Chelsea Clinton May Not Need Help Finding a Rabbi for Her Wedding, But…

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Chelsea Clinton’s engagement to Marc Mezvinsky is big news; Ruth Abrams’ blog post here yesterday was picked up by the Atlantic’s blog, the Atlantic Wire.

Ruth said it would be interesting to see how the famous couple handles the interfaith aspects of their relationship. One aspect of that of course is whether they will want to have a rabbi officiate, or co-officiate with other clergy, at their wedding.

One blogger speculated that Mezvinsky is affiliated with the Conservative movement based on the couple’s attendance at High Holiday services at the Jewish Theological Seminary. If the couple do want to have a rabbi officiate at their wedding, Conservative rabbis aren’t allowed to do so; they’ll have to look elsewhere.

I’m sure that such a well-connected couple should not have any trouble finding a rabbi. But that isn’t the case for everyone. One of the most important services InterfaithFamily.com provides is our Jewish Clergy Officiation Referral Service. So far this year, we’ve responded to 1,135 inquiries from couples all over the country asking for help to find a rabbi or cantor to officiate or co-officiate at their wedding. (In fact, we’re running a “promotion” right now – couples who request a referral are eligible for a drawing for a $500 gift card – that’s quite an engagement present!)

If it were easy for couples to find Jewish clergy for their weddings, we wouldn’t be experiencing demand for our service. We’d actually be glad if, some day, our service was no longer necessary. But officiation is still controversial among rabbis, so we don’t see that happening any time soon.

The reason we offer our referral service is simple. Recent research confirms that the negative experience many interfaith couples have seeking Jewish clergy to officiate at their weddings is a “huge turnoff” (Intermarriage and Jewish Journeys, National Center for Jewish Policy Studies 2008). Through our officiation referral service, and our work with rabbis, we hope to make that experience one that leads to more Jewish engagement, not less.

So if Chelsea and Marc do want to have a rabbi participate in their wedding, we hope their experience is positive, and we hope it leads to more Jewish engagement – we think Chelsea Clinton would be a great addition to the Jewish community in whatever way she chooses to participate. And the former President and the Secretary of State wouldn’t be too shabby as grandparents for Jewish grandchildren, if that’s the direction the couple decides to take.

And if by any chance they would like help finding a rabbi for their wedding, we have some great ones on our list, both in New York, and ones who travel to Martha’s Vineyard too.

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

Birthright Israel, Jewish Wedding Ceremonies, and Jewish Commitment

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Tucked away in the new Birthright Israel study released yesterday by the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis is a very important discussion about Jewish wedding ceremonies and Jewish commitment among intermarried couples. (I discussed the main findings of the study in a separate post.)

The study authors write:

“Marrying a Jewish person is not the only measure of Jewish commitment. Although such a commitment is difficult to assess, the nature of the wedding ceremony is an additional indicator of Jewish commitment, particularly for intermarried couples. Although not a perfect predictor of future choices, decisions about officiation and wedding rituals provide a window into the place of Jewishness in the lives of these individuals.”

Of intermarried respondents in the study, about half had no clergy, Jewish or otherwise, at their wedding. But among those who had religious officiants, “an estimated 65% made an unambiguously Jewish choice by having a rabbi or cantor alone officiate.” Moreover, at weddings of interfaith couples with a rabbi present, 93% had both a huppah and a ketubah, and another 4% had one or the other.

The authors conclude: “When intermarried participants who chose a Jewish wedding ceremony are added, figuratively, to those who married a Jewish person, the overall propensity for ���marrying Jewishly’ increase to include the vast majority of married [Birthright Israel trip] participants.” Participants had a 72% chance of marrying a Jew, and those who married a non-Jew had a 31% chance of being married by a rabbi alone. “Consequently, participants had a very high likelihood of being married in circumstances where Jewish identity was predominant.”

The likelihood of a non-trip participant being married in circumstances where Jewish identity is preeminent were lower, but not insubstantial – they had a 46% chance of being married to a Jew, and those who married a non-Jew had a 34% chance of being married by a rabbi alone.

These findings are very heartening to us at InterfaithFamily.com. In early 2008 the first studies appeared that showed a correlation between having a rabbi officiate at interfaith couples’ weddings and their later Jewish engagement. But I’ve never seen a study that acknowledges and recognizes that the nature of the wedding ceremony and of wedding officiation in particular is an indicator of Jewish commitment for intermarried couples.

