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marry in a church. And I remember saying, “I’m afraid that’s your problem, not mine. My problem is that my husband’s grandparents had to escape Europe, their families suffered through horrible pogroms, don’t you think it’s pretty harsh to insist that they walk into a Catholic church?” To his credit, the priest totally got it and received permission from the bishop for me to marry at home. But when I told my mother that’s what I wanted to do, she was distressed. She said to me, “That’s not a wedding, that’s a party.” She wanted the solemnity of a sanctuary. Then I said to her, “Mamma, think of it from the perspective of Grandpa Abe, Steve’s grandfather.” Given her truly kind nature, she instantly understood. So from there on out it was a question of trying to make it as comfortable for everybody ashumanly possible. We had the ceremony after sundown on Saturday, so it wouldn’t be on a Sabbath day. We had a chuppah , which is a Jewish wedding canopy. My father’s brother was a priest and he would officiate, and we tried to convince a rabbi to come as well, but that was not easy.
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    SR: I asked the rabbi from my old temple in Bayonne. No luck. My parents had moved to Lakewood, New Jersey, but their new rabbi wouldn’t come either. After a while it got demeaning. There was this odd underground of people who had rabbis’ names who would whisper to you, “Hey, I know one who does them….”
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    CR: We were given the name of one guy who was known for performing mixed marriages. He actually had another job, working at the White House. But when I called him there and addressed him as “Rabbi” as opposed to “Mr.,” he said quickly, “I’ll call you back from a pay phone.” When he called me back he asked me all these questions about things like “vicarious atonement” and I had no idea what he was talking about. I kept saying, “Why don’t you talk to my fiancé about all of this?” Finally he agreed to marry us but he wouldn’t share the platform with a priest. So we were still left with no rabbi.
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    SR: It was frustrating because both of us were trying to be attentive to everybody’s feelings. Cokie’s uncle didn’t have much choice about being part of the ceremony; he had learned that weddings of his nieces and nephews came with the territory of priesthood. I was faced with the question of having a priest sign the marriage certificate. In the end I thought, no, that didn’t bother me, that was not important. But it was important to me to have some Jewish element in the ceremony. I understand why most rabbis will not participate in mixed marriages. Their fear that Judaism will be diluted is very real. But in the end I think their stand can be counterproductive. They will not stop most mixed couples from getting married, but they will deprive those couples of a Jewish presence, and a Jewish blessing, at their wedding and in their home. If rabbis were more welcoming to mixed couples, I think they would actually strengthen Judaism, but I know most of them disagree with me.
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    CR: Just that spring, the Catholic Church had officially given its blessing to a cleric of another faith joining a priest for the ceremony. In fact, the doctrine is very clear. The ministers of the sacrament of matrimony are the couple themselves. All those other people up there are merely witnessing.
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    SR: It was important to Cokie to be married by a priest, and I had come to accept and respect her Catholicism. In fact, I had come to realize that many of the qualities I loved most about her came directly from her training by the nuns—her sense of charity, her consideration for others. So how could I object to a priest’s name on our marriage certificate? Too bad we couldn’t have a nun do it! But I did draw a line at signing a promise to the Church that I would