The Jewish Family Now

 Susan Goldberg and Chloë Brushwood Rose’s new LGBT parenting anthology “And Baby Makes More: Known Donors, Queer Parents and Our Unexpected Families” (Insomniac Press) is not about Jewish families, per se. However, many of the contributors weave Jewish issues into their stories. 

A freelance writer and blogger (www.mamanongrata.com), co-editor Goldberg and her partner, Rachel, live in Thunder Bay, Ontario, with their two sons, ages 5 and 3. Both boys have the same donor, Rob, who lives in a different city but visits often.

 On an unseasonably hot Sunday afternoon in May, Karen and David Nathan are in their Princeton, N.J., backyard with their two children and four other families. 

But instead of barbecuing or chatting, the parents are watching as the kids, ranging in age from 5 to 14, prepare to act out a story from the Talmud.

Justus Baird, a soft-spoken entrepreneur-turned-rabbi, passes out the short scripts and divides up the parts — which include Elijah the Prophet, God and Old Man with Two Myrtle Branches — among the 11 children.

Boston — Once upon a time it was hard to find a wide selection of Jewish children’s books. Mostly there were books on Chanukah and Passover, plus retellings of Bible stories and folk tales.

The market was small and uncertain, and mainstream publishers could not count on large enough sales to justify the expense of publishing new titles.

 I’m not one to read parenting guidebooks — who has the time if they’re truly parenting? — but I adore Wendy Mogel’s “The Blessing of A Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children” (Penguin Compass, 2001). Her book is easy to read and her approach is sensible. She and my mother are my two voices of parenting reason. I anxiously await the October publication of her new book, “The Blessing of a B Minus” (Scribner).