A New Year to Engage Interfaith Families in Jewish Life

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September 28, 2012

The Jewish New Year begins with headlines from the New York Jewish Community Study of 2011. First, there is a huge amount of intermarriage, and it is continuing. Second, while the intermarried are generally disengaged from Jewish life and community, those that are engaged demonstrate attitudes and behaviors comparable to the in-married. The critical question, then, is what can be done in this new Jewish year to engage interfaith families Jewishly?

The study confirms that intermarriage is the reality in the non-Orthodox community. Between 2006 and 2011, one in three non-Orthodox Jews who married, married someone who was not Jewish; half of the non-Orthodox couples formed were intermarried couples. Measured by the study’s index of Jewish engagement — stacked as it is against the intermarried because it does not include indicators that can be undertaken individually or with friends and family — the intermarried generally score low, with fewer giving Jewish education to their children, joining Jewish organizations or giving to Jewish causes.

However, of those intermarried households that do join synagogues, 90 percent send their children to supplemental school, and of those that are raising their children as Jews, more than half score high on the study’s index. The study recognizes the policy implications of these findings when it says that “expanding congregation-based efforts to engage intermarried households is worth pursuing” and that “communal efforts to engage intermarried couples should support efforts to raise Jewish children.”

Unfortunately, community studies tell us precious little about why some interfaith families chose to engage Jewishly. But for the past three years, InterfaithFamily has been including questions in its two annual holiday surveys that ask what factors contribute to interfaith families joining Jewish organizations and synagogues and expanding their connections to Judaism — and what they experience as barriers. Our surveys are not “scientific” or based on a random sample; the respondents are self-selected and some may have responded to more than one survey. But no one else is asking these questions, and our full report sheds what is currently the most available light on these important issues. This is what close to 700 responses from six surveys, from people in interfaith relationships who are raising Jewish children and are members of Jewish organizations or synagogues, tell us:

Explicit Statements Expressing Welcoming Attitudes

Interfaith families are attracted by explicit statements of welcome by the organization’s professionals (79 percent said this attracted them “a lot”) or by the organization itself in membership materials, bulletins and websites (70 percent). Welcome communicated in public, and openly talking about interfaith family issues, are specifically identified as helpful; being vague about the approach to interfaith families is seen as a barrier.

The New York study reported that the vast majority of the intermarried say they do not feel “uncomfortable” attending most Jewish events and activities. The principal author, Steven M. Cohen, is quoted as saying that “If discomfort is not a major obstacle to Jewish engagement, then welcoming is not the solution.” But our survey respondents emphatically indicate that they are heavily influenced by expressions of welcoming attitudes. One said, “My spouse was welcomed as a genuine part of the congregation family in all aspects, as was my son. This allowed me, as the Jewish partner, to comfortably express my Jewish identity without my spouse feeling alienated.” Another said, “They treat me like an important part of the Jewish community, even though I am not Jewish.” One indicated that interfaith families give more weight to differences in openness to them than to other important considerations: “Our synagogue doesn’t offer childcare during services, and we have begun attending a different synagogue that offers a wonderful children’s program that our kids adore. The problem is that that synagogue is not as open to interfaith families, so while we enjoy attending services there, we are unlikely to become members there.”

Moreover, the most often-mentioned barrier to expanded Jewish connection is perceived unwelcoming attitudes from both professionals and organization members. One said, “I feel that deep down the clergy/professionals feel differently. I get the sense that they would prefer I be Jewish.” Another referred to the “Neanderthal attitude of some members to non-Jews, which has offended my wife royally.” The New York study exposed a continuing deep-seated negative attitude about intermarriage: High percentages of parents said they would be upset if their adult child married someone not Jewish who did not convert. That attitude could well explain the source of our respondents’ disinviting experiences and feeling that the fact of their relationship is a cause of upset in a community is a factor likely to discourage a couple from engaging with that community. As one of our respondents said, “as long as being an interfaith family is considered a problem, we will never be reached.”

