"Is Judaism Teachable?" Enter Our Writing Contest

TC Jewfolk is excited to announce our partnership with ABabyATree.com, and the first of our Jewish parenting short essay contests and accompanying monthly giveaways of Jewish baby gifts from the A Baby A Tree website.  
A Baby A Tree DollsI’m planning my daughter’s first birthday party. It’s sort of a silly thing to do, given that all I would need to do to entertain on her 1st birthday would be to feed her strawberries and bring over a friend’s dog for her to play with – she’d be absolutely ecstatic.
The party is really for us, for her family and our friends, for the community that she’ll grow into these next years as she starts walking, and talking, and learning what it means to be Jew.
And that thought – about how do you teach your child to be a Jew, stuck with me, and seemed like a perfect kick off of the exciting new partnership between TC Jewfolk and A Baby A Tree.
A Baby A Tree has a wide selection of trendy, unique and 100% Organic baby gifts, many of which can be personalized with English or Hebrew embroidery. Included with the price of purchases on their website, A baby A tree will plant a tree in the name of the child you wish to honor. You can choose to have your tree(s) planted in either the U.S. or in Israel. And to recognize the tree(s) planting, a frame-able and personalized Tree certificate is sent with your unique baby gift purchase.
Pretty menschy, right? You get your gift (for your child, a friend’s child, a grandchild, etc) and you get to help the environment, and support Israel at the same time. Love it.

So here’s the challenge, and the opportunity for October. 

A Baby A Tree and TC Jewfolk are giving away one of A Baby A Tree’s best sellers, a personalized, 100% organic cotton Plush doll embroidered to a child’s name. You pick the doll – either the Brown Monkey or Pink Bunny style (see picture above). The doll and Tree certificate will be gift wrapped and mailed to the address you select. 

So how do you win? 
Email [email protected] with a short, informal essay on how you would or how you are teaching your child to be a good Jew (and what that means to you). The essay can focus on one episode in your parenting (or would-be parenting) or on your values more generally.
The winning essay will be one that can answer our question, but also do so in a way that engages and inspires readers, since the winning essay and two runners’ up essays will be reprinted as guest posts by their authors (although authors can choose to remain anonymous) on TCJewfolk.com later this month.
Your deadline to enter our contest is Tuesday, October 22st at midnight. The winning and runners-up’s essays will be chosen that week and will run on TCJewfolk.com the following week. The winner and runners-up will be notified by email.
Good luck! We can’t wait to read your submissions!