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 least not if the ways that interfaith families experience and resolve negative religious stereotypes serve as a model for people of good faith.

The movie is anti-Semitic because of the choices Gibson made in telling his story. He could have chosen to portray Pontius Pilate as the bloodthirsty dictator who crucified thousands of Jews. Instead, he portrays Pilate as virtually blameless in deciding to crucify Jesus, especially when Jesus says to Pilate, in effect, that “those who delivered me to you are responsible.” He could have chosen to portray the Jewishness of Jesus’ supporters, both before he was condemned and after, as well as the Temple priests and their followers who were threatened by him. Instead, the Jewish masses are nearly uniformly depicted–with but a handful of exceptions–as clamoring for Jesus’ death and then tormenting him on his way to the crucifixion. When Jesus dies, a “tear” drops from heaven, causing an earthquake that literally splits the foundation of the Temple. That’s an unequivocal message of Christian triumphalism that is out of step with current mainstream views that recognize Judaism as an authentic religious path.

The flashback scenes of Jesus’ life, especially talking with his disciples at the Last Supper, and the brief scene of the Resurrection, are filmed in a powerfully attractive way, bathed in golden light. They reminded me of the equally effective video shown at the end of the tour of the Mormon church’s headquarters in Salt Lake City. Slickly presented video images that make the viewer want to believe a particular theological point of view offend my liberal sensibilities.

I don’t begrudge Mel Gibson’s right to tell the story of Jesus’ death or to make Christian theology attractive. My wife noted something that I would have missed–it makes sense for the movie to focus on Jesus’ suffering in order to emphasize the Christian theological point that Jesus suffered in order to save humanity. But the movie could have depicted the suffering with considerably less violence and still made the point, the same way that it could have depicted the involvement of the Jewish leaders and masses in a more balanced way, and could have depicted Christian theology as attractive without trashing Judaism.

What impact will The Passion have on relationships between Christians and Jews? It is instructive to consider the ways that the tensions and concerns that surround the movie acutely affect Christians and Jews in the most intimate of relationships: the interfaith family. A tremendous increase in marriages between Christians and Jews has accompanied and contributed to declining anti-Semitism in the U.S. since the 1960s. According to the most recent National Jewish Population Survey, 47 percent of Jews now marry non-Jews, and 31 percent of all married Jews today are married to non-Jews. There are more than one million interfaith couples in the United States, plus millions more parents, siblings and cousins in their extended families, squarely in the path of the controversy swirling around Gibson’s movie.

Christians and Jews in interfaith families start with the same range of attitudes towards each other’s faith backgrounds as those held by Christians and Jews generally. Many Jewish partners are not familiar with Christian theology, and view Christian history as a progression of anti-Semitic persecution and anticipate that it will recur. Many Christian partners remember anti-Semitic teachings from their churches and clergy.

Growing up, people come to understand the world based on their own experiences and on what they learn from stories told by others. Many Christians have learned and internalized, from stories told by others, including the Gospels, negative images of Jews. When they have actual experience with Jews in personal relationships, their views change. One of our writers, Rosemary Brehm, a Catholic woman married to a Jew and raising Jewish children, recalled in an article the negative stereotypes of Jews she learned in her pre-Vatican II Catholic upbringing as “imprinting a picture of a flawed people–the people who rejected Christ–in my mind.” Although official church doctrine is supposed to have eliminated those negative perspectives, she still encounters them in the high school Catholic religion class she teaches, and worries that The Passion will reinforce them. But most people in interfaith relationships will reject any negative image of Jews that arises from The Passion because of their own experiences.

Intimate family relationships are transforming, because dealing with the real person in the relationship usually demolishes any stereotype brought to the relationship. Brehm, who grew up hearing “that Jews are cheap, outspoken and pushy,” knows that her Jewish husband and his relatives and their children are not. Likewise, despite growing up hearing that “the Jews had Christ killed”–and now re-hearing that message in The Passion–she knows that the Jews in her family are not responsible even if some Jews at the time of Jesus’ death had some involvement.

Many Christian partners report with some chagrin that they grew up unaware of the anti-Semitic nature of comments that they acquiesced or even participated in. Paula Yablonsky, another recent InterfaithFamily.com contributor, wrote: I never thought of remarks like “Jew him down” as being anti-Semitic, and I never thought it my job to correct anyone making these remarks–until I became involved with the Jewish man who is now my husband.

Christians have no monopoly on prejudice against the “other.” Christian partners in interfaith relationships too often report off-putting comments about “the goyim” from Jews. But interfaith partners become sensitized to comments and behaviors that make each other feel hurt or excluded, and discover how to be inclusive. As Brehm said, “We are intertwined. What hurts one, hurts all. We are extra aware of and sensitive to factors that most intra-faith families wouldn’t think of.”

Interfaith partners come to realize because of their relationship that prejudice against the “other” is personal to them. As another writer, Jim Keen, said ,

“Yes, I am Protestant. But my family is Jewish, and I now know a little bit about what it’s like to think and feel Jewishly. Before, I never thought much about what it was like to be hated by neo-Nazis. Perhaps that is the real issue. Maybe it had been my problem all along.”

They also realize that they can help to affect positive change because of their relationship, as when Brehm wrote: “I may not be able to change a person’s mind, but I can neutralize her image of Jews and provide a different perspective through educating her about who my family is and who Jews are.”

