INTERFAITH COUPLES
Find Meaning in the Ketubah
GEORGE ALTSHULER | JE FEATURE
At their 2014 wedding, Jessica and Drew Gins-
berg served focaccia as an homage to where
they met — a California Pizza Kitchen in
Bethesda, Md. Jessica and Drew, now 30 and 28,
said they wanted the details of their wedding to
have significance.

e Ginsbergs focused a good amount of thought
on one item in particular — their ketubah, or mar-
riage contract. Like many interfaith couples, they
chose to customize this ancient document and give
it personal meaning.

“We wanted to design our ketubah so that it
was a reflection of us and our relationship,” said
Drew Ginsberg.

e Ginsbergs’ ketubah includes the line “our home
will be built on the foundation of our faith and values”
and is surrounded by a colorful watercolor design.

Rabbi Sarah Tasman, the director of Interfaith-
Family in Washington, D.C., said she sees the desire
to personalize ketubot as part of a larger trend of
couples customizing their weddings. Increasingly,
couples are choosing nontraditional kiddush cups
and modifying the customary seven blessings recited
during the ceremony, she said.

30 OCTOBER 27, 2016
Top: Kirsten and Jonathan Sidell
pause after signing their ketubah
in October 2015.

Photo provided
Above: Other couples opt for
reproductions of historic ketubot,
like this one from 1614 from
Venice, Italy.

Courtesy of Ketubah.com, an authorized
reproduction from the permanent
collection the Jewish Museum of
New York
SIMCHAS “e biggest trend I see in the weddings I do is that
people want the Jewish tradition to feel personalized,”
said Tasman.

Traditionally, the ketubah is a prenuptial agreement
that establishes a husband’s obligations to his wife and
protects her in the case of divorce or the death of her
husband. Today, while some couples stick to the tradi-
tional Aramaic text and Jewish designs, others choose
to modernize their ketubah with new versions of the
text and artwork that doesn’t contain Jewish imagery.

With interfaith marriages becoming more common
— a 2015 Pew Research Center study showed that 39
percent of Americans who married since 2010 had a
spouse who belonged to a different religion than they
do — people are seeing the ketubah as a means of con-
secrating their marriage, even if they aren’t Jewish.

An article in e New York Times stated that “such
sentiments have been reshaping the market for ketubot
in the past decade.”
Tasman believes that deviating from the conven-
tional Aramaic text reflects “a more ancient tradition
of variation among ketubah texts.” e earliest extant
ketubah is from around 440 BCE and was found in
Egypt, according to ketubah.com.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



Tasman said the standardized version of the ketubah didn’t appear
until several hundred years later and that the artwork on ketubot has
also changed throughout history.

“I see the variety of ketubot available as an example of the longstand-
ing tradition of innovation and creativity within Jewish ritual and Jewish
liturgy,” she said.

Michael Shapiro, the founder and CEO of ketubah.com, said that
more people are choosing artwork for their ketubot that isn’t directly
connected to Judaism.

“Twenty years ago, the designs that sold best had very specific Jewish
imagery,” he said. “Now it’s common to see couples focusing on designs
because they are beautiful art.”
Shapiro’s site offers a wide range of texts, including Orthodox, Re-
form, egalitarian and secular humanist versions, as well as the option
to write a custom text. e site offers designs that range from “zen col-
oring” to reproductions of 17th- and 18th-century ketubot found in
the Jewish Museum of New York City.

Ketubah.com also offers interfaith texts, and Shapiro said that inter-
faith ketubot now account for approximately one third of his sales.

Interfaith couples choosing between adaptations and writing their own
document face the same questions as all couples who decide to deviate
from the traditional Aramaic text: whether to mention God in their text,
how much of their personal vows to include, what type of artwork to
choose and how many witnesses they want to sign the document.

But interfaith couples also face other decisions, like whether to state
that they intend to create a Jewish home, how much to emphasize Ju-
daism, and whether or how much of the non-Jewish partner’s faith tra-
dition to include.

Another interfaith couple, Jonathan and Kirsten Sidell of Silver
Spring, Md., chose to include the phrase, “We shall strive to build a
home that honors our families’ unique stories and weaves our commit-
ment to the Jewish faith into the fabric of our lives.”
Jonathan Sidell, 33, said they based the text of their ketubah on
“Jewish texts, secular faith and an emphasis on us agreeing to sup-
port one another.”
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“In looking at all of the sites that
are available online, it became ap-
parent that it’s not something that
has to be done a certain way,” said
Kirsten Sidell, who is 30.

Like the Sidells, the Ginsbergs
borrowed from what they found
online, but ultimately felt free to
make the text their own.

“A big theme of our wedding is
that we wanted it to be ours,” said
Jessica Ginsberg. “Some people
don’t like to get too caught up in
the details, but we wanted it all to
feel like us.” ■
The Ginsbergs’ ketubah.

Below: Jessica and Drew Ginsberg
at their ketubah signing in 2016.

galtshuler@midatlanticmedia.com Photos: Kurstin Roe Photography
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thepinkdaisy@gmail.com OCTOBER 27, 2016
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