November 2000 Something happened at Rosh Hashanah morning services this year that threw me for quite a loss. My least favorite prayer—more accurately, my least favorite translation of a prayer—was read. It was one of the birchot ha’shachar, morning blessings, whose Hebrew ending, “she’asani yisrael,” is translated in our Reform prayerbook so that the prayer,
The High Holy Days Through Interfaith Eyes: A Time the “Strangers in Your Camp” Are Included
My Irish Vacation
July 2000 I’ve been an intermarried Jew for twenty-five years. When my wife Wendy was a junior in college, younger than our daughter is now, she spent the summer traveling in Europe, including a visit with her mother’s first cousin, Rhona Williams, in County Tipperary, Ireland. One of our favorite pictures is of Wendy (in
Why Non-Jewish Spouses Sometimes Think That Jews Are Weird
June 2000 My non-Jewish wife of twenty-five years, the co-chair of the synagogue Social Action committee, regular Shabbat, Sabbath, service-goer, after a recent discussion with me announced that “Jews are weird.” She had good reason to say so. Wendy was looking for a speaker for the Social Action Shabbat, and someone had suggested a Christian clergy
Love Can Trump Tradition: Interfaith Relationships in Keeping the Faith
May 2000 I really enjoyed the new movie, Keeping the Faith. In it, two best friends from childhood, a priest–played by Ed Norton (who also directed the film), and a rabbi–played by Ben Stiller, fall for Anna–played by Jenna Elfman–also a childhood friend who is now a high-powered business executive. As the story develops, amidst
We Need a Religious Movement That Is Totally Inclusive of Intermarried Jewish Families
March 2000 An important phenomenon is happening among intermarried Jewish parents. They increasingly define the religious identity of their family as Jewish. Yet the religious movements in the American Jewish community are failing to respond in an encouraging way to these families. Instead, they insist on promoting conversion and on maintaining boundaries and barriers to the
How to Talk to Your Kids about Interfaith Dating: For Those Married to Jews or in Interfaith Marriages
February 2000 There’s a book written by a leading Conservative Rabbi, Alan Silverstein, titled It All Begins With A Date: Jewish Concerns About Intermarriage. The goal of the book, as I understood it, is to promote an approach to preventing intermarriage. I don’t think that intermarriage can be prevented, and I think that trying to
Opening the Gates: How Proactive Conversion Can Revitalize the Jewish Community
October 1999 Review of Opening the Gates: How Proactive Conversion Can Revitalize the Jewish Community, by Gary A.Tobin (Jossey-Bass Publishers, $25). Gary Tobin, a leading researcher of the Jewish community, has written a provocative book in which he calls for organized, systematic efforts by the Jewish community to seek converts. Tobin defines “proactive conversion” simply as
Parenting My Jewish Children in Our Interfaith Family: A Jewish Parent’s Point of View
November 1998 When my daughter Emily was sixteen, she started to date an observant Conservative Jew. One night she was invited for Shabbat dinner. By that point she knew all about our Reform movement’s policy on patrilineal descent, under which she is recognized as a Jew. However, I thought I should remind her that in