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 and colleagues who spoke at his February 1 funeral made clear.

I was a beneficiary of Dr. Mayer’s work long before I knew who he was. In the mid-1980s, I was able to find places in the Jewish community that would welcome my interfaith family. The work of two individuals, more than any other, made that possible. One was Rabbi Alexander Schindler, of blessed memory, who opened the Reform Movement to intermarried families through the Reform Jewish Outreach program and the doctrine of patrilineal descent. The other was Egon Mayer. He was an opinion leader who fostered welcoming attitudes toward interfaith families in significant parts of the organized Jewish communal world.

As his colleague Rela Geffen explained at the funeral, in the 1970s Egon Mayer was one of a small group of sociologists and demographers who began to study intermarriage and talk about it with Jewish communal professionals. His approach, unique at the time, was to see intermarriage not only as a threat to Jewish continuity, but also as a potential opportunity. In 1985, he wrote Love and Tradition: Marriage Between Jews and Christians, a ground-breaking work in which he explained the then-novel idea that an intermarriage did not necessarily mean a rejection of Jewish connections, and advocated for the importance of welcoming interfaith families to the Jewish community. In 1988 he became the founding director of the Jewish Outreach Institute. After the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey showed that half of Jews were intermarrying, he continued his research, and trained outreach professionals and developed outreach programs that have influenced countless interfaith families. When intermarriage was debated in the Jewish community — as it most vigorously was — and when news stories about intermarriage appeared, Egon Mayer invariably was the person articulately arguing for the pro-outreach view.

I met Dr. Mayer for the first time in January 1998. My class at Brandeis’ Hornstein Program in Jewish Communal Service was making a trip to New York to visit the major communal organizations. I contacted Egon and asked if he would meet with me, explaining that I was a “recovering” lawyer who wanted to do something, at that point undefined, in the outreach field. That was the beginning of a much-too-short relationship in which he gave generously of this time, wise advice, and encouragement at every step of my journey — after I joined Jewish Family & Life!, which had already created the online magazine InterfaithFamily.com, in 1999, and which for a time helped to maintain the Jewish Outreach Institute’s website; when I founded InterfaithFamily.com as an independent non-profit and acquired the website at the beginning of 2002; and as we thereafter expanded our work.

By 2001, when the Coalition to Promote In-Marriage made several particularly heated attacks on intermarriage, Egon told me he was tired of fighting with the anti-outreach forces. He continued to share his thoughts, and to advise and encourage my own writing and speaking out on the issues. I received no higher praise than a compliment from Egon, but his brilliance, insight and eloquence are unparalleled, and will be sorely missed.

What stood out most clearly at Egon’s funeral, however, were not his extensive professional accomplishments, but the descriptions of his character, which resonated completely with my own experience. Many of the ten speakers at the funeral said he was “kind,” “gentle,” “generous,” “supportive.” One referred to what were, for Egon, “effortless acts of loving kindness.” During his illness, his main expressed concern was the sadness and pain that those who loved him would experience. A close professional colleague said Egon was the finest person she had ever known, in terms of integrity, values, and most importantly, in the way he treated people; she explained that Egon was always kindly because he did not want to cause the people he dealt with any more pain than was necessary.

As his rabbi, Lee Friedlander, said, “how remarkable he was.” What struck me as most remarkable, was that such a caring person had devoted much of his professional life to such a controversial subject and yet maintained a positive outlook. Egon was no shrinking violet; he was brilliant, he was tenacious with ideas, and in private at least he could be quite acerbic in his assessment of opposing arguments. But as one speaker said, Egon had a characterological bent to see the glass as half full. That was his approach both to life in general, and to intermarriage in particular.

Pirke Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, relates that Hillel said, “Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving mankind and bringing them nigh to the Torah.” I’d like to think that Egon maintained his optimism because he knew in his heart what his brother said in his eulogy: that in his advocacy for inclusion in the Jewish community, Egon Mayer was indeed a “pursuer of peace.”

May his memory be for a blessing.

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 47% or 54%, depending on how it is calculated–would finally be revealed. The Jewish community once again faces the issue of whether we want to increase the numbers of interfaith families who raise their children as Jews, thereby strengthening our community.

There is a Talmudic expression, “go and see what the people are doing” (Eruvin 14b). Through the Essay Contest, we asked interfaith families who have made Jewish choices to tell us why they did, what it means to them, what discouraged and what helped them on their journeys. Here are some of the lessons we draw from their over 130 deeply personal statements.

1. Many Jewish partners and many children of intermarried parents express a very strong Jewish identity and commitment to Jewish life, and many non-Jewish partners are extremely supportive of their families’ Jewish involvement. Many writers revealed a very strong desire to identify as Jews and to perpetuate Jewish life, often arising out of a sense of connection with and obligation to parents, grandparents and ancestors, and expressing itself within their interfaith relationship. In perhaps the most powerful example, the Grand Prize essay, Hadassah, Andi Rosenthal tells how she was raised as a Catholic by a non-Jewish mother and a father alienated from his Judaism, and how a mysteriously strong attraction to Judaism began when she first heard Hebrew prayers at a friend’s Bar Mitzvah:

It was then, for the first time, that I felt my heart stand at attention. I did not read or speak Hebrew, and I had no intellectual understanding of what was being said. But it felt almost as if someone had called me by my true name…. That feeling did not go away.

