The Interfaith Family Guidebook: Practical Advice for Jewish and Christian Partners

What Happens When a Jew and a Christian Fall in Love?

Over one million Jewish/Christian couples in the United States face the challenges and opportunities inherent in their decision to marry. This balanced and open-minded book is the best comprehensive guide in print for families living with two faiths in one household. Concise and practical, The Interfaith Family Guidebook offers these families a look at the many questions they will face and the resources available to help them find their own answers.

This book will help interfaith couples to: respect and appreciate both of their religious heritages; discuss with candor the struggles they will face; celebrate all the holidays that are meaningful to them; consider the implications of their impending marriage; nurture positive relationships with their extended families; create a mutually satisfactory plan for celebrating in their home; decide how to raise their children; plan meaningful and inclusive ceremonies to mark their marriage, the birth of a child, coming-of-age, and other life-cycle events; learn from the experiences of other interfaith families; and find helpful local and national resources and support groups.

This book is your constant reference on the issues facing interfaith couples. Whether you are recently engaged or married with children, you will refer to it again and again, throughout your life together. And if you are a clergyperson, counselor, or therapist, you will want to recommend this book to all your interfaith couples.

Joan C. Hawxhurst is the founding editor of the independent bimonthly periodical Dovetail: A Journal by and for Jewish/Christian Families, which has been serving the needs of interfaith couples and their children for over six years. She has been interviewed for dozens of magazine and newspaper articles, as well as radio and TV segments, on the topic of interfaith marriage.

A practicing United Methodist, she lives with her Jewish husband and two children in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Hawxhurst founded Dovetail in 1992 upon realizing that interfaith families had a difficult time finding resources which balance and respect the faiths of both partners. She believed that interfaith families needed an independent vehicle to share experiences and support each other. With an MA in international relations from Yale University and ten years of writing and editing experience, she decided to create a new kind of resource, and Dovetail Publishing was born.

Prior to starting Dovetail, Hawxhurst worked for the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, spending time in Argentina and Washington, DC, working with human rights organizations. She currently serves on the Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches. She is the author of several books for grade school students as well as numerous articles for national periodicals, on topics ranging from interfaith marriage to international debt in South America.

As the first book from Dovetail Publishing, Hawxhurst in 1996 edited Interfaith Wedding Ceremonies: Samples and Sources. This unique collection of meaningful and inclusive dual-faith wedding ceremonies has been described by one expert in the field as "a real and lasting contribution to available resources for interfaith couples."

Dovetail Publishing's award-winning second book, Bubbe and Gram: My Two Grandmothers, is a children's book written by Hawxhurst in late 1996. Bubbe and Gram won a 1997 Benjamin Franklin Silver Medal Award for excellence in independent publishing (given by the Publishers' Marketing Association), as well as the 1998 Helen Keating Ott Award for Outstanding Contribution to Children's Literature (given by the Church and Synagogue Library Association). New from Dovetail Publishing, and also authored by Hawxhurst, is The Interfaith Family Guidebook: Practical Advice for Jewish and Christian Partners, available in June 1998.