Inclusive Policies on Participation by Interfaith Families

The organization or synagogues’ policies about interfaith families participating in worship services and at life cycle events attracted 64 percent of our respondents “a lot.” One said, “My previous synagogue did not allow the non-Jewish members of my family to fully participate in my son’s bar mitzvah. We have since left that congregation.” Non-acceptance of “patrilineal” Jews was identified as “a real turn-off … even if the kids want to learn they are told that they can never be Jewish…”

Invitations to Learn vs. Invitations to Convert

While a not insignificant percentage (32 percent) were attracted “a lot” by invitations to learn about conversion, almost twice as many (58 percent) were attracted by invitations to learn about Judaism. A few of the responses to the open-ended questions mentioned the absence of pushing to convert as a helpful factor and perceived attempts to convert as a barrier.

Presence of Other Interfaith Families

Fifty-three percent of respondents said they were attracted “a lot” if “there are a lot of interfaith families who are members.” “The visibility of non-Jewish members encouraged us to join.”

Programming and Groups ‘For Interfaith Families’

Forty-five percent of respondents were attracted “a lot” by the Jewish organization or synagogue offering programs “that are described as being ‘for interfaith families’.” Thirty percent of respondents said they were attracted “a lot” by the organization or synagogue organizing “groups of interfaith couples (havurah, interfaith discussion group, etc.)” The absence of such programs and groups was identified as a barrier.

Knowing what factors attract and repel interfaith families from Jewish organizations and synagogues, local communities can act in two directions to engage interfaith families Jewishly. The first is to ensure that interfaith families receive explicit messages of welcome from the community and its organizations and leaders, and the second is to offer programs and classes for them.

In the long run, ensuring that interfaith families are genuinely welcomed will require significant attitudinal change among Jews and Jewish leaders away from “upset” and toward seeing the potential for positive Jewish engagement by interfaith families. In the shorter term, an important step toward this goal is making available and publicizing information about welcoming organizations, professionals and programs, so that potentially interested interfaith couples can hear they are welcome and find out what is available to them and where.

Another important step is providing resource materials and inclusivity and sensitivity trainings to local Jewish professionals and lay leaders, to increase the chances that interfaith couples will experience positive attitudes and a warm welcome when they do connect. These materials and trainings can help organizations and professionals resolve difficult issues around ritual and leadership participation, and how best to present opportunities for Jewish learning and for conversion.

Finally, communities can offer programs and classes explicitly marketed as “for interfaith families,” and foster the formation of groups of interfaith couples and families in which they can explore and experience Jewish life together.

This three-pronged approach of publicizing what is available in the Jewish community for interfaith families, trainings and programs was recommended in the historic December 2011 report of the UJA-Federation of New York’s Task Force on Welcoming Interfaith Families: “an approach that unapologetically announces its welcome, provides sustained, networked, professionally staffed, and well-advertised gateway educational programs targeted to interfaith couples and families, and provides ongoing training for professionals and lay leaders.” It is the framework of InterfaithFamily’s Your Community initiative, which recently completed a very successful first year pilot, InterfaithFamily/Chicago, and is about to expand to San Francisco and Philadelphia. And it is endorsed by the New York study’s comment that “we ought to be focusing on engaging the intermarried, approaches that certainly include welcoming, but go to building relationships and offering opportunities to educate and participate.”

The New York study asks, “To what extent has the Jewish community made progress [compared to the 2002 study] in closing the engagement gap associated with intermarriage?” Given the negligible communal efforts to engage interfaith families Jewishly in the last 10 years, the lack of progress should not be a surprise. Whether we make progress in the next 10 years is up to us.

This new Jewish year can be the start of a sustained communal effort to engage interfaith families. The New York study’s figures show that the goal of having more than 50 percent of interfaith families raise their children Jewish is within reach — because in addition to the 31 percent of the children of intermarried households who are raised Jewish, 11 percent more are raised “Jewish and something else” and 13 percent have parents who are undecided. We can move many of those children into the Jewish column if we try.