Rosenthal began to study the Holocaust and “wanted to be able to identify with the strength and resilience that had helped a community to rebuild following catastrophe.” She discovered that her father’s mother was a convert to Judaism, and ends up converting to Judaism herself.

Similarly, in The Letter, the First Prize essay in the Raising Jewish Children category, Gary Goldhammer, an intermarried Jewish man, composes a moving letter in which he tells his deceased father how he is raising his five-year old daughter Alexandra:

I need you to know…. Dad, you won’t believe this, but she speaks Hebrew. She goes to synagogue and observes Shabbat. She almost knows more about our people and our religion than I do, probably because she pays more attention in services than I ever did. She is a Jew, dad. I want you to know that.

Annie Modesitt, author of Out on the Porch, the First Prize essay in the Engaging in Jewish Life category, is an extremely supportive non-Jewish mother. (Regular readers of InterfaithFamily.com may recall two of Annie’s previous articles, The Strength of Our Interfaith Marriage and An Interfaith Sweater. Gary Goldhammer’s wife Christine is “very supportive of [their daughter’s] Judaism.” She sings the Barechu “pretty well, too. Oh, and Christine also puts together the synagogue newsletter and is active in our Havurah. Not bad for a Lutheran.”

Two of our writers founded synagogues with their non-Jewish spouses; one child of intermarried parents is in rabbinical school, one plans to be a rabbi, and two were presidents of their colleges’ Hillel. As Joyce MacGregor said:

There are plenty of Reillys and Sullivans and O’Learys who have a Menorah on the shelf, some chopped liver in the fridge, and a deep meaningful connection to their Jewish heritage…. It will be passed to our children as best we know how and continue to be a source of comfort and sadness as we live our lives as part of today’s Jewish people.

Another writer, Felice Morel, said that although her husband never converted to Judaism, he “no longer refers to us as an interfaith family; he calls us a ‘Jewish family in which one parent is not Jewish.'” The Jewish community would do well to understand, accept and welcome that concept – a Jewish family where one parent is not Jewish.

2. Many people–including Jewish partners, non-Jewish partners, and children of intermarried parents–say that because they are in interfaith families, they can not take their Jewish involvement for granted, they have to think about what is important to them, they have to make conscious decisions, and they have to work harder at it. In Beatles Wisdom, the First Prize essay in the Loving Jewish Grandchildren category, Amy Elkes, an interdating Jewish woman, describes her feelings as she brings her non-Jewish boyfriend to meet her Holocaust-survivor grandparents:

I desperately wanted my grandparents to know that dating Nathan had not made me any less Jewish and had, in many ways, strengthened my personal commitment to a faith that was easy to take for granted in a Jewish home, a Jewish grade school, and a largely Jewish community.

And in I am Not a Crisis, the First Prize essay in the Claiming My Jewish Roots category, Anna Mills says,

What does it mean to be Jewish, and how Jewish are you? The questions have an added urgency for me–I can’t take Jewishness for granted.

Today, when everything is a matter of choice, and different activities and affiliations compete for people’s limited time, many people aren’t going to get involved in Jewish life just because they’re born Jewish. Too many Jews–including those married to other Jews–are unaffiliated and apathetic. If we believe, as InterfaithFamily.com does, that engaging in Jewish life is a great source of meaning and purpose and fulfillment, and that people who think about and explore Jewish life will agree that that is the case–then it is a very promising development that people in interfaith families have to make conscious decisions about Jewish life as an option.

One writer, Sara Prentice-Manela, made this very thought-provoking comment:

The biggest challenge interfaith families present to the Jewish community is that we point out to them, by our very existence, that belonging to a community is like being in a marriage–a continuous collaboration, and search, and deliberate choice to belong. That kind of commitment is not entered into lightly.

3. Many parents recognize the importance of giving children one religious identity, and there are particular aspects of Jewish life–theology, Shabbat observance, being non-dogmatic–that appeal to people in interfaith families and could be promoted in outreach efforts. One parent, Joanne Hartman, realized that not choosing led to confusion: “By not choosing we were treading water in a swirling current of religions, without a boat to claim our own.” Another parent, Angela Meyer, said:

Religion is like clothing. It is the parents’ responsibility to dress the very young child appropriately. (“Here is your red coat.”) As the child gets older, explanations may be added, but the clothing decision is still ultimately the parents’. (“You need your red coat because it is very cold today.”) Eventually, the child will be able to choose between a red coat, a blue coat, or even no coat at all. Undoubtedly, if my husband and I had only spoken of religion in the theoretical sense, our children would have been running in the snow with shorts on, and wondering why they were cold.

Several committed Christians said they were comfortable choosing Judaism for their children and family because Jewish theology is not inconsistent with their beliefs, and they recognized that Christian theology is inconsistent with Jewish beliefs. Rosemary DiDio Brehm, for example, said that the question came down to how they could best worship as a family.

Many writers said that they had found Shabbat observance to be particularly meaningful. For example, Cheryl Coon said: “When we sit down together, there’s a peacefulness that comes over us. Something about it, about the ancient Jewish prayers, about being linked to a worldwide tradition, about sharing it together, all of us, has truly brought the beauty and bond of Judaism into our intermarried home.”

