Connubiality
Individuality L
The number of ways
to personalize your
wedding is only
limited by your
imagination. with
ast December, surrounded by relatives who held
up the bright blue family chupah, Amy and Mi-
cah Kagan were married under that symbolic
cloth — adding their own gold-embroidered leaf
to that of six other couples on the chupah’s family
tree. Twenty-fi ve people watched the traditional Jew-
ish ceremony, which Rabbi Eric Yanoff performed in
Philadelphia so that elderly grandparents could easily
attend. A month later, a crowd of 110 gathered near
the slopes at a mountaintop ski lodge in Park City,
Utah for a second Jewish wedding that refl ected the
couple’s passion for winter sports. But instead of hav-
ing the rabbi intone the seven traditional wedding
blessings, the Kagans assigned seven friends and fam-
ily members to recite their
own interpretations of the
prayers. “We wanted a modern
take on the Jewish wed-
ding ceremony,” Amy
Kagan explained of their
idiosyncratic nuptials.

“And both rabbis helped
us achieve that. Everyone
really hit it out of the park.

It was moving and mean-
ingful and heartfelt.”
Th e Kagans are part
of a generational trend
toward highly personal-
ized, distinctive wedding
ceremonies. As the focus
of matrimony has shifted
from cementing communal status to celebrating the
union of two individuals, Jewish weddings have be-
come more individualized as well, with quirky touch-
es that refl ect a couple’s passions and priorities.

So along with vows on mountaintops — “I al-
ways dreamed of skiing down the mountain in my
wedding dress,” confi ded Amy Kagan — brides and
grooms today might decorate a ketubah with pictures
from Camp Ramah; recite poems that refl ect a shared
love of the Spanish Golden Age; or incorporate senti-
mental artifacts into the ceremony, from a family ring
to a grandfather’s tallit.

“Many couples want to personalize the wed-
ding, to make it more meaningful, so that it speaks
to them,” observed Rabbi David Straus of Main Line
Reform Temple in Wynnewood. He views it as part of
a larger phenomenon — “the privatization of Jewish
life-cycle events,” as he described it. Witness the grow-
ing number of Bar Mitzvahs that take place at hotels
14 APRIL 9, 2015
By Hilary
Danailova It was snow problem for Amy and Micah Kagan to
hold a second wedding ceremony in Park City, Utah.

with hired clergy, or
in exotic destinations
abroad with only family present. “And weddings,
certainly in the liberal community, have become not
communal but private aff airs,” Straus noted.

Th at may refl ect both our highly individualistic
society and the evolution of marriage from social ob-
ligation to lifestyle choice. But when it comes to tying
the knot, most seem to agree with Straus: “I think
whatever you do to make it personal, more meaning-
ful and more intentional for you, the better,” he said.

When Spencer Hoff man and Adam Putzer, a
Manhattan couple, got married in Philadelphia last
October, they designed a printed program that —
along with explanations of the ceremony for non-
Jewish guests — included a picture of their family
tree. “Th at way every guest could see where we come
from,” Hoff man said, adding that an Irish branch of
her family converted from Catholicism. “Especially
for our parents’ friends or extended family who don’t
know us, they got a better sense of who we are.”
SIMCHAS During the ceremony, friends read
texts that the bride and groom had
secretly selected that made each think
of the other; Hoff man’s came from
the novel Th e Portrait of a Lady, while
Putzer’s was from the writings of a
physicist. Another special decision was the
reading of their ketubah out loud dur-
ing the ceremony — an increasingly
popular, and visible, inclusion for what
was traditionally a legal marriage con-
tract that was signed out of sight of the
guests. “We wanted to share it with ev-
erybody,” explained Hoff man.

Perhaps no single item symbolizes
the personalization trend more than
the ketubah, which has evolved into a
distinctive, artistic expression of a cou-
ple’s love. Chances are good that you’ve
never seen your grandparents’ ketubah
— but if you have Jewish friends who
were married in recent decades, you
will likely have noticed a colorfully il-
lustrated, Semitic-language parchment
on prominent display.

“Th ere was always the tradition
of the ketubah, but a generation ago,
it was just that legal document,” ex-
plained Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer, author of Th e Cre-
ative Jewish Wedding Book and an offi ciant with Jour-
neys of the Heart, a Philadelphia agency that provides
interfaith clergy. “In the Orthodox world, it still is.

But in the progressive Jewish world, it’s become more
of a spiritual document — the idea of having artwork
that you and your partner choose together.”
Writing their own ketubah was a profound bond-
ing experience for Kaplan-Mayer and her husband, a
Jewish Buddhist, who married in 2001. “It was the
heart of our ceremony,” Kaplan-Mayer recalled. “We
wrote our own commitment to each other, and my
husband used some language from the Buddhist tra-
dition in his part,” with each reading aloud during
the ceremony.

Over the years, Kaplan-Mayer has guided numer-
ous couples as they plan ceremonies that, like her
own, embrace the details that make each partnership
unique. She has stood by while grooms recited Bruce
Springsteen lyrics, coached brides through the Song
of Songs, and helped fi nd love poems from sources as
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



diverse as Edna St. Vincent Millay
and Robert Fulghum.

