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<\/a>Guest post by Allison\u00a0<\/i>People who visit my town on a Saturday might think it\u2019s a \u201cJewish town.\u201d That is because a sizable number of residents are Orthodox Jews who observe the Sabbath, in part, by walking to synagogue. This town is extraordinarily diverse and includes graduate students, recent immigrants from China and Mexico, college professors and a generations-old African American community. But at a time when Americans talk about declining morals and values, my Orthodox Jewish neighbors are among those who have inspired my family to greater religious devotion to our Catholic faith.
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My husband and I moved here fifteen years ago, drawn to the community\u2019s strong public schools, its proximity to a train line into Manhattan and its walkability. The Catholic Church where we worship, for example, is an easy mile-and-a-half walk from our house. All the public schools are within walking distance of our home.<\/p>\n
Our town has two Kosher Dunkin\u2019 Donuts, a Kosher grocery store, a candy store and pizzeria. It is home to five Orthodox synagogues, as well as a Conservative synagogue and an egalitarian minyan.\u00a0 In our years here, we\u2019ve been to more brises than baptisms, more Bar and Bat mitzvahs than Confirmations, and we have made more shiva visits than attended Catholic funerals.<\/p>\n
Our immersion in Jewish culture has enriched our family\u2019s own Catholicism. This is because our boys are growing up seeing examples every day of friends and neighbors who are open and enthusiastic about their faith and willing to make adjustments to their personal convenience for the sake of their own beliefs. This makes it much easier, for example, to take our children to church for Sunday Mass and for Holy Days of Obligation, to attend Vespers and Stations of the Cross, and to understand that faith sometimes requires us to forego temporary pleasures for greater spiritual benefits.<\/p>\n
Learning more about Jewish traditions and cultures helps me understand Our Lord\u2019s childhood and gives me a greater appreciation of Catholicism\u2019s roots. Both faiths teach the importance of how we treat others.<\/p>\n
Both of our next-door neighbors are married Orthodox Jewish couples. On one side are two retired public-school teachers whose three daughters all live in Israel. When Roger and his wife traveled to Israel to attend their sixth grandchild\u2019s bris, he emailed me to ask if he could bring me back some religious objects.He offered to travel into the Old City of Jerusalem to purchase them. We were deeply moved when he returned to New Jersey with a beautiful crucifix and a statue of Saint Anthony of Padua.<\/p>\n