Many appreciate how Judaism values questioning, searching, and struggling for answers. Samie Faciolo: “I enjoyed the Jewish encouragement of asking and answering questions. I am still fascinated that through the guidance of texts, traditions and teachers, I have the freedom to question my religion and search for answers.”

4. The power of loving gestures–by both Jews and non-Jews–to invite and support the Jewish choices of people in interfaith relationships cannot be underestimated. In the Grand Prize essay, Andi Rosenthal writes that when she explained to her Catholic mother what becoming Jewish would mean to her:

I had been so afraid of hurting or disappointing her. But she pulled from her purse a small box, which contained a Star of David pendant. She said, “Now I understand what this means to you. I know you want to convert. It’s fine with me. I understand now.”

In the First Prize essay in the grandparenting category, Amy Elkes tells how her Holocaust-survivor grandfather ended his first meeting with her non-Jewish boyfriend by “giving him the same good-bye kiss he usually reserves for his grandchildren”:

There are few moments in my life that have been as meaningful as that kiss on the cheek. My courageous grandfather chose to show affection to a boy who likely represents some of his greatest fears, rather than make his granddaughter feel bad about who she loves.

5. Many interfaith families resolve the fact that there are two identities and traditions in their family by viewing their children as having two cultural identities but one religious identity. Participation in Christmas celebrations should be viewed in this context. About a third of our writers wrote about Christmas. Except for one or two, they all participate in Christmas celebrations, in varied ways. Some don’t have any Christmas in their own home but go to relatives. Some don’t go to church, others do. But without exception, our Jewish writers, including the children of intermarried parents, do not experience Christmas as having religious significance (even those who accompany a non-Jewish parent to church). Their participation is a way of honoring, respecting and caring for the tradition of the non-Jewish partner or parent.

Jemi Kostiner Mansfield, a Jewish educator whose child goes to a day school, has a Christmas tree in her home, because her husband,

wanted our boys to appreciate the traditions from both sides of the family without necessarily identifying with anything outright Christian…. As we see it, our job is to make our family’s Jewish identity so natural, so much a part of us, that it’s not threatened by the presence of a Grand Fir in our living room for one month out of the year.

Judaism is a very family-oriented religion. We can’t expect an interfaith family to cut off half of its background. But we can understand that respecting a parent’s tradition does not have to compromise a child’s religious identity–it does not make the child Jewish “and something else.” As Jo Kaiser wrote,

I also hope to show my daughter that she doesn’t have to banish one part of herself to embrace another. I am not worried that the sight of Santa will turn her into an instant Christian. I have faith in the power of Judaism as a religion and as a way of life. Assimilation happens because what is outside, over there, looks better than what is inside. You don’t guard against it by building a higher wall between you and the rest of the world. What you do is make sure the life you have is irresistibly worth leading.

In another thought-provoking comment, in the First Prize essay in the Engaging in Jewish Life category, Annie Modesitt said,

I have the nerve, chutzpah and joy to believe that marriages and families such as ours will usher in a new renaissance of Jewish thought and learning…. I feel that it is incumbent on all non-Jews who have chosen to affiliate themselves with Jewish spouses and families to use their own cultural tools to enlarge the experience of the Jews in a positive way.

6. The Jewish community’s efforts to increase the involvement of interfaith families should abide by Dr. Phil’s maxim, “every interaction either contributes to or contaminates a relationship.” Interfaith families respond positively to welcoming interactions. Interfaith families respond particularly to rabbis who express gratitude to non-Jewish partners, as when Joanne Hartman said: “The rabbi said that non-Jews raising their children Jewish are making the ultimate generous gift to the world. My non-Jewish husband listened and lovingly said he understood.” Interfaith families respond to rabbis who acknowledge the “Jewishness” of non-Jewish partners’ lives, as when Laura Padersky said: Our Rabbi said something that proved to be a defining moment in my spiritual journey. “You may not have converted, but you do realize that you are living as a Jew, don’t you?” Imagine that, being told by a Rabbi that you act like a Jew!

Many writers were grateful to rabbis who officiated and co-officiated at their weddings. Several were grateful to rabbis who officiated on condition that the couple agree to raise their children as Jews, because, as Kathy Miller said, “the commitment we made to the rabbi was a real one that occurred after mutual discussion and individual soul-searching.”

People want to be welcomed and they want to be accepted as they are. Our writers responded well when they were encouraged to visit and join a synagogue; when the synagogue had many interfaith family members; when synagogue leaders were intermarried; when the worship services and prayerbooks were “user-friendly” with transliterations; when non-Jews are considered members; when non-Jews are allowed to participate in their family’s life-cycle services (Mark Young: “By the time my son became a Bar Mitzvah, I was the first gentile that the old rabbi had ever allowed on the bimah. May his memory be for a blessing.”).

The fact that some branches of Judaism do not recognize the children of Jewish fathers as Jews is a major obstacle to the involvement of interfaith families in Jewish life. This was expressed particularly clearly in two of the prize-winning essays by children of intermarried parents, Nick Zaller (“perhaps the most significant problem children from interfaith families have, particularly us patrilineal Jews, is acceptance from others if or when we decide on a particular religion. I have been told over and over again that I am not a real Jew”) and Johanna Karasik (“I’m struggling a lot with my Jewish identity. There’s no question that I feel Jewish, but halacha says that I am not a Jew”), and also in the First Prize-winning essay in the Raising Jewish Children category, by Gary Goldhammer (“So what does it matter that her mother isn’t a Jew? Don’t I matter, too? Aren’t my genes relevant?”).