One of IFF’s important activities is our Jewish Clergy Officiation Referral Service. We offer a free, high quality referral service to a list of over 325 vetted rabbis and cantors and we are responding to 100 requests for help a month from all over North America (and a few beyond). Coincidentally, at the same time the Birthright Israel study was released, we sent out one of our routine feedback requests. Here are two of the responses we received yesterday:

“Unfortunately, we had no success in finding someone willing to participate in our son’s wedding. Our daughter will say Hebrew prayers during the ceremony. I understand a rabbi’s feeling of not wanting to participate, but I am saddened to see our son pushed away from our family’s religion.”

“I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you for helping me find a rabbi to officiate our ceremony. We had our wedding at the end of July and thanks to the help from your site, it was a wonderful day.”

Another of IFF’s activities is our Resource Center for Jewish Clergy, which helps rabbis and cantors address questions arising from intermarriage, including – but not limited to – the question of officiation. The RCJC offers “for clergy only” articles and videos, clergy conference/workshops, and one-on-one consultations.

IFF wants to support all rabbis who are welcoming to interfaith couples whether or not they officiate at their weddings. We respect rabbis’ decisions and would never say that the decision not to officiate is wrong. But the purpose of our Jewish Clergy Officiation Referral Service and in part of our Resource Center for Jewish Clergy is to minimize if not eliminate the “turnoff” experience that many couples report when seeking Jewish clergy to officiate. We find a good deal of validation of our approach in the new Birthright Israel study, and applaud the study authors for reporting on the significance of wedding ceremonies where Jewish identity if predominant.

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

Birthright Israel Trips and Intermarriage

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There is important learning in the new Birthright Israel study released yesterday by Len Saxe and his team at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis – and early media coverage is not catching all of it.

The study compares Birthright Israel trip participants to non-participants. It finds that trip participants have a stronger sense of Jewish identity and peoplehood and demonstrate a stronger relationship to Israel. But the Wall Street Journal’s title captures what the main buzz will be: Jewish Marriage Tied to Israel Trip. Of those that are married, 46% of non-participants are married to a Jew, compared to 72% of participants; thus participants are 57% more likely to in-marry.

There are many other related findings: of those respondents with intermarried parents, trip participants were three times more likely to in-marry; of those respondents married to spouses who were not raised Jewish, there is an apparent higher rate of conversion among spouses of trip participants. Of unmarried respondents, trip participants were 46% more likely to view marrying a Jew as very important. Of those respondents under 30, trip participants were less likely to be married than non-participants; the authors suggest that trip participants may spend a longer time searching for a Jewish partner.

Birthright Israel may very well be the most successful Jewish continuity program ever. It is very positive news that trip participation is associated with Jews marrying other Jews. But in my opinion there is a more important message from the study, and that is that trip participation is associated with greater motivation to raise Jewish children.

The study finds that 74% of trip participants view raising children as Jews as very important, compared to 57% of non-participants; thus participants are 30% more likely to have that view. What’s more, of intermarried participants, participants are almost twice as likely to have that view: 52% view raising children as Jews as very important, compared to 27% of non-participants.

The authors connect this finding with their previous research that children with intermarried parents who are raised exclusively as Jews have similar levels of Jewish engagement as children of inmarried parents. They conclude that “The present data suggest that both inmarried and intermarried [trip] alumni are highly motivated to raise their children as Jews.” (The study couldn’t measure rates of actual raising of children as Jews, as compared to attitudes about doing so, because not enough time has passed since the trips commenced.)

It’s very important to remember the study’s finding that of trip participants who were married, 28% were intermarried. The study also notes that although trip participants are more likely to view marrying a Jew as very important, they are not significantly more likely to date other Jews. Significant numbers of young Jews are going to continue to intermarry, Birthright Israel trip or not.

It’s also important to remember that half of young adults who identify or could identify as Jews have one Jewish parent. That population will be increasingly important to the liberal Jewish future. This study shows that the Birthright Israel experience gives young adults – including those with one Jewish parent — a stronger sense of Jewish identity and peoplehood. Other recent research shows that young adults with one Jewish parent are interested in Jewish spirituality. Barry Shrage, the visionary leader of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Boston federation, has emphasized to me that stimulating and responding to these young adults’ potential interests in Jewish community and spirituality is a winning combination.

It would be a shame if the main message of the study, that trip participation is associated with more in-marriage, is twisted into viewing Birthright Israel as a “cure” or “antidote” to intermarriage or the “solution” to the “intermarriage problem.” Senior representatives of two of Birthright Israel’s leading funders have assured me that that is exactly not the message they want to see conveyed. They want to attract the children of intermarried parents to Birthright Israel trips. They understand that marketing Birthright Israel as a preventative to intermarriage risks pushing those young people away — who wants to go on a trip that will prevent them from doing what their parents did? Finally, they understand, I believe, that the most important impact of the Birthright Israel experience is the motivation to engage in Jewish life and have Jewish children – whether the marriage is “in” or “inter.”

