ourselves from church services, but enjoying the holiday feasts and family time.

As our kids got older, we started packing a Hanukkah bag for our Christmas visits, whether the holidays coincided or not. Our kids delighted in teaching Nonna and the cousins to play dreidl, using chocolate gelt as currency. In subsequent years, the Hanukkah bag grew as our kids contributed their ideas. We schlepped Hanukkah decorations, menorah, beeswax candles and Hanukkah stories along. We also bought Nonna a food processor to expedite our latke making, as latkes had become a staple of the holiday feasts. It was a wonderful way of sharing our celebration as Nonna and the cousins were sharing theirs.

Nonna passed away some years ago. Reflecting on the sweet memories of our holiday visits, I wrote Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise, about an inter-faith family's holiday celebration. The story is about little Rachel, who brings Hanukkah to her non-Jewish Nonna's house. When things happen to go awry, it's Nonna (of course) who steps up to save the day.

So now, I imagine, you can understand why I will be travelling to the Soo with my family and our Hanukkah bag to do a Hanukkah reading. The reading will be hosted by the church that Nonna used to belong to. Churchgoers will be at the event along with members of the Soo's Jewish community. And I will be sharing Nonna's Hanukkah Surprise and its message of love and acceptance with all of them.

Happy Hanukkah to all!

For Interfaith Families: “I love you just like Papa Jethro loved Gershom”

With Passover and Easter in the next few coming days, many families with members of different faiths will come together to celebrate these holidays. Sometimes difference can make people feel separated, but often love spans this divide.

In Papa Jethro by prolific children's author and rabbi, Deborah Bodin Cohen, the book's only characters, a grandfather and his young granddaughter, are of different religious faiths: 

Rachel and Grandpa Nick have just about everything in common. They like to play with model trains, paint with watercolors, and go to the park. But Rachel goes to synagogue and Grandpa Nick goes to church. “Shouldn’t we have the same religion?” Rachel asks. “You are my grandpa.”

In answer, her Grandpa Nick tells her the biblical story of Jethro, Moses’ non-Jewish father-in-law, whose relationship with his grandson Gershom is a model of love and respect. With warm watercolor artwork and a gentle storyline, Papa Jethro sensitively looks at the issue of interfaith families and reminds us that the Bible has timely lessons for every generation.
Stories can have the power to connect children and grandparents in special ways. This book would be a lovely way for a non-Jewish grandparent to connect with their Jewish grandchildren, making real Grandpa Nick's sentiment to Rachel: “I love you just like Papa Jethro loved Gershom.” 

Want the book in time for a Passover visit?
Get the eBook now from Kar-Ben's parent company, LernerBooks.com.  Or, order a paperback or hardcover copy directly from Kar-Ben.

Answering the Big Questions

As an adult, it's easy to slip into what I call "fact-mode," accepting the truth, being serious, reading the newspaper and thoughtful books, working hard, and being responsible. But what about your sense of wonder? Imagination? Ability to question the world around you? What about the spiritual side of yourself? Sometimes, one needs to step out of "fact-mode" and think more like a child.

Amy Meltzer's latest post at Homeshuling got me thinking about the big questions about God that kids ask their parents and teachers. Who is God? Where is God? Why does God make bad things happen? While adults seem like wise, all-knowing beings, a lot of the time we're still figuring it out for ourselves. Ideas about God can take a long time to develop and are deeply personal, and can't be explained as easily as why the sky is blue or disproving the theory of "boy cooties." How does one begin to talk about God with a child?

I like this article by Rabbi David Wolpe from Interfaith Family because he emphasizes that in Judaism, there's no one idea about God. There are many different interpretations. In discussions with children, even the grown-ups can learn something.

Rabbi Wolpe lists some thoughtful tips about how to talk to your kids about God, including the importance of telling stories. Many of our books are based on midrash, which is a form of interpretation of the Torah that fills in the gaps that a plain reading of the text leaves out. Bible stories like Abraham's Search for God and The Seventh Day use midrash to help form an answer to a child's questions about God. To go along with Rabbi Wolpe's article, reading stories like these and asking your child what he or she thinks can help kick off the discussion and grow your child's own understanding about God.

What about when bad things happen? The book Where Do People Go When They Die? tries to answer that very question in a simple and open-ended way so that families and educators can read it with a child. Though it's a difficult question to answer, this book provides comfort in a time of uncertainty.

Just as children grow up and form their own ideas about God and the world, we learn that it's enriching for us as adults to step out of "fact-mode" and pose some of the same questions to ourselves.

Topmost book image from Wikimedia Commons.