When I was pregnant with my second child, my husband and I told our 3-year-old son, Cai, that he could name the baby. This would help him feel like an important family member before his universe collapsed. “O.K.,” Cai said. “Her name is Mary.”

No, it’s not, I thought.

I wasn’t worried. I knew that the next day he’d choose another name. But when that didn’t happen, I wanted to renege. “Why can’t we name her Mary?” my husband said. Our marriage has been punctuated by such adorable questions, as Matt was not born or raised Jewish. ‘Why were you dancing like a bull at the wedding?’ he asked me once. Now, the question was: Why not Mary?

What could I say? That, aside from “Christina,” perhaps, there’s no name that shouts “Jesus is my Lord and Savior” as much as “Mary”? That naming a child “Mary” is, in the eyes of many Jews — most of whom know my parents — tantamount to a betrayal of my faith? That, in the view of the religious teachers who educated me, “Moon Unit” would be far preferable?

A simple response like “It’s traditional to dance like a bull at Jewish weddings,” wouldn’t cut it this time. I also realized that before I made my case, I had to resolve the question for myself.



When I married Matt, I’d already shed much of the Jewish identity that once seemed an intrinsic part of me. I didn’t stop being Jewish, but I let go of the idea that Jews are always the victim, particularly in Israel where I’ve lived since graduating college. I let go of Orthodox observance, and with it the belief that my purpose in life should be to help preserve the Jewish people. This ideal once gave my life meaning, but to even begin dating Matt, I had to question whether or not this issue still burned in me. It didn’t. The Jewish people are worth preserving, but we’re not the only ones. Let’s all have a collective shot at survival and endurance, I thought. It’s time to focus on other things.

As those who’ve made a similar journey know, abandoning pieces of your identity can leave you feeling bereft and isolated, and so it was with me. But eventually, I internalized my intellectual decisions, so much so that I opened my heart to Matt, whose conversion — to marry his first wife — had been halfhearted at best.

But if I was so liberated, then why the reaction to Mary?

My Yeshiva education covered many topics: Learning Torah was one, dating Jews another, and then, there was this big focus on Jewish persecution, with a spotlight on Christians. We learned about the Christian roots of anti-Semitism and all its different expressions — the Crusades and the blood libels, the Inquisition and pogroms, and finally the ultimate genocidal form of the hatred — the Holocaust.

I don’t criticize the teachings of that history, but lament that it stopped there. Never did we hear about any of the Christian efforts at reconciliation and interfaith understanding. The message was, “Don’t forget what they did to us.” And I was a kid who took everything seriously.

I was also taking seriously the naming of my daughter. What’s more momentous than naming a child? Did I really mind the name? Or was I just worried what people would think? And what does it say about me, if my daughter’s name is Mary?

“The Welsh version of Mary is ‘Mari,'” Matt told me one day, the pronunciation rhyming with, well, with calamari. “Isn’t that pretty?”

It was. Matt is Welsh. Cai was playing with his pasta, oblivious to the possibility that his choice might still be rejected.

And then once again, I felt myself let something go. Because I realized that of all the elements of my education that weighed me down, the victim mentality was the heaviest, the one that had penetrated me the most deeply, the one that held me back and kept me withdrawn and mistrustful and alone for too long. I would happily keep Shabbat again one day if my children wanted to, but I’m so tired of that aggrieved worldview.

What does naming my child Mary say about me? That I can still open up a little more every day and embrace what I once rejected. It’s not so momentous, really. It’s not a conversion. It’s just a letting go. It doesn’t mean I’ll never dance like a bull again.