The news this summer has felt unrelentingly bad. This comment caught my eye, by Mayor Jacob Frey, after the awful shootings in Minneapolis, talking about his Jewish engagement with the Forward: “There’s also not just a beautiful acceptance – but a kind of hospitality of inclusivity that is entrenched in the fabric of being a Jew, and that’s something I also believe in.” We surely need more hospitality of inclusivity these days.
Choseness Without Exclusion
Rabbi Noa Kushner wrote a wonderfully enlightened essay, “American Sinai,” for the Sapir journal. She very clearly expresses a radically inclusive approach. My favorite parts:
In our era (as well as others), spheres of Jewish commitment and Jewish ethnicity may overlap, but they are not the same. Rather than drawing our circle of chosenness solely around those who have converted or who were born Jewish, we might instead draw that circle wider, including all who participate in Jewish life, whose Jewish actions and faith speak repeatedly over time. It is possible that to be chosen is not only a designation at birth or conversion.
In my community, we ask for the action, the participation, first. Instead of asking a newcomer whether he or she is Jewish, we ask: “Are you coming for Shabbat on Friday?”
It is possible to display commitment to the covenant, even if that covenant is not sealed. If the barrier to entry is not primarily one’s pedigree but rather one’s participation, sustained over time, the commitment is undeniable. In this version of chosenness, any claim of ethnic bias or genetic superiority as it relates to “chosenness” is unfounded. Being chosen is now equal opportunity, a lesson gained from America itself.
Hopefully more rabbis will adopt similar views.
More Conservative News
Right after the July newsletter went out, the Hartman Institute’s Sources journal published an essay by Rabbi Aaron Brusso that I found very upsetting. As I explain in the Times of Israel blogs, he says not only that marriages of interfaith couples are not Jewish marriages so a rabbi cannot officiate in accord with halakhah, but worse, that Jewish traditions are only for Jews, and not their partners from different faith backgrounds, absent conversion.
Rabbi Brusso leads the Conservative movement’s “collective process” currently underway to respond to interfaith marriage. Given his views, it’s hard to be optimistic that that process will result in a more inclusive approach.
Then JTA ran a story about Rabbi Ari Yehuda Saks resigning from the Rabbinical Assembly after it opened an investigation into his officiating at weddings of interfaith couples. He is quoted as saying, “By continuing to equate rabbinic participation in intermarriage ceremonies with an ethical violation the RA is sending a message to Conservative rabbis and the Conservative Jewish community at large that marrying a non-Jew is ethically and morally wrong, which is a statement believed only by very few on the fringes of our community.” Rabbi Saks also explains his decision, and his thinking, in a very interesting podcast.
In the meantime, the Forward had a nice story about a young rabbi taking the pulpit of the Conservative synagogue in Charleston, West Virginia – he notes that many interfaith couples are in the congregation. And the Jewish Week reported that Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor who is Catholic, attended the bar mitzvahs of his two Jewish sons; “At the latest one, he opened the Torah ark and joined the procession carrying the Torah. He was so insistent on participating that Katz left her family’s longtime Conservative congregation for a Reform synagogue that allowed him to stand on the bimah as a non-Jew.”
Also in the News
A fascinating podcast from Project Ruth, an Orthodox conversion program, about the remarkable journey of our friend Eleanor Harrison Bregman, from Protestant minister, to working at a synagogue, to converting under Orthodox auspices. One of my favorite parts: the (presumably Orthodox) co-host of the podcast acknowledged that a parent who is not Jewish could raise Jewish children.
Two nice stories from Houston this month: “Jewish community embraces interfaith families with help from 18Doors,” a concrete example of the impact of 18Doors’ B’Yachad program that “aims to strengthen belonging and inclusion for interfaith couples and families across Jewish communal life”; and a sweet story about the impact of Honeymoon Israel, including on interfaith couples: “Spreading the love: Houston young adults celebrate Jewish holiday of Tu B’Av.”
A nice story about Congregation Ner Tamid in Atlanta: “We are proud to be a community where interfaith families feel not only welcomed, but fully embraced…. Many of our families include partners from different faith traditions, and we see that as a strength. Our services and programs are designed to be accessible, meaningful, and respectful of every individual’s path.”
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