Cover Photo: photos by Ricky Romero & Areta Ekaraf/flickr
photos by Ricky Romero & Areta Ekaraf/flickr

Home, Mosque, and Synagogue: On Parenting and Sacred Spaces

“All the world is a mosque for a believer.”

now,Please put your shoe back on. Please don’t spit up on my skirt today. Thank God we made it to shul before it was over. This time.

adhan

Hear O Israel the Lord is our God the Lord is one

Brit” means covenant, and the Jewish circumcision ceremony is the covenant marking the entrance of a newborn boy into the Jewish people. I’ve been to many circumcisions in synagogues where the mother was shunted off to the back, her scarcely discernible presence already overshadowed by the testosterone-bearer she had borne a scant eight days before. The mothers never seemed to mind much, but I did, and at some point I decided that if I ever had a boy, I would have the brit in my own home.

Hear O Israel the Lord is our God the Lord is one.

Saadia Faruqi is a Pakistani American writer. She is the editor of Muslim literary journal Blue Minaret and author of the short story collection Brick Walls: Tales of Hope & Courage from Pakistan. She lives in Houston with her husband and children. @saadiafaruqi

Shoshana Kordova is an Orthodox Jewish writer and editor raised in NJ and living in Israel. She has written for Smithsonian, Prevention, Quartz, NYT's Motherlode, and The Daily Beast. She has four daughters. @shoshanakordova

Shoshana and Saadia are co-founders of Have Faith, Will Parent, a meeting place for parents of all religions.