This essay originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

What Draws Interfaith Families to Jewish Life

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I’m pleased to report that the New York Jewish Week has published my op-ed, What Draws Interfaith Families to Jewish Life. A considerably longer version is on the Huffington Post, A New Year To Engage Interfaith Families in Jewish Life.

Having just come off Yom Kippur’s intense period of introspection about the past and the future, it feels that the time is now right for this call for a new sustained effort to engage interfaith families in Jewish life and community.

You can find the report on the first year of our InterfaithFamily/Chicago project here, and the report on our holiday surveys here.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

Rabbi Reverses Interfaith Marriage Policy

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The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles has a powerful article today, Rabbi reverses interfaith marriage policy. The article details how Rabbi John Rosove, senior rabbi of Temple Israel of Hollywood, explained in a Rosh Hashanah sermon why he was changing his long-held position and would now officiate at interfaith weddings.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that based upon the new reality in which we find ourselves and the fact that many intermarried families are seemingly successful in raising their children as Jews here at Temple Israel, I now believe that I can better serve the Jewish people by officiating at their weddings, and that it’s time for me to change my policy,” he said.

Rosove said he would officiate where the couple is connected to his synagogue, the partner who is not Jewish is not active in another religion, and the couple is committed to creating a Jewish home and to providing children with a Jewish education.

“I want to say to every interfaith couple who may want to be married by me under the chuppah with the intentions I have noted, ‘Yes, come in. Judaism and this community at Temple Israel want to elevate your sense of belonging here in a new and deeper way. We want to be able to love you, your spouse and your children, and for you all to be able to love us and give to us of your hearts and souls as you desire.’”

The article also quotes Rabbi Laura Geller of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, explaining her similar change of position:

“I came to understand that my role as a rabbi is to facilitate the creation of Jewish families, not Jewish marriages. I have discovered since that decision that when a rabbi takes planning a wedding very seriously, spending a lot of time with a couple, it becomes an opportunity to open a door that really can deepen a commitment to create a Jewish home,” she said.

The complete article, with Rabbi Rosove’s explanation of his previous reasoning and how and why it changed, is well worth reading.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

What Our Surveys Say About What Attracts Interfaith Families to Jewish Organizations

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There is a great deal of concern in the Jewish world about the degree to which interfaith families are engaged or disengaged in Jewish life and community. A headline of the New York Jewish Community Study of 2011, released in June 2012, was that interfaith families generally score low on that study’s index of Jewish engagement, while interfaith families who join synagogues or send their children to Jewish education score comparably to in-married families. Community studies like New York’s, and other available communal research, however, tell us precious little about what factors contribute to interfaith families joining Jewish organizations and expanding their connections to Judaism – or what they experience as barriers to that expanded connection.

Starting in December 2009, Interfaith Family’s annual December Holidays survey and Passover/Easter survey have asked precisely those questions. We’ve just published a report on the responses to those questions. Our surveys are not “scientific” or based on a random sample; the respondents are self-selected and some may have responded to more than one survey. But no one else is asking these questions, and our report sheds what is currently the most available light on these important issues: it summarizes and analyzes close to 700 responses from six consecutive surveys from respondents who were in interfaith relationships, were raising their children as Jews, and were members of a synagogue or Jewish organization.

Interfaith families are attracted, in order of importance, by explicit statements that interfaith families are welcome; inclusive policies on participation by interfaith families; invitations to learn about Judaism and, to a much lesser extent, invitations to convert; the presence of other interfaith families; programming and groups specifically for interfaith couples; and officiation by rabbis at weddings of interfaith couples. Read the full report for the data and many comments to our open-ended questions.

