“The epitome of a book meeting a moment.” —Oprah Daily
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Featured in Oprah Daily’s “Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2023”
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“The epitome of a book meeting a moment.” —Oprah Daily // Featured in Oprah Daily’s “Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2023” //
My Books
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The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging
“In the epitome of a book meeting a moment, this singular work addresses a topic many people struggle with in our increasingly multiracial yet chronically divided society—the pain and pressure points around race that persist in the most intimate spaces.” —Oprah Daily
An unflinching look at the challenges and misunderstandings mixed-race people face in family spaces and intimate relationships across their varying cultural backgrounds.
(Beacon Press, 2023)
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Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States
“Samira Mehta’s ethnographic study of Jewish-Christian intermarriage is thoughtfully contextualized within American religious history, sociology, and cultural studies, painting a powerful and nuanced picture of interfaith families from the mid-twentieth century to the present. I found myself fascinated by this book." —Jodi Eichler-Levine, Lehigh University
National Jewish Book Award Finalist in American Jewish Studies
(University of North Carolina Press, 2018)
Critically Acclaimed
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Samira Mehta interweaves laugh-out-loud personal vignettes with piercing reflections on life as a biracial person. Drawing also on her multireligious upbringing, she conveys moments of joy and pain in ways that let us all in on the experience.
Khyati Y. Joshi, author of White Christian Privilege, on The Racism of People Who Love You
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Mehta’s research and analysis of interracial interfaith families, specifically black and Latino, is both pioneering and timely.
Keren R. McGinity, H-Judaic, on Beyond Chrismukkah
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[T]he most thorough and insightful academic analysis, so far, of those of us choosing to celebrate more than one family religion and culture. This is a book that all interfaith families, and those who love us, and those who study us, will need to read.
Susan Katz-Miller, author of Being Both, on Beyond Chrismukkah
Recent Commentary
Anti-abortion laws are an attack on religious freedom.
With Tisa J. Wenger. 360info.org.
The Supreme Court’s abortion decision is based on a myth. Here’s why.
With Lauren MacIvor Thompson. Washington Post, June 24, 2022.
There is no one ‘religious view’ on abortion: A scholar of religion, gender and sexuality explains.
The Conversation, June 13, 2022; quoted in “America’s religious communities are divided over the issue of abortion: 5 essential reads,” The Conversation, June 24, 2022
Protestants and the pill: How US Christians helped make birth control mainstream.
The Conversation, May 24, 2022.
To tree, or not to tree? How Jewish-Christian families navigate the “December Dilemma.”
The Conversation, December 15, 2021