Dear Friends,
Please join me for a conversation about intermarriage on
Thursday, February 1st at 7:45 pm
after minyan.
It’s not June, but marriage is in the air. In particular, Jewish intermarriage.
The cover story of a recent edition of
Moment
magazine was entitled, “Intermarriage: Is it Good for the Jews?” It included the perspectives of over a dozen observers. (Included among them, interestingly, were quite a few from our area: Professor Sylvia Barack Fishman of Brandeis; Professor Michael Satlow of Brown; Edmund Case of InterfaithFamily.com; former Congressman Barney Frank; and Keren McGinity, Director of Interfaith Families Jewish Engagement at Hebrew College -- who incidentally spoke at Temple Aliyah a few years ago.)
The rate of intermarriage among Jews has continued to increase, as it did during the last few decades of the twentieth century. According to the Pew Research Center’s recent study, “overall, the intermarriage rate is at 58 percent, up from 43 percent in 1990 and 17 percent in 1970. Among non-Orthodox Jews, the intermarriage rate is 71 percent.”
Click here for survey.
In particular, there has been a lot of discussion about intermarriage within the Conservative movement recently. Attitudes and perspectives have definitely evolved. And so too have certain policies.
But not all. For example, some discussion has focused on whether rabbis should be permitted to officiate at intermarriages. (At present, they may not.)
During the past few months, much writing has been devoted to this and related subjects. I think it is worth reviewing this material. I have therefore provided, at the bottom of this email, a fine digest of recent articles on intermarriage and related topics, particularly within the Conservative movement. Many thanks to Mr. Mark Berch of Washington, D.C., for preparing this digest.
I would like us to have a conversation about intermarriage and to seek better to understand it. Intermarriage is a fact of life for just about all of us. Many members of our families, and many members of our congregation are in interfaith relationships. We should try to understand the sociological, psychological and religious aspects and implications of intermarriage. We should also try to understand and appreciate various perspectives toward officiation.
Please join me on
February 1st at 7:45 pm
for a conversation about this range of topics. Please RSVP if you can. Thanks.
Even if you don’t get the chance to read any of the articles mentioned below, I hope you’ll consider joining us.
Take care, and looking forward to seeing you soon.
Sincerely,
Rabbi Carl M. Perkins
**********************************
A Digest of Articles on Intermarriage,
Conversion and Related Topics
By Mr. Mark Berch, Washington, D.C.
Conservative Rabbi Abigail Treu on the interfaith engaged couple: “When a rabbi says no, cou
ples just
find someone else to do what they were going to do anyway. We just lose the chance to bring Jewish life into that moment, or to share their joy and add to it .... In my mind, the real story is that we rabbis just don’t matter very much.”
Click here for Rabbi Treu article.
A detailed study of non-Jewish-born spouses in mixed marriages has confirmed that Jewish men are much more likely to marry non-Jewish women than the reverse and that women are more likely to convert than men.
Click here for study.
It is argued that “If we perform a wedding between a Jew and a fan-of-the-Jews—someone who is not yet ready to attach themselves to the destiny of the Jewish people—we erode the ability for Judaism to be a religion of norms and aspirations.”
Click here for article.
It is argued that if you are non-religious, “it’s racist to insist on marrying within your own race for no other reason than they are the same as you,” something that doesn’t apply to those who are religious.
Click here for article.
Daniella Levy argues that to effectively address the intermarriage question, you have to decide “Why does Jewish continuity matter? Why does it matter if your grandchildren are Jewish?” What is the purpose of Jewish identity?
Click here for Levy article.
Intermarried couples that had a rabbi officiate at their weddings are more likely to be engaged with Jewish life than intermarried couples who weren’t, but it is argued that this is not evidence that rabbinic officiation is the cause of those couples’ subsequent Jewish engagement.
Click here for article.
How are those not born Jewish but who have chosen to share their lives with Jews supposed to think about the tribal concept of Jews as a chosen people? “Does 'chosenness' erect fences that cut through our family relationships?”
Click here for article.
Rabbi Michael Feshbach of Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase, MD “is part of a small group of mainstream Jewish organizations and individuals that promote the idea of active religious outreach to non-Jews despite a prevalent taboo against the practice.”
Click here for Rabbi Feshbach article.
BORN TO INTERMARRIED PARENTS
A study has found that “millennials born to intermarried parents were much more likely to have been raised Jewish than the children of intermarriages in previous generations.” Does that mean intermarriage “could lead to a net gain in the number of people bringing Jewish practice and values into the world?”
Click here for study.
Sociologist Steven M. Cohen talks about what happens when demographic research results are what people don’t want to hear, viz., “intermarried parents produce very few children who identify as Jews, and that intermarriage per se is at the heart of the matter, not the weaker Jewish identities that many intermarried parents bring to their marriages.”
Click here for Cohen article.