And in Kaplan-Mayer’s opin-
ion, it is the Internet — particu-
larly the blogosphere — that has
transformed wedding planning,
inviting Jewish brides and grooms
to consider a universe of options.

Whereas couples once had to trek
to a Judaica shop to fi nd a decorat-
ed ketubah, for instance, “now you
can look online at fi ve or 10 diff er-
ent artist websites and see what’s
out there,” she said.

Such innovation is less accept-
able in the Orthodox community,
according to Rabbi Eliezer Hirsch
of Mekor Habracha, a Center City
Orthodox congregation. He said
an Orthodox ketubah must con-
tain the original Aramaic text —
no Hebrew, English or poetry, as is
commonly found on those of non-
Orthodox or secular couples —
and the witnesses who sign it must
be observant Jewish males.

“My approach, when I’m asked
to perform a wedding, is to bal-
ance the elements,” Rabbi Hirsch
explained. “Th ere are certain ele-
ments that are not compromisable.

For example, the ring ceremony
— that has to be done exactly cor-
rectly, because that’s what makes
the marriage.”
Th e seven blessings, also at the
core of Jewish ritual, are one of the
components most likely to be per-
sonalized in non-Orthodox wed-
dings. Some couples opt to write
their own interpretations; have the
blessings recited in both Hebrew
and English translation; or, most
popular of all, to assign people to
read the blessings as a way of par-
ticipating in the ceremony, as the
Kagans did.

At Old York Road Temple-Beth
Am in Abington, Rabbi Robert
Leib gives seven numbered cards
containing “short, concise, non-
literal” English translations of the
blessings to each set of potential
spouses. “It’s up to them to select
seven individuals, and it adds an-
other fl avor, as it were, to the cer-
emony,” he said.

But it is the chupah — the wed-
ding canopy — that is at once the
most iconic and most customiz-
able piece of a Jewish wedding. Be
it of cloth, fl oral garlands or other
materials that have personal sig-
nifi cance, the chupah hangs over
the bride and groom as a metaphor
for the Jewish home they will build
together. It was that symbolism
that led Sara Kunzman and Da-
vid Baumgarten — Philadelphians
who are sorting through traditions
for their interfaith wedding — to
settle fi rst on a chupah: “We both
really thought, the chupah is a nice
visual element,” Kunzman said.

Kaplan-Mayer, who has seen
chupahs made out of Shabbat ta-
blecloths or from quilts with contri-
butions from many friends, said the
wedding canopy is the most popu-
lar of Jewish traditions. In addition
to its creative potential, “especially
for the Jewish grandparents, there’s
something about the visual symbol-
ism that really resonates,” she said.

Rabbi Leib has offi ciated under
chupahs that wove threads from a
grandfather’s tallit, and his couples
are also increasingly likely to use
old family jewelry for the ring ex-
change. “It’s something very beauti-
ful and meaningful to incorporate
these generational Jewish ritual
objects into the ceremony,” he said.

Th e emphasis on family bonds also
lends emotional weight to a ritual
that — though private rather than
communal — is still about the
union of families.

Kunzman and Baumgarten,
whose wedding will take place in
June, have already decided to honor
both her Presbyterian side and his
Jewish heritage with a unity candle
ritual, employing candlesticks from
her own family and the set used
at Baumgarten’s sister’s wedding.

“We’ve been researching heirlooms
and concentrating on what we can
do to meld the two families togeth-
er,” Kunzman explained.

Many observers trace the cre-
ativity trend in weddings to the
1970s, when the feminist move-
ment prompted Jews from across
the spectrum to take a closer, more
critical look at the ancient institu-
tion of marriage — an institution
whose gender roles had been strictly
codifi ed for centuries.

“Women started reclaiming and
re-imagining ritual,” said Kaplan-
Mayer. “Before the 1970s, women
really weren’t consulted in the cre-
ation of Jewish ritual. When wom-
en started bringing their creative
energy to ritual, change happened.

And that’s been the trajectory.”
Th at movement has eff ected
change among the Orthodox as
well. For example, Mekor Habra-
cha’s Hirsch has married couples
in which the woman seeks a more
prominent role than might be tra-
ditional, and he seeks to accommo-
date that desire within halachah, or
Jewish law.

While the blessings must be re-
cited by men in the Orthodox rite,
for instance, a woman might follow
the man’s blessing with a recited
translation, he said. And although
Jewish law does not allow for a
two-way ring exchange — as many
egalitarian-minded Jews seek today
— some couples choose to have the
woman present her groom’s ring
with a recited blessing at another
point in the ceremony.

Some of these contemporary
touches might end up as traditions
of their own. Th e personalized fam-
ily chupah, for instance, has been
popular for more than a generation
now — and the one Main Line
Reform’s Straus created for his own
wedding, which took place decades
ago, has been shared by many cou-
ples since. “My mother-in-law em-
broiders the names of each couple
who uses it,” he said. “We’ve been
fortunate not to have to take too
many names out.”
Hilary Danailova is a frequent
contributor to Special Sections.

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