Conference taveng::bagels

141.0. "name of child of a mixed marriage" by CAD::RICHARDSON () Tue Jun 10 1986 13:52

    In response to the latest halachic newletter posting:  we recently
    had a bar mitzvah at our schul where the father was not Jewish.
     The bar mitzvah boy was referred to as <I forget his name> ben
    <mother's name>, which is I guess what I was expecting: I did not
    think they would call him "ben Avraham" because that would sound
    like the boy had converted, and of course they did not use his father's
    English name.  I'm not sure what the father's family, who attended
    in great numbers, thought about the name issue (at least they came
    and celebrated; so many mixed-marriage families unfortuneately,
    from my presepctive, at least, do not get that kind of support).
    
    Note that we belong to a reform schul, but one with fairly traditional
    leanings (depending on which people are in attendance - being the
    only synagogue in town, the members come from a wide variety of
    backgrounds and have widely different customs).  Some members insist
    on having both of their parents names included in their Hebrew name
    since we are supposedly an egalitarian community - my husband, for
    example, usually insists on "Shragei Yosef ben Avraham Moshe ve
    Chaya Elke" (surely quite a mouthful!).  Other people go by "Aaron
    ben Saul", etc.