Edmund Case, the retired founder of InterfaithFamily, argues that Jews need a policy of “total inclusivity” and that means including “a growing population that wants to educate their children about both religious traditions in the home, without merging them together.”
Click here for Case article.
Rabbi Aaron Lerner, Executive Director of Hillel at UCLA, says that the number of students who come from intermarried households are so large that “It’s not our role to decide whether that student is Jewish by a particular denomination’s standards; as a pluralistic institution, we will serve her as long as she wants to become part of our community in some way.”
Click here for Rabbi Lerner article.
Rabbi Judith Hauptman has specific suggestions for what grandparents can do to make interfaith grandkids Jewish, noting the large number of future rabbis at JTS “who wound up there because of the love of Judaism they saw in a grandparent.”
Click here for Rabbi Hauptman article.
AMICHAI LAU-LAVIE AND INTERFAITH MARRIAGES
Amichai Lau-Lavie leaves the Rabbinical Assembly, the rabbinic arm of the Conservative movement, in order to pursue his own approach toward interfaith marriages.
Click here for Lau-Levie.
Jane Eisner examines Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s unconventional approach to intermarriage, “using the
ger toshav
within a halachic framework to justify intermarriage under certain conditions.”
Rabbi Seymour Rosenbloom, whose choice to perform interfaith marriages led to his departure from the RA, says Lau-Lavie’s idea is 'too little, too late.' It does not meet the reality test. It addresses a fictional construct. It is "casuistry at its core” in part because “couples who intermarry do not see themselves as a problem that needs to be solved.” And we “need to find a substitute for the term intermarriage."
Click here for Rosenbloom article.
B’NAI JESHURUN WILL ACCEPT INTERFAITH MARRIAGES
Upper West Side B’nai Jeshurun is moving “to embrace interfaith marriages” in a more direct way, as rabbis there would now bless interfaith weddings, as long as they promise to raise their kids as Jews, exclusively. And they are taking other welcoming steps as well.
Rabbis of B’nai Jeshurun J. Rolando Matalon, Felicia Sol and Marcelo Bronstein issue their statement “Why We Decided To Perform Intermarriages”, and JTS statement issues a statement against.
In response, Rabbi David Wolpe argues that “collapsing of boundaries is inseparable from the collapsing of standards,” and that “welcoming is a step from dissolving.”
CONVERSION POLICY AND PRACTICE
American Jewish converts react to Israel’s 2017 decisions on conversions outside Israel’s Official Rabbinate.
Rabbis from the mainstream of religious Zionism have created “Giyur Kahalacha” which is now the largest non-governmental rabbinical court in Israel. It is argued that their conversions “have the best potential in more than a decade to help the hundreds of thousands of immigrants fully join the Jewish People.”
People tend to want conversion standards that will “produce converts who practice Judaism just like they do.” It is argued that there are a lot of problems arising from that approach.
Daniel Gordis examines “how the changing face of world Jewry should and should not be reflected in conversion policy”, arguing that the question "What should joining the Jewish people require?" is ground in the question, “What, in our increasingly conflicted and nuanced world of identity formation, should being a Jew mean?”
A convert looks at Emory University Professor Rabbi Michael J. Broyde’s new book, “A Concise Code of Jewish Law for Converts,”
LA’s Sandra Caplan Community Bet Din celebrates 500 conversions. It is the only program in Southern California that brings together Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform and trans-denominational rabbis to cooperate in the conversion process.
INTERMARRIAGE: PROBLEM OR OPPORTUNITY?
22 rabbis opine on "is Intermarriage a problem or an opportunity or neither?
Rabbis Lauren Holtzblatt and Aaron Alexander of Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C. argue that since it’s no longer true that intermarriage equals a rejection of Jewish wisdom and community, it no longer makes sense to see such couples as a problem to solve, but rather we should see “our diverse families as one cornerstone of our Jewish future.”
It is argued that the justifications for fearing intermarriage don’t hold up under scrutiny, and indeed, “Intermarriage is good, period.”
INTERMARRIAGE, CONVERSION AND THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT
The Conservative movement will maintain its ban on rabbis performing interfaith marriages while seeking to welcome couples who are already intermarried, according to a new letter signed by the movement’s four leaders.
But there has been pushback against the letter from those wanting a more liberal approach.
Rabbi Seymour Rosenbloom says the Conservative movement “is really two movements: The movement of its rabbis and philosophical leaders, and the movement of its constituents, the laity”: For a time, this tension could “underlay the appeal of the movement”, on the issue of intermarriage, this is no longer true.
Rabbi Avram Mlotek an Orthodox rabbi working with a millennial population and many young couples, argues “the Conservative and Modern Orthodox worlds would be well served if they adopted…the most welcoming posture towards families with non-Jewish partners” seen by the Reform movement.
Will a policy of “equally open arms” in Conservative synagogues for intermarried couples ultimately harm their brand? And how will that work out in practice for e.g. an aufruf ceremony for interfaith couples?