7. Many interfaith families respond positively when they know that other interfaith families are involved, and to outreach programs aimed at them. Angela Meyer: “I discovered a dozen other mommies struggling with the same kinds of issues.” Mark Young: “We did visit the temple, and I was very relieved to meet the McVeighs, the O’Flahertys and the Gianninotos.” Laura Kaufman: “I needed a support system. We met other couples like us and joined a havurah made up of interfaith couples.” Participating in a program enabled Leah Singer “to meet other couples, make friends with people who are facing the same issues we face, and feel comfortable branching out into other communities of Judaism in a synagogue.”

Some writers told quite extraordinary stories of the impact of outreach programs on their families. Several wrote about Stepping Stones programs (of parallel parent and young children education, for unaffiliated interfaith families); one young man, Alex Coven, wrote that his parents had been ambivalent about choosing a religion for him, but then they happened to go to such a program, and they ended up joining a synagogue and having his Bar Mitzvah service on Masada. Some writers–both Jews and non-Jews–noted that they needed “how-to” adult education programs because they didn’t “have the tools to make a Jewish life together,” as Leah Singer said. Others were helped by programs designed to help couples communicate about religious differences.

8. Interfaith families connect with Jewish life at varied times and in random ways. The variety of possible connections emphasizes the importance of always standing ready to capitalize on an opportunity to welcome that may arise. People make decisions about Jewish life at varied times: before weddings, when children are born or start school or reach Bar/Bat Mitzvah age, when they go to college, and later. Our writers got involved in random ways: they read articles and books (one non-Jew found her husband’s childhood book about Jewish holidays and customs and starting learning from it); writers saw advertisements for outreach programs in Jewish newspapers or parenting magazines, in emails forwarded by friends or in temple bulletins; they went to a synagogue ostensibly to buy something and ended up talking to someone who invited them in; they were put in touch with someone intermarried who welcomed them (Sue Repko: “I guess that’s what I was hoping would fall from the sky all those years–someone to say, ‘You’re welcome. You can be one of us.'”). Several young adults, children of intermarried parents, wrote about how important it was in their journeys to be welcomed at their college’s Hillel. One young mother experienced a welcoming Jewish community for the first time in her daughter’s Jewish pre-school.

At bottom, we need to have a real change in attitudes. Traditionally, kol yisrael areivim zeh la’zeh, every Jew is responsible for every other Jew. To strengthen the Jewish community by increasing the participation of interfaith families, we need to add that every Jew should also be responsible to be aware of and sensitive to, and to take advantage of, every opportunity to invite interfaith families into Jewish life. We should adopt that new approach, if we truly hear what non-Jews connected with Jewish life, like Teresa McMahon, are saying:

Judaism to me is not a race in danger of elimination, it is a set of ideas that should be shared. A wonderful belief that human beings can make the world a better, more just place. I believe this and I believe that my marriage upholds this set of ideas. We wish more people would be willing to put a bit more faith into interfaith marriages.

Or, in the words of FD Fields:

It may be the poor reception which intermarried couples receive, rather than intermarriage itself, which creates a barrier to be overcome before couples can even consider raising their children Jewish. Perhaps a more constructive approach toward couples, who happen to be intermarried, would increase the percentage who want to choose Judaism for their children.

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 of American Hebrew Congregations, or UAHC) announced a number of cutbacks due to financial constraints. One of the cutbacks is the elimination of the regional outreach coordinator positions, effective March 31, 2003.

If you are a member or leader of a Reform synagogue, we urge you to ask your synagogue’s Rabbi or President (and Executive Committee or Board of Trustees) to ask the UAHC’s leadership to reverse this decision. A draft of a proposed resolution that you or your temple are welcome to use for that purpose is included below.

The implications of this cutback are devastating to the cause of welcoming interfaith families to the Jewish community. The regional outreach coordinators — Jack Kugelmass, Sandy Kellogg, Julie Webb, Ruth Goldberger, Susan Frager, Vicky Farhi, Paula Brody, Ava Harder, Marcia Elbrand, Nancy Gennet, Arlene Chernow, Catherine Fischer, Linda Levin and Wendy Palmer — are an extraordinarily talented and committed group of individuals. They have had a major positive impact, influencing countless thousands of interfaith families toward increased involvement in Jewish life. While there are many outstanding outreach professionals working at federations, JCC’s, Jewish Family Service and other agencies, it is fair to say that thanks to the regional outreach coordinators, more outreach to the intermarried goes on in Reform synagogues than anywhere else.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie is an outstanding leader of the Reform Movement and we have enormous respect for him and the senior professional and lay leadership of the UAHC. But this decision is a grave mistake. We understand that the leadership feels that the goals of outreach — to welcome interfaith families to Reform congregations, to help them make Jewish choices, and to normalize the conversion process — have been largely achieved, and that the headquarters staff in New York can continue to provide vision and program support. But we believe that the great progress that indeed has been made, has been due largely to the regional outreach coordinators’ efforts; that continued progress in welcoming interfaith families to the Jewish community deserves the highest priority and is seriously jeopardized by eliminating the positions; and that the outstanding headquarters outreach staff of Dru Greenwood and Kathy Kahn in New York, even with increased volunteer involvement, simply cannot come anywhere near to providing the level of service that thirteen regional coordinators provide all over North America. If the regional positions are not preserved, we fear that the entire program of Reform Jewish Outreach will be lost.

