Samira Mehta

Expert on interfaith, interracial, and multicultural experiences in America.

Featured on 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

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Featured on Oprah Daily’s “Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2023” // “The epitome of a book meeting a moment.” —Oprah Daily //

I am a scholar of religion and the politics of the American family.

I study how families form their practices, identities, and senses of morality, and how, in turn, outside forces—religious leaders and institutions, politicians, and creators of popular culture—construct the American family through theology, legislation, and public discourse.

I think about the interactions between Protestants, Catholics, and Jews on topics such as gender, sexuality, and race. My work, thus far, has focused on Christian-Jewish interfaith families; contraception, abortion, and sexuality; and the experiences of Jews of Color.

I am also the author of The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging, familiar essays which weave together personal stories and cultural criticism to explore what it means to grow up in more than one culture.

My expertise

Mixed-race belonging

Gender, sexuality, and religion

Interfaith families

Jews of color

American religious diversity

“Put simply, for a subset of the population, America’s core beliefs and morals are rooted in, as the common saying goes, ‘motherhood and apple pie.’ This myth is as durable and powerful as it is flawed — and now it is responsible for taking a constitutional right away from American women in the name of maintaining the power of the family and the nation.”

➤ “The Supreme Court’s Abortion Decision Is Based on a Myth. Here’s Why,” Washington Post, June 24, 2022

Recent Commentary

My Books

The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging (Beacon Press, 2023)

Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2018)

Finalist, 2018 National Jewish Book Award