The policy implications of these findings are that Jewish communities that want to increase engagement by local interfaith families need to:

  • Ensure that local interfaith families receive explicit messages of welcome from the community and its organizations and leaders.
  • Ensure that there are some Jewish clergy in the community who will officiate at weddings of interfaith couples so that their experience with the Jewish community at that critical point in their lives will help them connect to Jewish life.
  • Offer programs and classes explicitly marketed as “for interfaith families,” and foster the formation of groups of interfaith couples and families in which they can explore and experience Jewish life together.

That’s the approach we are taking in our InterfaithFamily/Your Community initiative.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

A Model To Engage Interfaith Families

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We’ve just reported on the first full year of the InterfaithFamily/Chicago two-year pilot of our InterfaithFamily/Your Community initiative. You can find the full report here. We are on to something big that can transform the Jewish community’s response to intermarriage in a very significant and positive way.

Four years ago a group of leading national family foundations studied the field of engaging interfaith families Jewishly and concluded that three elements were needed: a world class website, inclusivity training of Jewish professionals and lay leaders, and comprehensive programs in local communities. A Task Force of the UJA-Federation of New York reached the same conclusion in 2011. We developed the InterfaithFamily/Your Community initiative to provide these “missing links” and in particular to coordinate and provide a comprehensive set of interfaith engagement programs in local communities.

The theory behind our model is that a comprehensive local community approach to engaging people in interfaith relationships Jewishly must address five important needs:

Awareness and Connection. People in interfaith relationships need to be made aware of the resources in their local Jewish community – organizations, professionals and programs – that are interested in welcoming them, and they need easy avenues to connect to those resources and to others couples like them in their community.

Warm Welcomes from Jewish Organizations and Leaders. When interfaith couples and families do connect with Jewish community resources, they need to find a genuinely warm welcome.

Officiation as an Entryway. Interfaith couples should find it easy to find clergy to officiate at their weddings and other life cycle events, and officiating clergy should stay connected with their couples and help them connect to Jewish life and community.

Help for New Couples Making Decisions about Religion. Newwly married or seriously dating interfaith couples need help learning how to talk with each other and make decisions about how to have religious traditions in their lives together.

Help Learning How and Why To Live Jewishly. Interfaith couples and families need help learning how they can live Jewishly – and how doing so can add value and meaning to their lives.

With generous funding from the Crown Family Philanthropies, the Marcus Foundation, the Jack and Goldie Wolfe Miller Fund, and a private gift, we launched the first two-year pilot of our initiative, InterfaithFamily/Chicago, in July 2011. The results of our first full year are very positive:

Awareness and Connection. Rabbi Ari Moffic, Director of IFF/Chicago, introduced the project this year in meetings with more than 60 local organizations and professionals, led or participated in 9 adult education classes and other programs, and blogged and tweeted frequently. As a result the IFF website had 36,559 visits from the Chicago area, the new Chicagoland Community Page had 3,200 visits, we added 15 more local clergy to our officiation referral list for a total of 31, and we added to our Network 46 more organizations for a total of 72, 56 more professionals for a total of 70, and 154 more non-professional individuals for a total of 241. IFF/Chicago was featured in a story in the hanukkah-1221-20111221_1_interfaith-couples-interfaithfamily-com-jewish-life”>Chicago Tribune, in a local community paper, and in the JUF News.

Warm Welcomes from Jewish Organizations and Leaders. IFF/Chicago conducted 7 inclusivity and sensitivity trainings for 80 participants, including for religious school teachers at three synagogues, for preschool teachers at two synagogues, a workshop for rabbis to discuss wedding officiation, and a two-day training with three sessions at the Community Foundation for Jewish Education’s Principals’ Kallah for Reform and Conservative synagogue religious school educators. We already have 3 trainings lined up for the second year. One rabbi said,  “I will say that… the presence of an organization with this approach in the city has really affected the way I talk and write about interfaith Jews in our community and beyond.”

