H EADLINES
Interfaith Continued from Page 1
celebrated Christmas holidays
at the grandparents, and we’ve
gone out for Christmas, but we
can’t do that this year.’ So some
of these Jewish families that
are interfaith are really strug-
gling with, ‘Do we have a tree?
Do we have Christmas dinner?
How are we going to deal with
these things that we’re very
comfortable doing with one set
of grandparents, but now we
have a parent that really wants
to do in our home?’” she said.

Frisch and the 18Doors staff
have helped couples start these
conversations and decide on
celebrations that work best for
them. 18Doors is hosting online
presentations and discussions
on topics such as “To Tree or
Not to Tree” and “Unlocking
the December Holidays – For
Couples with Young Kids/
Th inking About Kids.”
Interfaith couples
in Philadelphia are coming up
with creative ways to honor
their favorite traditions despite
the need for social distancing.

Jackie Abrams and her
husband Scott Middleton
throw a yearly holiday party for
Linda Ziman with her daughter, Cecelia Ziman-DeStefano, and her wife,
Monika Wysong
Courtesy of Linda Ziman
their friends — complete with
ugly sweater contests and gift
exchanges — that combines
both of their religious traditions.

“We have a tree and we have
dreidels, menorahs and we
really mesh all of the traditions
into one very festive evening
for our extended friend group,
and that is certainly a tradi-
tion that we really love,” said
Abrams, who is Jewish.

Th e party can’t happen this
year, but they are fi guring out
other ways to celebrate, such as
doing a cookie drop-off or an
online trivia night.

Th ey also typically celebrate
Christmas with Middleton’s
family and Chanukah with
Abrams’ family, and they have
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tentative plans to continue the
tradition this year depending
on whether it looks like they
can do so safely.

Amanda and Stephen Nicolai
typically celebrate Chanukah
with eight nightly themes.

“It’s a really fun tradition
that we started to carry on
with our daughter as well, and
as she gets older, we will add
some community service into
that and family game nights,
things like that,” said Amanda
Nicolai, who is Jewish.

Her family also celebrates
Christmas with Midnight Mass
and a large gathering with her
husband’s Catholic side of the
family. Th is year, they plan
to celebrate Chanukah with
her sister and father, but they
have canceled the 30-person
Christmas feast that usually
takes place in their South
Philadelphia home due to lack
of space for social distancing.

Dr. Linda Ziman is Jewish,
and her wife Monika Wysong
was raised Catholic. Th ey
usually celebrate Chanukah
with their daughter Cecelia
Ziman-DeStefano as a nuclear
family and attend church in
their neighborhood of West
Mount Airy on Christmas Eve.

“I love singing ‘Silent Night’
in the dark with the candles
glowing in everyone’s hands. I
always throw in a ‘Shema Yisrael’
for good measure,” Ziman said.

Th ey exchange gift s the next
day with Ziman’s in-laws. Th is
year, they will be doing that on
Zoom. Tychelle Graham-Moskowitz
and Ben Moskowitz typically
JEWISH EXPONENT
Ben Moskowitz and Tychelle Graham-Moskowitz
Courtesy of Ben Moskowitz and Tychelle Graham-Moskowitz
Scott Middleton and Jackie Abrams
celebrate Christmas and
Chanukah with their respective
families. Graham-Moskowitz
was raised Christian but now
identifi es as spiritual rather
than religious, and she started
observing Kwanzaa fi ve years
ago, which they will also
celebrate this year.

She and her husband are
Courtesy of Jackie Abrams
planning to have children and
raise them Jewish with an
awareness of their interfaith
cultural background. They
believe it is important to start
incorporating their rituals into
their lives for this reason.

“When we got married, we
talked about raising our children
in the Jewish faith. We’re making
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



F TAY-SACHS
R F R E E E E
H eadlines
that a part of our everyday life
now so that it feels very natural
when they come into the
world, and they don’t have to
question their identity as biracial
Ashkenazi Jewish children,”
Graham-Moskowitz said.

All of their celebrations will
be virtual this year, and the
couple will be home with their
puppy, Brisket.

Although the pandemic has
put a damper on many beloved
traditions, the 2020 holiday
season also offers a historic
reason to celebrate. Some inter-
faith couples are excited about
the ascendance of Vice President-
elect Kamala Harris and her
husband Doug Emhoff next year.

Harris was raised Christian and
Hindu, and Emhoff is Jewish, as
are his children.

Abrams hopes the couple’s
visibility and success will
encourage more conserva-
tive Jewish communities to
be open-minded and inclu-
sive toward interfaith couples.

Nicolai, who broke up with her
husband over faith differences
before they worked through them
with a counselor, hopes interfaith
couples look to the second family
as a source of inspiration.

