Celebrating Your New Jewish Daughter: Creating Jewish Ways to Welcome Baby Girls into the Covenant

by Debra Nussbaum Cohen, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso (Foreword by)

Overview

An indispensable "how-to" guide for creating lasting memories and special ceremonies as you welcome your new Jewish daughter.

When a son is born, every Jewish parent knows what ceremony will welcome him into the community and signal his part in the Jewish people—the brit milah. What to do when a girl is born? How can you welcome your new daughter in a truly Jewish way, and celebrate your joy with family and friends? In the past, parents who wanted a simchat bat (celebration of a daughter) ceremony for their new daughter often had to start from scratch. Finally, this first-of-its-kind book gives families everything they need to plan the celebration.

• History & Tradition—The roots of simchat bat in Jewish tradition, how it has evolved and how the past can be used to bring today's dynamic ceremonies to life.
• A How-to Guide—New and traditional ceremonies, complete with prayers, rituals, handouts to copy and step-by-step instructions for creating your own unique ceremony.
• Planning the Details—What to call your daughter’s welcoming ceremony, when and where to have it, setting it up, how long it should be, how to handle the unexpected, how to prepare a program guide and more.
• Ideas & Information—Practical guidelines for planning the event, and special suggestions and resources for families of all constellations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580230902
Publisher:	TURNER PUB CO
Publication date:	01/01/2001
Pages:	260
Sales rank:	920,061
Product dimensions:	2.36(w) x 3.54(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

Debra Nussbaum Cohen is a mother and an award-winning journalist whose interest and specialty is writing on issues related to Jewish identity and spirituality. She currently writes for the New York Jewish Week. She has been the religion writer for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and has written for many publications including the Washington Post, New York magazine, the Village Voice, Moment, the Jerusalem Report, the Jerusalem Post, Sh'ma and Jewish Family & Life. Cohen lives in New York with her husband and three children.

Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, a parent, spiritual leader and storyteller, is the award-winning author of God's Paintbrush, In God's Name, God In Between and many other inspiring books for children of all faiths and backgrounds. The second woman to be ordained as a rabbi (1974) and the first rabbi to become a mother, she and her husband, Dennis, were the first rabbinical couple to jointly lead a congregation—Beth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis. They have two children, David and Debora, and three grandchildren. Sasso, who holds a doctorate in ministry, is active in the interfaith community, and has written and lectured on the renewal of spirituality and the discovery of the religious imagination in children of all faiths.

Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso is available to speak on the following topics:

• Nurturing the Spiritual Imagination of Children
• Tell Me a Story: Reading the Bible and the Religious Imagination of Children
• Filling in the Blanks: How Women Read the Bible
• Women and Judaism: A Personal Journey
• Midrash as a Tool for Spiritual Reflection

Click here to contact the author.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso
Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part One
An Introduction to Contemporary Jewish Welcoming Ceremonies
1 ◆ The History of This New Tradition
2 ◆ Traditional Ways of Welcoming Jewish Daughters, from Cultures around the World
3 ◆ Understanding Covenant and Dedication

Part Two
Welcoming Everyone
4 ◆ Involving Non-Jewish Loved Ones in Your Welcoming Ceremony
5 ◆ Especially for Adopted Daughters
6 ◆ Especially for Gay and Lesbian Parents

Part Three
Preparing for Your Daughter's Welcoming Ceremony
7 ◆ Planning the Event: An Orientation,What to Call Your Daughter’s Ceremony,When to Have It,Where to Have It, Setting It Up, How Long It Should Be, How to Handle the Unexpected, the Program Guide
8 ◆ Sanctifying Your Surroundings

Part Four
Creating Your Daughter’s Welcoming Ceremony
9 ◆ How to Use This Guide, and the Order of a Contemporary Welcoming Ceremony
• Welcoming with Songs and Blessings
• Welcoming the Baby
• Prayers of Thanksgiving
• Readings and Blessings for the Parents
• Rituals to Welcome Your Daughter into the Covenant
1. Brit Nerot: Creating Light—four candle ceremonies
2. Brit Mikvah: Immersion in the Waters of Life—two mikvah ceremonies
3. Brit Rechitzah:Welcoming into the Covenant with Hand- or Footwashing
4. Brit Tallit: Enfolding Her in the Covenant
5. Brit Kehillah: Entering the Covenant by Walking through the Community
6. Brit Havdalah: Transitioning into the Covenant through Havdalah—two havdalah ceremonies
7. Brit Melach: Recalling the Covenant with Salt
• Naming Your Daughter
• Giving Her Gifts and Good Wishes
• Psalms and Acrostics
• Prayers, Poems, and Other Readings for Relatives and Honored Guests
• Blessings of Gratitude
• Concluding in Song and Prayer
• Blessings over the Wine and Bread
10◆ Complete Sample Ceremonies
• Traditional Sephardic Zeved Habat
•A Contemporary Orthodox Ceremony
• A Traditionally Oriented Contemporary Ceremony
•A Modern Mikvah Ceremony
• A Humanism-Based Ceremony

Notes
Resources
Glossary

Editorial Reviews

"All the historical, spiritual and practical levels you need…. An excellent resource for those seeking creative yet traditional ways to include girls and women into the rich tapestry of Jewish lifecycle events."
—Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, author of ReVisions: Seeing Torah through a Feminist Lens and editor of The Women's Torah Commentaryand The Women's Haftarah Commentary

"A fine resource for clergy and parents alike. A rich selection of readings and blessings is complemented by an intriguing description of naming ceremonies in the Jewish tradition."
—Cantor Erica Jan Lippitz, Oheb Shalom Congregation, South Orange, New Jersey

“A comprehensive compendium.... With exquisite sensitivity to Jewish ethnic, religious and familial diversity, Nussbaum Cohen offers a great birth present for parents and girls and a must for every rabbi’s study, synagogue gift shop or day school library.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin, author of Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America

From the Publisher

While the brit milah (circumcision) welcomes baby boys into the Jewish community, no similar standard celebration exists for baby girls. Cohen, a journalist, introduces and collects welcoming ceremonies that have been invented over the past 30 years, unearthed from Jewish communities around the world and adapted from other rituals. An array of prayers, readings, blessings, songs and rituals as well as several complete sample ceremonies, that concretize the child's entry into the community are included. Hebrew texts are accompanied by translations and transliterations.

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