The Reform Movement is, literally, a union of its member congregations. We believe that if enough congregations speak out, the regional outreach positions can be saved. So we urge you to urge your synagogue leadership to speak out loudly and clearly in favor of saving the regional outreach coordinator positions.

If you would like to participate in our effort, please contact me at edc@interfaithfamily.com. And please keep us posted about what you and your synagogue do in this regard.

With best wishes for a happy new year,
Edmund Case, President & Publisher

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 preservation of Jewish identity.

The Jewish community instead should do everything it can to encourage the Jewish journeys of interfaith families, and to encourage more interfaith families to make Jewish choices.

The biased results of this survey were predictable. They form part of an orchestrated campaign against intermarriage by a small group of Jewish leaders who are unhappy with the lay Jewish community’s increasing acceptance of intermarriage. The American Jewish Committee, which funded the survey, is leading a coalition to promote in-marriage. Sylvia Barack Fishman, who conducted the survey, is a member of that coalition.

Fishman’s key finding is that interfaith families incorporate “substantial Christian elements” in the home. The AJC’s Steven Bayme states that this dynamic is “particularly ominous for Jewish continuity.”

In my opinion, these opponents of intermarriage did not understand what they were observing.

My perspective is as the publisher of InterfaithFamily.com, a non-profit Internet community. Our website attracts thousands of monthly readers who are seeking entryways into Jewish life.

Although many have felt judged and uncomfortable in more traditional Jewish settings, in our magazine they find the warm welcome they have been seeking. They also find numerous personal stories by members of interfaith families who are choosing to live Jewishly, who identify Judaism as the religion of their family and who raise their children exclusively as Jews. These include non-Jewish mothers who learn about Judaism themselves as they teach it to their children, as well as traditional Jews who happen to have fallen in love with a person brought up in a different religion.

On our site readers encounter people who, like them, are grappling with how to raise Jewish children while also respecting the non-Jewish partner and that partner’s family.

This often includes participating in their Christmas and Easter celebrations. Many of these children report that they experience these celebrations not as religious holidays but as warm family times. Their Jewish identity is not at all compromised.

It appears that what Fishman describes as “substantial Christian elements” in fact may be nothing more that having a Christmas or Easter dinner in an interfaith family where the parents say they are raising their children exclusively as Jews. Fishman reports that the respondents in her survey tended to describe such Christian activities in which they participated as not “religious.”

But she suggests that having a Christian holiday celebration in the home is the equivalent of affirming the divinity of Jesus–a notion that is simply ridiculous.

There is a grave danger that the “promoting in-marriage” strategy will simultaneously convey the implicit or explicit message that “intermarriage is bad,” that interfaith families cannot live Jewishly, and that outreach to the intermarried should be abandoned. That message will only exacerbate the rejecting experience and feeling of lack of welcome that many interfaith families identify as obstacles to their Jewish affiliation.

It is possible to both promote in-marriage and at the same time respond positively to intermarrieds. That can’t be done by expressing value judgments. In-marriage can be promoted on utilitarian and pragmatic grounds–that it makes it easier for people to live Jewishly and raise Jewish children–without burning bridges to the many people who will continue to intermarry no matter what Jewish leaders or parents say or do.

The Jewish community must make a concerted, well-financed and well-publicized effort to encourage, welcome and include interfaith families. That is what the majority of the Jewish public wants. To counter the coalition to promote in-marriage, there is a need for a different coalition of Jewish leaders–an alliance to promote Jewish outreach to interfaith families.

March 2001

I write on the eve of Purim — a holiday in which an intermarriage saved the Jewish people — to express dismay at the news that a particular group of Jewish leaders is organizing to promote the importance of in-marriage. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not opposed to in-marriage — it’s just that many of these leaders have shown in the past that their way of promoting in-marriage is to condemn and seek to prevent intermarriage, and to oppose outreach to the intermarried. If that’s what they do again, this new effort will be destructive and a great disservice to the Jewish community.

My perspective is as the publisher of InterfaithFamily.com, a non-profit Internet magazine produced by Jewish Family & Life. Our website attracts thousands of monthly readers who are seeking and finding content that informs them how their interfaith families can live Jewishly and that welcomes them to the Jewish community. (This fall, Jewish Lights Publishing will publish our Guide to Jewish Interfaith Family Life, an anthology of our best articles.) That there is a strong desire to live Jewishly among many interfaith families is evident from routine reader comments like these: “[my main reason for visiting IFF is] to better learn how I can blend into my fiancé’s Jewish family and beliefs, and how we can create a cohesive and healthy Jewish home.” “I am 28, and my fiance is Jewish. We don’t belong to a synagogue right now, but we want to have a Jewish home and raise our children as Jews, so we have begun looking around at various synagogues.” The Jewish community should do everything it can to encourage the Jewish journeys of these interfaith families, and to encourage more interfaith families to make Jewish choices like these families have.

