Christian Science Monitor: Interfaith America: 'Being both' is a rising trend in the US

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

1. My Jewish mother and my Anglican-in-the-process-of-converting-to-Catholic father

Were married in 1947. My father may have converted, but my mother did not. Admittedly, my mother is not a practicing Jew, she does not keep kosher, and the last time she was in a synagogue was for the wedding of a cousin about 40 years ago. But there is no question in anyone's mind that she is a Jew.

Judaism plays a small part in my life. I hold a seder every year, and on Yom Kippur, I fast, read Lamentations and pray the Kaddish for my family who were killed in the Holocaust and for the men I commanded in Vietnam. I own a very nice menorah -- a present from my Catholic wife -- but I do not actually use it. I have a mezuzah on the frame of my front door. I am familiar with many of the laws of the Talmud, and I can explain Kashrut if called on to do so. (A couple of years ago, I attended a Jewish wedding, and was surprised to see that cold shrimp was the first course at the reception dinner.)