There is one other set of very important findings in the study – but I’ll leave that for a separate post.

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

Slingshot

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We’re very proud and pleased to announce that for the fifth year in a row, InterfaithFamily.com has been included in Slingshot: A Resource Guide For Jewish Innovation.

The Slingshot guide is “an annual compilation of the 50 most inspiring and innovative organizations, projects, and programs in the North American Jewish community today.” It’s very prestigious, because hundreds of organizations apply, and a team of top foundation professionals evaluate them; being included gives a invaluable hechsher, a stamp of approval, to other funders who are looking to find and support innovative causes. To download or order a copy of the guide, click here.

The Slingshot guide was first published in 2005, and only twelve organizations, including IFF, have been included each year. In this year’s guide, the “five-timers” are featured with an introductory article about how organizations can grow and remain relevant to the next generation of the Jewish community. We are thrilled to be included with a group of organizations like Hazon, JDub Records, Jewish Funds for Justice, Jewish Milestones,Mayyim Hayyim, and Moving Traditions.

The Slingshot guide is produced by the Slingshot Fund, which has been hosted at the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies and is significantly supported by the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund. We were thrilled to receive grants from the Slingshot Fund in 2007, the year they first made grants, and again in 2008. We didn’t get a grant for a third year in a row, but want to congratulate the fine organizations that did, including our friends at Mayyim Hayyim, the Jewish Funds for Justice, Keshet, synagogue/:2eyoxwqz”>Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, Gateways: Access to Jewish Education, the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, and Footsteps.

Each year there is a “Slingshot Day” which brings together most of the organizations included in the guide and many funders. This year’s Slingshot Day was last week on October 15. There were great plenary sessions with leading thinkers from both the non-profit and for-profit worlds, including Leslie Crutchfield, author of Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Non-Profits, Phillip Holmes, LA Director of Blue State Digital, Nancy Lublin, CEO of DoSomething.org, and Adam Werbach, author of Strategies for Sustainability. There were also great breakout groups; I attended one lead by Sarah Meyer of the Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation and Nancy Schwartz Sternoff of the Dobkin Family Foundation on “Defining Innovation.” Slingshot Day is a great networking opportunity, not only because of the excellent presenters, but also for the relatively rare opportunity it affords for non-profit leaders to connect with each other. We’re very fortunate to be included.

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

What Israelis–and Americans?–need to know about intermarriage in North America

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Yesterday the Jerusalem Post published an op-ed I wrote, What Israelis need to know about intermarriage in North America.

About a month ago I blogged about the MASA “Lost Jews” ad campaign, which implied that all of the 50% of young Jews outside of Israel who intermarried were assimilated and “lost.” This is a common misconception in the English-speaking Israeli press, and I called it “the most stupid, ill-conceived effort coming out of Israel in many years.” MASA is a great program that brings young adults to Israel for six months to a year, but promoting it as an antidote to intermarriage will alienate the 50% of young adults who have intermarried parents and who might potentially be attracted to the program.

The ad was pulled, reportedly at the direction of Natan Sharansky, the chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel which controls the MASA program. The controversy even generated an article by Associated Press writer Amy Tweibel, which was widely distributed on newspaper websites all over the US, for example, on the San Francisco Examiner site.

Mr. Sharansky, who is a great hero of the Jewish people, reportedly said that it was important for Israelis to better understand North American Jewry, and vice versa. I thought that was a welcome idea, but then I got worried about who would be teaching Israelis about intermarriage in America, and what they would be told. That’s why I wrote the op-ed, because it is critical for Israelis to know that intermarriage does not necessarily lead to loss of Jewish identity and affiliation; that many interfaith couples and families are engaging in Jewish life; and that intermarriage has the potential to increase support for Israel in America.

If the teaching ever takes place, I don’t know if I’m optimistic about the chances for a balanced presentation about intermarriage. I think that the Jewish Agency or MASA are likely to turn to Jewish thought leaders who hasten to view intermarriage as a threat to Jewish continuity. That’s the approach taken by Jack Wertheimer in a recent op-ed in the Forward, Time for Straight-Talk about Assimilation.