Officiation as an Entryway. The IFF Jewish Clergy Officiation Referral Service responded to 103 requests for officiation, and Rabbi Moffic had 24 follow-up conversations and 5 in-person meetings, all aimed at connecting couples beyond their wedding ceremony to synagogues and other community resources. We created two resources, available to members of our Resource Center for Jewish Clergy, for clergy to use to stay in touch with their couples.

Help for New Couples Making Decisions about Religion. IFF/Chicago offered a hybrid online/in-person four-session workshop, Love and Religion created by Marion Usher, Ph.D., in February with four couples participating and again in May with eight couples. The in-person sessions facilitate community building, while online sessions make it easier for busy young adults to participate without going out every week. In post-workshop surveys most participants said that they felt empowered to talk about interfaith issues with their partners, and that they gained an understanding of how Judaism can fit into their interfaith relationships. Three workshop offerings have been scheduled for the second year.

Help Learning How and Why To Live Jewishly. We developed and offered our first hybrid online/in-person class, Raising a Child with Judaism in Your Interfaith Family, to 21 couples. It includes eight sessions learned online with background reading, audio and video files, and personal journal entries and discussion board posts commented on by the facilitator, and two in-person meetings, a Shabbat experience and a wrap-up session. Each session is designed to teach a Jewish practice that responds to a universal parenting need and value (having a calm and reflective bedtime, appreciation for food and concern for hunger, making a regular time to be grateful, ethical behavior, etc.). Almost all respondents to the post-class surveys said that they felt more knowledgeable about Judaism and Jewish practice and gained more of an understanding of how Judaism can fit into their interfaith family; 10 respondents said their practices had changes as a result of the class to include saying the bedtime Shema, the Hamotzi, and/or Shabbat blessings. In the second year we will have two offerings of Raising a Child and two of our next class, Preparing for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah in Your Interfaith Family.

JESNA is our evaluation consultant and will be administering surveys, conducting follow-up interviews, and issuing a report in 2013. But we are already confident that our model is meeting its important goals. More resources are being listed and attracting more traffic. Professionals are more aware of and sensitive to the needs of interfaith families. Couples are finding clergy to officiate at their life-cycle events and through our workshop are learning how to talk with each other and make decisions about religious traditions for their family. Parents with young children are learning about Judaism and Jewish practices and trying them out.

Every Jewish community should have on-the-ground staff whose job is 100% aimed at addressing these needs of interfaith families in order to engage them Jewishly. The IFF/Your Community model is the first framework that has ever demonstrated the ability to effectively work toward that result, and it can and will be enhanced and expanded as we continue to learn from our experience in Chicago and new communities as we add them. We are close to having the funding necessary to implement IFF/San Francisco and IFF/Philadelphia later in 2012, we have an ambitious plan to be in eleven communities in five years, and we have just launched a job search for a national Director of IFF/Your Community to manage this growth.

We think this is “big” and we hope many Jewish leaders will agree.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

Insights on Engaging Interfaith Families from the NY Community Study

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The 2011 Jewish Community Study of New York, released in June 2012, has important findings for all those interested in engaging interfaith families Jewishly.

The study confirms that there is a huge amount of intermarriage, and it is continuing. Between 2006 and 2011, one in three non-Orthodox Jews who married, married someone who was not Jewish (a 33% individual rate of intermarriage); 50% of the non-Orthodox couples formed were intermarried couples (a 50% couples rate of intermarriage) (135).1 Twelve percent of the children (age 0 to 17) in Jewish households — 50,000 children — are in intermarried households (183).

The study reports that 31% of the children of intermarried households are raised Jewish and 11% are raised “Jewish and something else,” while 13% have parents who are undecided and 46% are raised not Jewish (180-81).2 A goal of having more than 50% of intermarried parents raise their children Jewish is reachable — if the undecided parents and the parents raising their children Jewish and something else can be influenced towards more Jewish choices.

