By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO, Calif.— As television is currently in summer reruns, I had the chance last night to watch an intriguing December 2005 episode of Girlfriends, a UPN sitcom dealing with four African-American women.  This episode, "All God's Children," had one of the women, Toni (Jill Marie Jones), and her ex-husband, Todd (Jason Pace),  trying to come to some settlement over whether their daughter, Morgan, should be raised Baptist, Jewish, or somehow as both.

While the divorced couple tries to be civil to each other, tension is high between their two mothers, who reflect religious and racial hostility at what was intended as a joint celebration of Morgan's first Christmas and Chanukah. The holidays coincidentally fell on the same day.  

Sparks begin to fly when Todd's mother (Caroline Aaron) interrupts the singing of a Christmas carol to announce that as it was then sunset, it was time to light the menorah. As Todd does so, chanting the blessing with obvious unfamiliarity, Toni's mother (Jenifer Lewis) suggests in panic that he is "trying to kill our baby" or perhaps is pronouncing a curse to "send us all back to Africa."
 
Todd's mother says they are "blessing the candles," which prompts Toni's mother to respond: "Blessing the candles? Oh no, we don't worship false idols in our church."  Of course, neither do the Jews.  The candles aren't being blessed; God is being "blessed" for having commanded the lighting of the candles.  But Todd's family is not well educated religiously; they are more "cultural" Jews than religious ones.  Now confronted with a family with quite strong but opposite religious beliefs, they instinctively seek to reconnect to their own religion.

There is more sparring between the two mothers.  His mom calls a Christmas tree a "fire trap."  Her mom asks if she's so worried about fires, why is she lighting candles?  Todd and Toni step in, saying their daughter is going to celebrate both holidays, and if anyone doesn't like it they can just leave.

Writers Mark Alton Brown and Dee Leduke also provided a parallel plot, but without the same steam.  Another of the girlfriends finds that the husband from whom she had been estranged has become an Episcopalian, instead of Baptist—attracted, evidently, by the shorter services.  She calls his faith "Christian Lite," indicating that religious intolerance can infect not only relationships between religions, but also those among the different branches of the same religion.  We Jews certainly  know that from our own denominational battles.

The main focus, however, is between the desires of the Jewish family and that of the Baptist family.  Todd's mother unburdens herself in private to her son, saying that while Morgan will always have her African-American heritage, if she is not raised as a Jew, "we will just be completing Hitler's work," a popular,  if inaccurate, analogy between assimilation and genocide.  Meanwhile, Toni's mother similarly is expressing her deepest concern: Baptists believe that only Christians can go to heaven, and "I don’t want to think about my pretty little grand baby waving to me from the wrong side of the pearly gates."

Afterwards, Todd and Toni have a discussion of their own.  He tells her that passing on his heritage is important to him; if she will be willing to raise their daughter Jewish, he would be willing to drop his petition for full custody.  She accepts.

Getting together with her girlfriends, Toni hears a variety of opinions—some supportive, others definitely hostile.  One friend, Maya (Golden Brooks) says, "I don’t understand how you can raise your daughter in a religion that denied the word when it was all fresh and new.  Shoot, honey, they got it straight from his mouth, none of that 'he said..', 'she said …'"

Furthermore, the friend tells Toni, if she doesn't "stand up for Jesus," then her daughter Morgan won't go to heaven on Judgment Day.

Toni, shaking them off, seems determined.  The next scene is at the mikvah.  Prayers are being said to convert the child, Toni's mother all the while that, standing at the back of the mikva because she's not Jewish, she feels like Rosa Parks—the Civil Rights icon who refused to move to the back of the bus.

Suddenly, Toni steps forward.  She can't permit the ceremony to continue, even though she is certain everything being said is "all good." She doesn't want her daughter to "deny the other part of her religious heritage which was so good to me."   

Todd's mother, removing a tallit from her head, declares that the custody battle is back on.  Toni's mother declares just as determinedly, "bring it on!" and so the episode ends.

I found this episode refreshing in its honest approach to a problem that usually is spoken about in whispers. Christian theology and Jewish theology are different, and no amount of political correctness can change that.  Ultimately, couples will have to decide among these alternatives about their children: 1) Raise them in one of the two religions; 2) Raise them without religion; 3) Try and fail to raise them in both religions.

If the situation portrayed in Girlfriends were to arise in real life, I feel confident that most Jewish authorities would say that the child should follow the religion of her mother—that is, be brought up as a Baptist.  How could Toni possibly raise her child Jewish?  She knows nothing about being Jewish; how could she pass on a heritage in which she doesn't believe?

While the problems of people coming from different backgrounds—be they religious, racial, or national—can be surmounted in a marriage, the obstacles are all the more difficult if they are not analyzed and discussed in advance.  Obviously, in what religion to raise their children was an issue that Toni and Todd did not discuss before they were married. 

Although some of the dialogue may make us clench our teeth, we should thank those behind the Girlfriends series for dealing frankly—in a sitcom yet—with some very real problems.