All I Want for Christmas Is…Chanukah?

by DeAnna Shaneck Scott

IMG_7794Where is my Jewish grandmother? That’s the problem: my grandmother wasn’t Jewish and neither am I. Neither is my husband, for that matter.

So you might ask why I am looking for a Jewish grandmother. Because my kids are Jewish – at least I think they are as they were born to our wonderful Jewish surrogate. Quite honestly I’ve not broached the subject with a Rabbi so I don’t know technically if they are. But, according to Jewish law, children born to a Jewish woman are Jewish. The technicality doesn’t matter to me really. I’ll address that some other day.

So, on the cusp of the upcoming holidays, Christmas and Chanukah, I am ruminating about what I find important in my life and the lives of my children, and why. I am thinking about the fact that I was raised in an entirely different religion. And, that this one act: the act of having my twins via a Jewish surrogate has turned our world upside down in more ways than I can count and forced me to question everything about my life. […]