I can’t tell whether fundamental attitudes about intermarriage have changed among Jews more generally. The recent case of the Feinbergs, who wrote into their will that any descendant who intermarried would be disinherited, is another example of deep-seated hostility towards intermarriage. My colleague Ruth Abrams blogged recently about the case, and our friend Julie Wiener quoted me in her column for the New York Jewish Week, Does It Pay to Marry a Jew. Not only were the Feinbergs wrong to think they could deter their descendants from intermarrying, but they likely discouraged their descendants who did intermarry from engaging in the Jewish life that the Feinbergs wanted to preserve. In talking with Julie I expressed frustration at the apparent ongoing unwillingness to see intermarriage as an opportunity. Julie as I recall disagreed, saying the outcry over the MASA ad and its prompt undoing indicated that attitudes had become more favorable. I’m not so sure. What do you think?

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

Worth Reading: More Talk About Intermarriage

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Just a quick post about two important discussions about intermarriage. In the current issue of the  Forward, Adam Bronfman debates Jack Wertheimer in Straight Talk About Assimilation: An Exchange. Adam is the managing director of the Samuel Bronfman Foundation, one of InterfaithFamily.com’s leading funders, and we continue to applaud his outspoken leadership on our issues.

Also, Jeremy Ben Ami, the executive director of J Street, had some interesting comments about intermarriage in an interview with Atlantic correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg. For comment, check out  J Street Chief Talks About Intermarriage on Tablet Magazine. As always, Andy Silow-Carroll, editor of the New Jersey Jewish News, has an insightful take on Ben Ami’s comments on his  blog.This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

A Stupid, Ill-conceived Approach from Israel

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Yesterday Ha’aretz reported that MASA, which it describes as “an organization that works to strengthen ties between Israel and Diaspora Jews,” had “launched a scare-tactic campaign that urges Israelis to combat assimilation in North America by working to prevent the “loss” through intermarriage of their own Jewish acquaintances.

This has got to be the most stupid, ill-conceived effort coming out of Israel in many years.

MASA is a partnership between the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Israeli government that helps finance and market semester- and year-length Israel programs for Jews outside of Israel. (The Jewish Agency for Israel is the organization in charge of immigration and absorption of Jews from outside of Israel.)

According to Ha’aretz, the 10-day Hebrew-language campaign features a video clip with a top Israeli TV reporter stating that more than 50% of young Jews assimilate. It likens Jews who marry outside of the religion to missing persons, with fake notices and pictures that as part of the campaign will be plastered on walls around Israel. MASA hopes the campaign will spur the Israeli public to commit to the cause of preventing marriage to non-Jews, which Jewish Agency officials believe is tantamount to a “strategic national threat.”

Equating intermarriage with assimilation is the classic mistake that Israeli leaders repeatedly make, as anyone who follows the Israeli press knows. I have long thought that Israeli leaders have no conception whatsoever of the realities of intermarriage in North America. (Last year when the annual convention of the United Jewish Communities was held in Jerusalem, I proposed a session to be called “What Israelis Should Know About Intermarriage in North America,” but the idea was rejected.)

Israeli leaders simply do not understand that many intermarried couples, and the adult children of intermarried parents, are actively engaging in Jewish life.

And they most certainly do not understand that many more would do so if they were welcomed, not described as a “strategic threat” by the community they want to participate in.

Indeed, the “strategic threat” to the liberal Jewish future lies in not doing whatever can be done to attract and support Jewish choices by people in interfaith relationships.

The MASA campaign is a step in exactly the wrong direction. According to Ha’aretz, the ad asks anyone who “knows a young Jew living abroad” to call MASA and concludes, “Together, we will strengthen his or her bond to Israel, so that we don’t lose them.” Half of those “young Jews living abroad” have intermarried parents and many of the rest are put off by condemnations of intermarriage. If MASA thinks it will successfully recruit those young Jews to its programs by marketing them as an antidote to intermarriage, it is very sadly mistaken.

It wasn’t that long ago that Jewish identity building programs in North America – birthright Israel, Jewish summer camps, day schools – marketed themselves as preventing intermarriage. After some effective lobbying took place, that rarely happens today. A significant percentage of birthright Israel trip participants have one Jewish parent, and the leaders and funders of that program realized that denigrating intermarriage would deter that population from participating. The leaders and funders of camps and day schools likewise realized that they couldn’t sell their programs to intermarried parents by arguing that they would prevent their children from intermarrying.

My hope is that the North American leaders of the United Jewish Communities and the philanthropists who have funded these programs and who have influence with the Jewish Agency and the government of Israel will use that influence wisely to lobby for an end to MASA’s counter-productive campaign.

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

Even in Canada

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Back in January I was contacted by a staff member of the United Israel Appeal Federations Canada (UIA) who was researching international best practices for outreach to underserved members of Jewish communities, including interfaith couples. I gave her a lot of information about outreach programs in the US. I remember thinking at the time that things must be changing in Canada, which traditionally has had lower rates of intermarriages.

