intervieweecategories

interviewee categories

Would you like to share an oral history of your marriage/life partnership?

The authors are seeking volunteers to be profiled. We are intending this to be both a gift/keepsake book and a book of oral histories and photographs along the lines of "Sisters," "Love Makes a Family," and "The Invisible Thread," so any published interviews would involve real names and photographs.

For a book on 21st century Jewish-American marriages we would like to interview the following categories of Jewish-American couples from all parts of the country except the Northeast who have been married/committed for several years:

  • > urban, suburban, and rural (including those living in a place with no Jewish community)

  • > able bodied, disabled (physically and/or a history of mental illness);

  • > blue/pink collar, corporate, professional, geek/technical, artistic/literary/bohemian, in a profession considered atypical for Jews or unemployed/at poverty line/on assistance;

  • > straight, gay male, lesbian, one or both bisexual, one or both transgendered (we already have two lesbian couples; we are still looking for a gay male couple from any region except the Northeast)

  • > monogamous, polyamorous, open marriage (we already have a polyamorous couple)

  • > first and only marriage/partnership, previously married/partnered

  • > parents, child-free by choice, childless by circumstance

  • > haredi, modern orthodox, conservative, reform, reconstructionist, Jewish humanist, secular, and unaffiliated (including atheist/cultural only; update: we have several conservative, three orthodox, two reform, a reconstructionist, a Jewish humanist, and an unaffiliated couple)

  • > more/less religious now than formerly

  • > Ashkenazim, Sephardim, or one of each

  • > Jews of color (this category is covered but we would not rule out other Jews of color)

  • >Israeli-Americans (Yordim)

  • > One Israeli, one American

  • > At least one partner a naturalized US citizen, particularly from a country where Jews are/have been persecuted

  • > Jews by birth, Jews by choice, one of each

  • > A "mixed marriage," with one Jewish and one non-Jewish partner

  • > One Jewish American, one Arab American

  • > have adopted children, particularly those of a different race or ethnicity

  • > have a disabled child or one with chronic illness

  • > history of physical/sexual abuse, or abuse by someone in religious authority

  • > "Blended" families

  • > adult children/grandchildren of Holocaust survivors or couple with one of each

  • > An engaged couple actively planning their wedding.

If you fall into one or more of these categories and are willing to be interviewed, identified and photographed we would like to speak to you about your lives, your marriages/life partnerships, your families, and how being Jewish fundamentally affects them. Please tell us a bit about yourselves and which of the above categories fit you.

Please contact us:

David Cooper

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Beth Rosenberg

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