The Del Rosarios: A Multi-Faceted, Multi-Hyphenate All-American Family
When he met his future wife Melissa, Devin Del Rosario, a child of Dominican immigrants who was raised Catholic, was not interested in religion. He says he was turned off by politics he had experienced and didn’t care to follow creeds for their own sake: “They’d say to do three ‘Hail Marys at confession… so if I do two, I’m not OK?” By contrast, Melissa, daughter of Gloria & Daniel Goldberg, always considered Judaism a “huge part” of her identity. She went through consecration and confirmation at at Temple, was involved in NFTY, and was the president of her BBG chapter, among other things.
Luckily, they joined Match.com at the same time.
As these things sometimes go, the speed with which they connected surprised them. After their second date, Melissa thought to herself, “This feels different.” Devin felt the same way and “dropped the L(ove) bomb,” he says, after about five or six weeks of dating.
While things were getting serious between the two, Melissa was “synagogue shopping,” because she did not want to assume that the Temple Israel of her childhood would be the best fit for her as an adult. Melissa cites Temple’s open discussions about race, religion, and culture as a driving factor to come back, saying that this openness “allowed me to bring Devin in.”
Devin did not realize how comfortable he would feel at Temple Israel until the couple got engaged and did premarital counseling with Rabbi Zimmerman. Devin said she made it clear that though he is not Jewish, he’s part of the community. Rabbi Zimmerman also helped Melissa navigate their differences in religious observance: “In my head,” Melissa says, “it was an all or nothing deal.” Rabbi suggested that, instead of viewing these identities in a rigid way, they periodically check in with each other about their evolving beliefs. Melissa says that eased a lot of the angst she felt about the couple’s seemingly divisive backgrounds.
The thought of diverging from her Jewish background also made Melissa anxious as the two formed a family — she now laughs about the identity crisis of going from “having the most Jewish last name to the most Catholic last name” (Del Rosario means “of the rosary”). Through discussions with Temple’s clergy and Devin, she’s realized that “We have a Jewish identity and those other things don’t matter.”
Melissa and Devin grew together through Temple’s openness toward interfaith families, which Devin says “makes Judaism a lot more accessible.” Something Devin greatly appreciates is that Judaism places deed before creed: “Jewish values are more about what’s good for mankind vs. doing what’s good according to a rule book.” These ethics are vital for Devin. “I generally feel uncomfortable many places I go as a person of color,” he says, but seeing Temple’s efforts to bridge the diversity gap bolsters his confidence in our community. When asked what Temple can do better in our inclusion efforts, Devin puts the onus back on himself: “What can I do to help with the diversity piece at Temple? I want to make sure that she feels comfortable there.”
“She” is the couple’s daughter, Payton (after Manning — Devin’s a Colts devotee), who goes to a Dominican daycare and speaks as much Spanish as English. Melissa and Devin dub their spunky girl “Jewminican.”
Like many, the family has created a complex, compound-worded life for themselves built upon open minds, shared values, and ultimately, open hearts. “I never imagined I would have the Jewish life I wanted and not marry someone Jewish to have that life,” Melissa says. As Payton walks around the living room and appears to ask for something in bilingual two-year-old-ese (“I think that’s a pickle, what do you think?”), it’s clear that the things that forge families and communities, though they may be expressed in different languages, are very much the same.