Kiss me I'm Jewish-Irish-ish

Remember Juan Epstein? He was one of the sweat hogs from  the 1970's sit-com "Welcome Back, Kotter." Don't worry if you didn't remember this, it has almost nothing to do with my story.

I was just thinking about old Juan the other day because he was all about challenging expectations of race and multiculturalism.  Part of the character was that he was both "this" and "that."

My family is all Jewish by religion.  My ancestry, however, is made up of 1/4 Irish Christians, making my kids 7/8 European Jews and 1/8 Irish.  See, this and that.  People are always shocked to learn that I both am Southern and Jewish.  The Irish thing takes it over the top. All I can say is that these freckles don't lie!  I didn't mean to get too deep today, but I wanted to say that before I sham"rock" your perception of me.

I present to you our annual St. Patrick's Irish Heritage Shabbat.  The kids walked in from school to find the table set in all its glittering, green glory:

Oops, is a sneak peek our new chairs before my reveal post! 

 Being Friday, we obviously had Sabbath Candles and Challah at the ready!

Each girl naturally got some swag at her seat (I made the felt headband in the lower picture using a tutorial I saw on Felt So Cute  a million years ago--she's also Jewish, so I guess lots of Jews get into St. Patrick's Day).

It is poorly lit, but in this picture you can see that a little note was "flying" among the shamrocks.

Here is what said:

We truly are LUCKY to live in a time where we can embrace all these different parts of ourselves...and that we get to go to the beach!  Irish-Jewish-Ish!