The tone of much of the study follows an approach consistently taken in the past by Steven M. Cohen, the study’s principal author, that lumps together all intermarried couples and then highlights their relatively low levels of Jewish engagement when compared to all in-married couples. The policy implications of this approach are that it is not worth making efforts to engage interfaith couples. A different approach, which compares those intermarried couples who are Jewishly engaged with in-married couples, highlights their relatively comparable levels of Jewish engagement; the policy implications of that approach, which is reflected to a degree in the study, are to make efforts to move more intermarried couples to Jewish engagement.

For example, the study reports that the children of intermarried households receive relatively little Jewish education — only 35% are sent to supplemental school; but of the 15% of intermarried households that are synagogue members, 90% send their children to supplemental school. The policy implication clearly is to try to influence intermarried households to become synagogue members — and the study does say, somewhat reluctantly, “Perhaps expanding congregation-based efforts to engage intermarried households is worth pursuing” (28).

For another example, of intermarried households that are raising their children exclusively Jewish, 54% score high or very high on the study’s index of Jewish engagement (182).3 The policy implication clearly is to try to influence intermarried households to raise their children as Jews — and the study does say that the fact that 13% of intermarried parents are undecided about how they are raising their children “suggest that communal efforts to engage intermarried couples should support efforts to raise Jewish children” (28).

For another example, the study reports that the intermarried are less engaged because they have fewer Jewish social connections, with 77% of those age 30-39 living fairly isolated from other Jews — but adds, “These patterns suggest one approach: connect the intermarried socially to other Jews” (162).

The study’s authors ask an important question: “To what extent has the Jewish community made progress in closing the engagement gap associated with intermarriage?” Comparing their findings to those of the 2002 community study, they conclude that the intermarried (again lumped all together) became more distant when compared to the in-married (140). Given the negligible communal efforts to engage interfaith families Jewishly since 2002, the lack of progress should not be a surprise.

The study reports that the vast majority of the intermarried say they do not feel uncomfortable attending most Jewish events and activities — only 14% feel uncomfortable, compared to 10% of the in-married (144). In an exchange with Shmuel Rosner, Cohen says, “If discomfort is not a major obstacle to Jewish engagement, then welcoming is not the solution.” Cohen seems to recognize, however, that there is a big difference between not feeling uncomfortable, and feeling truly invited to engage: “Rather than focusing all our energies on welcoming the intermarried, we ought to be focusing on engaging the intermarried, approaches that certainly include welcoming, but go to building relationships and offering opportunities to educate and participate.”

But a related finding exposes widespread negative attitudes about intermarriage that potentially result in disinviting, unwelcoming behavior: high percentages of parents say they would be upset if their adult child married someone not Jewish who did not convert. While 6% of intermarrieds and 12% of converts would be upset, 56% of non-Orthodox in-married Jews would be upset. Feeling that the fact of their relationship is a cause of upset in a community is a factor likely to discourage a couple from engaging with that community.

Sensing negative communal attitudes may explain why more intermarried households make charitable contributions exclusively to non-Jewish causes, and fewer give to Jewish causes (203-05) — and the study does suggest “experiment[ing] with new ways of connecting with those who seem the most disconnected from communal Jewish philanthropy — [including] intermarried households” (30).

The fact that people go where they feel welcomed is supported by another study finding, namely a significant shift of Conservative Jews to Reform, which clearly has been perceived as the more hospitable movement for the intermarried. Of all Jews raised Conservative, 29% now identify as Reform; of all now Reform, 31% were raised Conservative (124).

The study has a very helpful discussion of the current context of shifting identities. It highlights fluidity, with people freely choosing identities based on relationships; malleability, with identities changing over time; and hybridity, a confluence of multiple traditions that is the ethos in American society generally (111-12) .

One aspect of hybridity briefly mentioned in the study is that in 9 of 10 intermarried households, synagogue affiliated or not, Christmas is celebrated by a household member. The study states that “In about half, it is celebrated as a religious holiday” but provides no explanation of what that means. InterfaithFamily’s eight years of December holiday surveys have consistently reported, in contrast, that high majorities of interfaith families raising their children as Jews celebrate Christmas but not as a religious holiday.