Unfortunately, our readers also report that they had been unaware that any parts of the Jewish community welcomed them, and that they have experienced rejection by Jews. This message percolates down from comments like those of Steven Cohen, who describes intermarriage as “unfortunate,” or Jack Wertheimer, who in his recent Commentary article pronounced outreach efforts a “resounding failure” (even though most intermarried people are not even aware of those efforts), or Elliot Abrams, who opposes using “scarce resources” on people “who have never done a single thing to express interest in Judaism.” Thus when these leaders say that in-marriage is a “fundamental norm of Jewish life,” I fear that their simultaneous message, both implicitly and explicitly, will be that “intermarriage is a bad thing for the Jewish people,” that interfaith families cannot live Jewishly, and that outreach to the intermarried should be abandoned. These comments will only exacerbate the rejecting experience and feeling of lack of welcome that are obstacles to affiliation by interfaith families.

These leaders don’t understand that it is possible to both promote in-marriage and at the same time respond positively to intermarrieds. That can’t be done by expressing value judgments implying that “in-marriage is good or right” while intermarriage is the bad and wrong. In-marriage can be promoted on utilitarian and pragmatic grounds, without burning bridges to the many people who will continue to intermarry no matter what these leaders do.

Parents know how to promote in-marriage without alienating their children who may intermarry. This is what they say: “We would like to see you live Jewishly because we have found doing so to be a source of meaning and purpose in our own lives, although we recognize that you will have to decide for yourselves. If you want to have a Jewish family and a Jewish life, your chances of doing so are far greater if you marry someone who is Jewish. You may see intermarried parents who are living Jewishly and think that that could happen to you too if you intermarry, but the statistics show that at this point not more than 30% of intermarried parents raise their children as Jews. We’re not saying that intermarriage is bad, but intermarried parents will tell you that while it is possible, it isn’t so easy to have a Jewish family and to raise Jewish children in an intermarriage. So, we hope you marry someone who is Jewish — but if you don’t, we’ll do everything we can to welcome your partner and to support any effort you make to live Jewishly and raise Jewish children together.”

The Jewish community should follow the same approach: promoting in-marriage on the grounds that it increases the chances that people will live Jewishly and raise Jewish children, while simultaneously making a concerted, well-financed and well-publicized effort to encourage, welcome and include those people who nevertheless choose to intermarry. I believe that this is what the Jewish public — the respondents to the American Jewish Committee survey that found increasing acceptance of intermarriage — wants — and that there is a need for Jewish leaders who will forcefully advocate for that approach.

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 shaping the Jewish lives of most contemporary American Jews — participation in family Jewish holiday observance and in synagogue worship with emphasis on more universal and less particularist themes — are applicable to interfaith families and could be promoted to foster their inclusion in Jewish life.

Cohen and Eisen undertook a study, consisting of nearly 50 in-depth interviews and 1005 mail-back surveys, to understand the meaning of Judaism and Jewishness to “moderately affiliated” babyboomer Jews — not the 20% “core group” or the 20% completely uninvolved, but the “average” synagogue (or other Jewish organization) member. Only a “handful” of the subjects were intermarried.

Their main conclusion is that Jewish meaning is found increasingly in the self and the family, and to a lesser extent in the synagogue, which is seen as an extension of family. This differs from the past when involvement in the public sphere of organizations, institutions, and causes such as the Holocaust, Israel, or Jewish philanthropy were dominant sources of Jewish meaning.

Cohen and Eisen find that the quest for Jewish meaning is very important to their subjects who have a strong desire to find direction and ultimate purpose, and wish to do so in Jewish ritual practices and religious communities. “Jewish tradition is a meaning-making and interpretive structure through which they seek coherence in their lives.” At the same time, contemporary Jews want to remain integrally involved in secular society. They are more universalist and moralist, and less particularist and ritualist; that is, they tend to see Judaism as emphasizing lessons shared by the larger society and ethical values, rather than emphasizing unique lessons with special preference for Jews, and customs and ceremonies peculiar to the religious system. The tensions between universalism and particularism continually play out in their lives.

Personal stories — the memories and experiences that mark the personal journeys shared by family members — “are basic to who American Jews are,” with a special fondness for grandparents. It is around Jewish holidays, “the master script of Jewish involvement,” with observance heavily focused on the home and family, that contemporary Jews “most often discover, construct, and insert Jewish meaning into” their everyday lives. Holiday observance draws families together and connects them to an ancient people, history, and tradition. But holiday observances that do not offer an experience of personal meaning, or that draw particularist lines with which they are uncomfortable, will be discarded.

The authors find that their subjects for the most part believe in God and are fondly attached to their synagogues, but don’t connect the two. The personal God described and invoked in the prayerbook — who hears prayer and intervenes in the world — is very different from the force or spirit in which they believe. They enjoy the synagogue for many other reasons — feelings of community, of being connected to tradition, the music, the rabbi’s teaching. The key again is finding personal meaning in the experience, and, the authors note, a not too particularist experience at that. Moderately affiliated Jews “have left aside or rejected those parts of Judaism that claim a special relation between God and the Jewish people.”

