March 2004 I’ve seen it. It was painful to watch, excessively violent, clearly anti-Semitic in my opinion, and religious propaganda that leaves me uncomfortable. But Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is a powerful and provocative movie phenomenon that can’t be ignored. The most important point is that it won’t generate much anti-Semitism, at
Remembering Egon Mayer
February 2004 Egon Mayer died on January 30, 2004 at age 59, after a six-month battle with cancer. The cause of Jewish outreach to interfaith families has lost a true pioneer and champion. I have lost a personal hero. Beyond his professional accomplishments, he was a man of extraordinary qualities, as ten friends, family members
What We Can Learn from the InterfaithFamily.com Network Essay Contest
September 2003 When we announced the InterfaithFamily.com Network Essay Contest, “We’re Interfaith Families … Connecting with Jewish Life,” last April, little did we know that on September 10, 2003, two days before the date set to announce our contest winners, the long-awaited results of the year 2000 National Jewish Population Survey–including an intermarriage rate of
Network E-Letter
January 3, 2003 The following is the text of the InterfaithFamily.com Network’s eletter which was sent to its 5,400-subscriber list on Jan. 3, 2003 and also distributed to the Outreach Fellows listserv and to the listserv of the UAHC’s National Outreach and Synagogue Community Commission. On December 17, 2002, the leadership of the Reform Movement (the Union
Interfaith Families Raising Jewish Children
Remarks presented at “Reaching Out: An Intergenerational Forum” at the United Jewish Communities’ General Assembly on November 20, 2002. I want to begin by telling you a small part of my story. I grew up in a Conservative synagogue. I liked Hebrew school. I enjoyed services. I went to a USY camp. I won an
How Should American Jewry Respond to the National Jewish Population Survey? Reach Out to Intermarrieds
Reprinted with permission of the Forward. According to the recent preliminary release of the 2000-01 National Jewish Population Survey, 1.5 million non-Jews live with Jews. Who are they? How do they relate to the Jewish community? How should the community respond to them? Against the backdrop of a Jewish population that the NJPS describes as
Should Efforts Be Made to Draw Interfaith Couples into the Jewish Community
This article is reprinted with permission of the Jerusalem Report. Edmund Case, publisher of InterfaithFamily.com and co-editor of The Guide to Jewish Interfaith Family Life, debates Jack Wertheimer, provost and professor of American Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Dear Jack Wertheimer, Given a community that is declining and graying, the decisions that interfaith
Discouraging Intermarriage is Not the Way to Preserve Jewish Identity
May 2001 A controversy that will define the future of the American Jewish community–how to respond to intermarriage–is again erupting. A new American Jewish Committee survey of interfaith families is being used to support an old, failed strategy–discouraging intermarriage and pressing for conversion of non-Jewish spouses. That is exactly the wrong way to maximize the
Let’s Not Promote In-marriage Without Promoting Outreach to the Intermarried
An Intermarried Perspective on The Jew Within by Steven M. Cohen and Arnold M. Eisen
January 2001 In spite of the evident hostility of Steven M. Cohen and Arnold M. Eisen toward intermarriage, their important new book, The Jew Within: Self, Family and Community in America (Indiana University Press) provides a rationale and a roadmap for encouraging more Jewish involvement in interfaith families. The same factors the authors identify as