The Jewish Community Study of New York report can be found at ujafedny.org/jewish-community-study-of-new-york-201.

[1]The study may understate the amount and the Jewish engagement of what have commonly been thought of as intermarriages. Five percent of study respondents were people who had no Jewish parent and had not formally converted, but identified as “Jewish by personal choice.” A marriage between a Jew (by birth or formal conversion) and such a Jew by personal choice has up to know been thought of as an intermarriage, but the study appears to count such couples as “conversionary, in-married” — resulting in less intermarriage. Moreover, Jews by personal choice almost by definition would be more Jewishly engaged than non-Jews; if marriages involving Jews by personal choice were counted as intermarriages, that should mean more Jewish engagement by intermarried couples than this study, which treats those couples as in-married, reports.

[2]The study frequently attributes cause and effect to intermarriage while being very cautious about doing so with any other issue. Thus the study concludes that intermarriage — as opposed to other factors such as what the partners bring to the marriage — “strongly influences” whether children are raised as Jews, the Jewish engagement level of the home, and the Jewish educational choices for their children (191). In contrast, for example, on the question whether having fewer Jewish acquaintances causes less engagement, the study says “Of course, the chicken and egg here are difficult to discern. Do people with many Jewish intimates acquire and sustain Jewish engagement, or do Jewishly engaged people form and sustain Jewish friendships and family relationships?”

[3]Many of the study’s findings are organized around an index of Jewish engagement, based on twelve factors selected by the study’s authors (118), and the study frequently refers to intermarried households scoring low on that index — for example, 70% of the intermarried score low on the engagement index (142). The authors acknowledge, however, that indicators that can be undertaken individually or with friends and family, that don’t demand formal affiliation or collective action, are not included in their engagement index (119). As intermarried households are more involved with these indicators that are not included on the study’s index, their Jewish engagement is understated by the index.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

Mazel Tov, Mark and Priscilla

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As our friend Jason Miller reported earlier today, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan were married yesterday.

A year and a half ago I expressed concern that the Jewish world was about to “blow it” again with a celebrity interfaith couple. At the time, a columnist had speculated that Zuckerberg was in love with Chan because she was not Jewish. I said that was ridiculous and offensive, and worried that we were going to see the same kinds of negative reactions to Zuckerberg’s relationship with Chan as we saw from Jewish leaders about the wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky.

Sure enough, Dr. Aliza Lavie, from Bar Ilan University in Israel, reportedly spoke out against Zuckerberg’s marriage and pronounced that “The children of another successful Jewish man will not be counted as Jews.”

Dr. Lavie, we beg to differ. There are thousands and thousands of children of Jewish men who count themselves and Jews, and who are counted in significant parts of the Jewish community as Jews. It is tiresome but necessary to keep on repeating this to Israelis – and to many American Jews too who haven’t yet got the message.

We send a hearty mazel tov to Mark and Priscilla and we hope they will find welcome and support and encouragement whenever and however they may choose to engage in Jewish life and community.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

Good News (x2) for InterfaithFamily

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We are extremely pleased to report that the Natan Fund has awarded InterfaithFamily.com a renewal grant for 2012. Natan’s announcement in eJewishPhilanthropy.com explains that Natan is a network of about 80 young philanthropists who pool their charitable resources and collaborate to make grants to emerging Jewish and Israeli nonprofit organizations. Natan received 350 letters of inquiry and made 47 grants to express “Natan members’ unwavering commitment to supporting innovative initiatives that aretransforming 21st-century Jewish life.”

Board chair David Steinhardt says, “Natan continually takes risks on new ideas, new people and new initiatives, while at the same time remaining committed to current grantees that are demonstrating success.” We’re thrilled that the young funders participating in Natan have re-affirmed their confidence in the importance of IFF’s work.

