Temple Beth Or congregants become first to hold same-sex Jewish wedding in Dayton

By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer

Dr. Melissa Hanna and Dr. Naomi Sandor met in 1998 when they were first-year medical students at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine.

“We got together a year later,” says Naomi, a native of Cleveland.

Melissa and Naomi — both primary care physicians with a practice in Enon — became the first same-sex couple to have a Jewish wedding in the Dayton area on Aug. 1, at Benham’s Grove in Centerville. Rabbi David Burstein of Temple Beth Or officiated.

Waiting until it was legal
“We talked about getting married very early on in our relationship,” says Melissa, a native of northwest Pennsylvania. “I was active duty for the Air Force, so I was directly forbidden from getting married. And then we decided that we wanted to wait until it would mean something legally before we got married. And we wanted to have the girls involved too, with the planning.”

Melissa and Naomi are the mothers of Julia (7) and Eileen (3).

From 2002 to 2005, Naomi completed her residency training at Clinton Memorial Hospital in Wilmington while Melissa’s residency was at Wright-Patterson AFB. The couple lived south of Dayton.

They joined Temple Beth Or in 2009, when they returned to the area after four years in Biloxi, Miss., where Melissa completed her Air Force commitment.

“Right now, we job share, so one of us is in the office, the other one is home with the girls,” Melissa says.

When the girls are with only one of their parents, they call that mother Mommy, Naomi says. When they’re all together, the girls call Melissa “Other Mommy” and Naomi “Masik Mommy.” Masik means other in Hungarian.

Naomi is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors who fled from Hungary and Romania.

Melissa, who is not Jewish, is all in when it comes to raising their daughters as Jews.

“I attend services regularly and get a lot out of being there,” Melissa says of Temple Beth Or.

The girls’ drawings of Jewish symbols are proudly displayed on the inside of the front door of their Beavercreek home.

With the start of the school year, Julia will be in second grade and Eileen will start preschool at Beth Or’s religious school.

It was a patient of Naomi, a Temple Beth Or member, who suggested she bring Julia to the temple’s High Holy Days children’s service six years ago.

“And so I took Julia and walked into the temple and there was Rabbi David (Burstein) wearing his rainbow bracelet, and he was this magnanimous, friendly man and since then we’ve been hooked on the temple. He’s really been an advocate for us,” Naomi says.

After a federal judge in Pennsylvania struck down that state’s ban on same-sex marriage in May 2014, Melissa and Naomi were ready to become legally-recognized spouses.

David, his son, Coby, and Melissa, Naomi, Julia and Eileen left for a weekend at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort near Pittsburgh in August 2014. After a three-day wait to obtain their marriage license from the county court house, Melissa and Naomi were married in a Jewish ceremony that David led outdoors at the resort. Coby served as photographer.

David had already officiated at same-sex marriages for his friends in Massachusetts.

“It’s something that I feel passionately about,” he says. “It was so great to be able to do that.”

Despite the idyllic mountainous setting, Melissa and Naomi’s oldest daughter wasn’t content.

“Julia was a little bit upset,” Naomi says. Julia asked, “Are we going to be OK when we go back to Ohio? If it’s OK with the president (same-sex marriage), why isn’t it OK in Ohio?”

That, Naomi says, is why they decided to hold a Jewish wedding ceremony in Ohio. She says Melissa and Julia planned the August ceremony and party; eventually Naomi got on board.

“And it was such great timing,” Melissa adds. “It was planned over a year ago. We had no idea that the Supreme Court was going to have their ruling.”

Getting ready for the Ohio ceremony
One of the first steps toward their Ohio wedding in the presence of their family and friends was dress shopping on Valentine’s Day 2015.

“Julia drew pictures of what she wanted us to look like,” Naomi says. “It was February and it was snowing, blowing, horrible weather. And I was not in the mood to shop for a wedding dress. So we walked in and Julia showed the picture to the young lady, who was very happy to help us, and she’s like, ‘I think I have something.’ She ran into the corner of the store. She came back with three dresses and we picked two. And then the girls got their dresses there as well.”

On Aug. 1 at Benham’s Grove, the weather was picture-perfect as each bride walked down the aisle, escorted arm-in-arm by her parents. Under the chupah (wedding canopy), each bride circled the other three times. Then they circled with their daughters, all holding hands.

“We stomped on the glass together,” Naomi says of herself and Melissa.

“She got my foot, though,” Melissa adds.

“I was trying hard not to,” Naomi says. “But I did it anyway. And then David circled us with his prayer shawl. And then he brought out a tie-dye rainbow tallit (prayer shawl) and just wrapped us in that as well. That was a surprise.”

“I’ve had a rainbow, tie-dye tallit for a long time,” David says. “I just threw it in my bag that day. I thought, this would be something that I would want the kids to see, for the kids to look back at their parents. Just the reaction of the girls was worth it to me. As a rabbi, it’s such an honor to be part of those moments in people’s lives anyway, and to have been a part of a couple that I love so much and a family that I love so much, we were doing something that was so right and so — it’s about time.”

After the ceremony, the DJ started the dancing with Let It Go, the mega-hit anthem from Disney’s Frozen, sung by Idina Menzel.

“So all the kids and the moms were out there twirling,” Naomi says. “It was fabulous. It was such a nice icebreaker.”

When it was time for Hava Nagila, each bride sat on a chair with a daughter on her lap; they were raised high on the dance floor.

“The girls threw our bouquets too, to all the kids under the age of 10,” Naomi adds.

David recalls that at the wedding celebration, Naomi said, “These are the people who love us. And they’ve loved us for who we are, our whole relationship.”

“From my perspective,” Naomi says, “everywhere that we’ve been in the Jewish community in Dayton — whether it was temple or the Federation, we’ve been to Hillel — everyone that we have ever met has been nothing but nice to us. And that’s meant a lot to me. I’ve felt that I’ve been connected more to my Judaism since I’ve been an adult and happened to be able to settle down and make a home here in Dayton than anywhere I’ve felt in my life, which is very nice. It makes me feel very good.”

To read the complete September 2015 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.