“I do love that someone in an
interfaith relationship is now
going to be part of the White
House,” she said. “I know a lot
of interfaith couples that have
broken up, but seeing someone
in a position of power making
it work is really powerful.”
Rabbi Elyssa Cherney, Rukin
Rabbinic Fellow at 18Doors
in Philadelphia, thinks that
the couple’s prominence will
help interfaith couples feel less
isolated. Some of the people
she works with don’t have any
family or friends in interfaith
relationships, and representa-
tion matters.

“I think that this couple
being a part of mainstream
media and, I hope, being
looked at in a good light will
just normalize that experience
for so many people,” she said. l
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Copperfield
Continued from Page 1
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, Steven Spielberg and
Irving Berlin.

“We are thrilled and grateful
to be able to induct Harry
Houdini and David Copperfield
into Only in America at the same
time,” NMAJH trustee and gala
chair Sharon Tobin Kestenbaum
said in a statement. “With this
event, we are able to celebrate
a cross-generational story. From
immigrant Harry Houdini to
first-generation American David
Copperfield, this event clearly
demonstrates what’s possible
when individuals are simply
given the chance to be great.”
The induction will include
remarks by 2019 Academy
of Magical Arts winners
Lucy Darling and Asi Wind
and descendants of Houdini.

Darling is more well-known as
“The Mistress of Magic”; Wind,
once voted “Best Magician in
Israel,” was born in Tel Aviv.

Copperfield, whose previous
honors include 21 Emmy
Awards, 11 Guinness World
Records and the Living Legend
honor from The Library of
Congress, will accept the award
and perform illusions from his
International Museum and
Library of the Conjuring Arts
in Las Vegas.

It’s an appropriate venue
for accepting such an award.

Copperfield’s library houses
the world’s largest collec-
tion of historically significant
magic memorabilia, posters,
books, props and artifacts,
and even boasts tricks that
belonged to Houdini himself:
the Water Torture Cell and the
Metamorphosis Trunk.

Copperfield himself will
induct Houdini into the NMAJH
Hall of Fame. Copperfield, who
was born David Seth Kotkin,
has always felt a connection to
Houdini, born Erik Weisz, on the
basis of their shared Jewishness
and excitement about the possi-
bilities of magic. If the United
States provided a feeling for Jews
that they could make what they
some blamed on those
dastardly magicians.

“Somebody said in
their story that there
was a magic chemical
that somebody mistak-
enly dumped into the air
conditioning system,”
Copperfield remembered
with a chuckle. “And
maybe the magicians were
to blame for this horrible
thing that took place.”
Copperfield and
Houdini will be the 22nd
and 23rd inductees into
David Copperfield will be inducted into
the National Museum of American Jewish the hall of fame, joining
History’s Ed Snider Only in America
Ginsburg, Spielberg, Berlin,
Gallery/Hall of Fame.

Leonard Bernstein, Louis
Courtesy of DCDI
Brandeis, Albert Einstein,
Gertrude Elion, Mordecai
imagine into reality, Copperfield Kaplan, Sandy Koufax, Estée
said, then magic done well can Lauder,
Emma Lazarus,
do the same for anyone.

Isaac Leeser, Golda Meir,
“Magic is about making Julius Rosenwald, Jonas Salk,
people dream,” Copperfield Menachem Mendel Schneerson,
said. “It was never about, for Rose Schneiderman, Isaac
me, fooling people, or amazing Bashevis
Singer, Barbra
people. It was always about Streisand, Henrietta Szold and
showing limitless possibili- Isaac Mayer Wise.

ties, showing that you can do
The virtual event, which is
amazing things. You can go free and open to the public,
beyond the lot that you’re given.” will serve as NMAJH’s annual
Copperfield’s mother was gala and brings to a close a
born in Israel, and his father’s difficult year for the museum.

parents were born in Russia;
In March, just prior to the
today, he is perhaps the most beginning of the pandemic,
well-known living magician in the museum filed for Chapter
the world.

11 bankruptcy. At the time,
“David Copperfield cares
deeply about the history of
his craft — his desire to know
and preserve that history is
something that resonates
strongly with us as a history
museum,” NMAJH CEO Misha
Galperin said. “Museums and
magic actually have a lot in
common — they are about
storytelling at their core,
and are designed to intrigue,
inspire and spark wonder.”
Copperfield has previous
connections to Philadelphia.

Aside from numerous
appearances on stage, he
recalls visiting the Bellevue-
Stratford Hotel as a young man
for a magic convention. One
year later, he recalled, the hotel
suffered its famous outbreak
of Legionnaires’ disease, which
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the museum reportedly owed
more than $30 million to
bondholders and about $1
million to unsecured creditors.

The filing subsequently made
NMAJH ineligible to apply for
Paycheck Protection Program
loans as they were made avail-
able by the CARES Act. In May,
two-thirds of the museum staff
were furloughed. Bankruptcy
hearings are reportedly set for
later this month.

“Only in America: Houdini
and Copperfield” will be live-
streamed on Dec. 12 at 8 p.m.

on YouTube, Facebook and at
nmajh.org. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
DECEMBER 10, 2020
15