Cindy Sher, Editor of Chicago’s Jewish newspaper JUF News, wrote a great article about InterfaithFamily/Chicago last week, Navigating Jewish living with interfaith families. She interviewed two Chicagoland interfaith couples, features our Love and Religion workshop that started last week and our Raising a Child with Judaism in Your Interfaith Family class that is starting at the end of the month, and highlights that “IFF/Chicago has teamed up with several Chicago-area Jewish organizations on interfaith programming, including PJ Library, the JCC’s Shure Kehilla program, and the Community Foundation for Jewish Education’s Principal Kallah.” We are very pleased with the progress of our InterfaithFamily/Chicago pilot and excited about the opportunities to replicate it in other communities.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

A Mover and Shaker

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We’re thrilled that our friend Elana MacGilpin, one of our Parenting Blog regulars, was recognized by the Connecticut Jewish Ledger as one of their 2011 Movers and Shakers!

The article notes that Elana is best known for is coordinating outreach programs specifically for interfaith families and couples. Elana is quoted as saying, “One of the great challenges and opportunities of the current and future Jewish community is to provide a warm and welcoming environment for interfaith families and extended family members who aren’t Jewish… Interfaith families are searching for ways to connect with the Jewish community and Judaism in ways that are comfortable as well as meaningful.”

Jewish communities don’t often enough single out for praise people working to engage interfaith families in Jewish life and community. It’s significant that both the Hartford federation president and JCC executive director sing Elana’s praises in this article. And the honor couldn’t happen to a nicer and more dedicated and capable person. Congratulations!

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

Remembering Newt Becker

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As you can imagine, there have been a lot of ups and downs for me since starting InterfaithFamily.com, Inc. ten years ago. I have a very distinct memory of one of the high points. Although I’m not completely certain where it happened – I believe it was at the then-United Jewish Communities General Assembly in Cleveland in 2004 where we had a booth in the exhibit hall – I specifically remember a man I didn’t know stopping by our booth and starting to talk. It was the start of a wonderful and sustaining relationship with Newt Becker, who sadly died two days ago.

If the Jewish world had more philanthropists like Newt Becker, we would be in much better condition. Not that it was easy to gain his support – in fact he was very inquisitive and he was very tough-minded. I have six pages of notes from a phone call with Newt in October 2005 filled with his questions on what we were doing and suggestions for projects we should undertake. He gave me many names of people to call and I noted “use Newt’s name” by each one of them.

I have an email Newt sent to a colleague, a professional fundraiser, after that call. He said he had made a commitment to IFF “but Edmund needs more than money.” He asked his friend to critique my powerpoint and pointed out a slide that he thought was important and missing. Fortunately, although the presentation needed improvement, Newt said that I was a “serious person.” The commitment he made was the largest individual gift we received in our early years.

We talked once or twice a year and the calls always lasted at least an hour. Newt wanted to know what was going on and when it was something he knew about – like distance learning and web based instruction and local chapters in our case – he shared his experience, made suggestions, and asked to review what we came up with. But he was very generous, and he was a committed funder over the years, and one of the nicest things he ever did was increase his gift by 25%  – without being asked – after Madoff and the economic downturn in late 2008. The last time I talked to Newt this fall, in response to a matching challenge, he increased his gift again, this time by 33%.

Engaging interfaith families in Jewish life was not a popular funding area in 2005 (it still isn’t popular enough) but I don’t think Newt cared much about what was popular or not. He didn’t hesitate to support our efforts and my notes and emails are replete with his comments that the federations and movements should be doing more.

I didn’t really know Newt personally but I’m fortunate to have gotten to know his daughter-in-law Ann a little more. I’m sure Newt was a loving parent and grandparent because he often spoke to me proudly about his family, and because Ann has often mentioned happy family occasions like her son’s recent Bar Mitzvah. I hope Newt’s family will find comfort in what should be an outpouring of affection and gratitude for the very positive impact he had on our world.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.