A new study by UIA verifies that that is the case. It reports that by 2021 “2/5 of the largest communities in Canada are projected to have intermarriage rates above 50% and over 1/3 of all individuals residing in couples families will be living in interfaith arrangements.”

The report also states, “It is incumbent upon Jewish communal institutions to strongly consider facilitating the participation of interfaith couples.  . . . if the organized community can accept intermarried couples and their children through the institutions of the synagogue, school, daycare, and other community-oriented programs, then there is a greater likelihood that they will choose to be Jewish.”

Given how behind the Canadian Jewish community has been in having to address intermarriage, I was amazed that the UIA report says that one area where the organized Jewish community can make a difference is in rabbinic officiation at weddings of interfaith couples: “Having a Rabbi officiate at an interfaith ceremony is extremely important to the likelihood of future participation in Jewish life. In fact, 50% of interfaith couples married by a Rabbi indicated that it is important to them that their eventual grandchildren are raised Jewish as opposed to 18% when no Rabbi officiated at their wedding ceremony.”

And I was glad to see making resources readily available for interfaith couples on websites as another of their recommended actions.

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

More Secular? Or More Spiritual?

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There were a number of articles and comments on the Internet last week about a new report from the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey to the effect that the number of American Jews who consider themselves religiously observant has declined by more than 20 percent over the last two decades while the number of Jews who consider themselves secular has risen. Where just 20 percent of Jewish adults described themselves as nonreligious or cultural Jews 19 years ago, that total has risen to about 35 percent. The report’s authors, Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, reportedly attributed the increase in secularism in large part to high rates of intermarriage.

Kosmin and Keysar aren’t completely negative about intermarriage, however. As quoted in the Jerusalem Post, “Keysar said there was a benefit to intermarriage, as many more people were now connected to Jews in America and around the world. ‘If you maintain Jewish culture, you bring new people into the fold,’ she said. ‘We tend to look at [Judaism] as religion, but if you look at the other aspect of culture and history, there are many aspects of Judaism that are open.’ The emphasis on Jewish culture could help fight anti-Semitism, Keysar said.”

Nina Amir, who has frequently written for us in the past, disagrees in the San Jose Jewish Examiner that intermarriage leads to less religiosity. “We would not be practicing Jews at all – in fact, I wouldn’t be writing about Judaism and Jewish spirituality and mysticism – if my husband had not been a non-Jew who later decided to convert.”

The growth in secularism seems to be at odds with the recent Synagogue 3000 study by Steven M. Cohen and Rabbi Larry Hoffman that found increased interest in spirituality among young adult Jews, including the Orthodox, and the non-Orthodox with one Jewish parent, in particular. We blogged about that study just four months ago. This may be a matter of definition – when Kosmin and Keysar talk about religiosity and religiously observant, they may not be talking about those who are spiritual but not interested in traditional forms of prayer. As Rabbi Brad Hirshfield of Clal is quoted in Jewkey.com, the study “doesn’t say the Jewish people or Judaism is dying. What it is saying is the way religiously identified Jews are practicing their Judaism is not working for a lot of people. It’s an opportunity — the kind of opportunity that paved the way for the Protestant Reformation.”

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

Rabbinical School and Interfaith Marriage, Part 3

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A new article in Tablet, Big Tent Country by Marissa Brostoff, sheds some light on the issue of rabbinical schools accepting and ordaining intermarried rabbis.

We blogged about this issue three months ago, when New Voices published an important article, The Coming of the Intermarried Rabbi. At the time, I wrote that “there could be no better role model for interfaith couples than an interfaith partner who is so Jewishly engaged that he or she is a rabbi,” and that “Intermarried rabbis would be particularly inspiring to the interfaith couples who they served — and there is no reason they could not be inspiring to in-married couples as well.”

The Tablet article tells about Ed Stafman, a former attorney who intermarried, became active in a Reform synagogue, and eventually was ordained by the Renewal-affiliated Aleph Rabbinic Program, the only seminary that does not reject intermarried students outright. Rabbi Stafman will be installed next week as rabbi at Beth Shalom, a Reform synagogue in Bozeman, Montana.

What’s most interesting to me in the article are the comments by the members of Beth Shalom, which support the notion of an intermarried rabbi as a role model and inspiration for interfaith couples. Beth Shalom is by all descriptions a heavily intermarried congregation. One person in the hiring process said that Stafman’s being intermarried “might be a great asset because we’re so intermarried here that you might have a better understanding of the congregation.” Another said, “I think it will be very beneficial to those interfaith families in the community, and that they will really feel they have a home at Beth Shalom.”

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