Cohen and Eisen describe three elements that constitute traditional Jewish tribalism: that Jews should be familiar with one another, should be responsible for one another, and have a higher opinion of Jews and a lesser opinion of non-Jews. They find that the moderately affiliated continue to think of their relationship to other Jews as a matter of belonging to a group that extends vertically through time and horizontally through space — a feeling of deep connection to previous and future generations, and to Jews all over the world. But, they are openly conflicted over the concept of Jewish chosenness; any anti-universalist notion that Jews are special or require exclusivity or separation from others is not favored.

In the book’s conclusion, the authors state that they have tried to be descriptive, using criteria that emerged from their interviews, instead of prescriptive, applying normative criteria reflective of established tradition. However, their negative attitudes toward intermarriage are expressed often. For example, in a remarkable minimizing of the power of love, they write: “[E]ven Jews with serious concern to marry a Jew often find themselves in relationships and marriage with non-Jewish partners. Apparently their attractive features, at least for the time, outweighed the shortcomings of their ‘non-Jewishness.'” (117)

The authors are plainly disapproving of their subjects’ attitudes toward intermarriage. They quote a number of their subjects as stating that it matters more to them that their children continue to live as Jews and raise Jewish children, than that they marry Jews. Although other interpretations are clearly possible, Cohen and Eisen snidely characterize that view as showing that commitment to Jewish continuity “is not at the top of most respondents’ personal Jewish agendas.” (124)

Strikingly, several of the subjects quoted for this view were themselves intermarried and had raised Jewish children — and at some point their spouses had even converted to Judaism. For example, Molly, “among the more observant” of the subjects, whose spouse converted after 16 years of marriage, told the authors that before the conversion, “it was still a Jewish household;” but the authors disdainfully suggest that Molly “does not recognize that the depth of one’s life in any respect, and certainly with regard to religion, varies dramatically with the commitment of one’s partner.” (133) About another intermarried subject, Edward, whose wife agreed before the marriage to raise the children Jewish and who later converted, the authors say, “Apparently Edward made no connection at the time [of the wedding] between his wife’s religious identity and her role in shaping the Jewish character of the home.” (131) Similarly, they say that Karen, another intermarried subject, whose husband agreed before the marriage that the children could be raised as Jews, was ready to forego “the Jewish continuity secured by building a home in partnership with a Jewish husband.” (131) The authors’ obviously criticize these subjects for intermarrying in the first place, and their characterization of intermarried Jews who specifically acted to raise Jewish children as not having Jewish continuity at the top of their agenda, is patently biased and unfair.

Cohen and Eisen express disbelief that intermarried parents can create Jewish households and raise Jewish children. They come close to saying that it takes two Jewish parents to do that. The authors are undeniably correct when they point out that all the social scientific data shows that the chances of living Jewishly and raising children as Jews are much lessened in an intermarriage. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen. They describe one subject, who did not have “strong antipathy to intermarriage,” as “far from alone in his belief that Jewish commitment and intermarriage can, theoretically, co-exist.” (132) (emphasis added) The authors appear to be unable to acknowledge that in reality, significant numbers of intermarried parents do in fact create Jewish homes and raise Jewish children.

The authors describe in-marriage as a traditional Jewish norm and intermarriage as a “deeply held ancient prohibition.” But given the common occurrence and acceptance of intermarriage, it isn’t helpful for communal leaders to think in those terms any longer. Fixating on theory and statistics instead of acting to encourage the maximum number of individual cases of Jewish commitment within intermarriage is far more productive, and the authors’ own work suggests the most effective ways to do just that.

A starting point is recognition of the attitude that Jewishness is unalienable, an absolute that can’t be increased or lessened by in-marriage or intermarriage. (185) The subjects are “confident of [their] unalterable Jewish identity by reason of birth to at least one Jewish parent.” (184) “The children of an intermarriage will automatically be Jewish for the same reason, as will their children.” (23) Another starting point is recognition that interdating and intermarriage often provoke heightened Jewish involvement by the Jewish partner. (57, 116) Thus in every intermarried couple there is potentially a partner who is confident of Jewish identity and susceptible to increased attachment. A third starting point is recognition that, just as in in-married couples where couples “more often bridged their disparities in Jewish involvement by moving closer to the wishes of the more Jewishly involved spouse,” (62) there is the potential for the non-Jewish spouse in an intermarriage to move closer to the position of a Jewishly-involved Jewish spouse. Finally, there is no reason to think that intermarried people are any less interested in finding direction and purpose in their lives; the key question is whether they can be encouraged to do so within a Jewish context (as Molly, Edward, Karen and their spouses did).

The authors’ main recommendation for fostering Jewish involvement is to maintain “the positive influence of families,” with communal funding to provide “the spaces and resources outside the home that make possible the activities in the home” — primarily the holiday observances “which American Jews find so meaningful.” (205) This is exactly where the opportunity to foster the Jewish involvement of intermarried people lies — in their families and holiday observances. Jewish holidays can be shared by, and a source of personal meaning for, non-Jewish spouses, and can connect them to Jewish tradition. This will be more likely to occur if universal themes are emphasized and particularist, excluding approaches are minimized. Over time, these Jewish holiday observances can become the family tradition of interfaith families.

Similarly, there is an opportunity to foster the Jewish involvement of intermarried people in the synagogue. As the authors note, in a context of declining ethnicity, the religious sphere can be seen as more acceptable than an ethnic conception of being Jewish. (189) Intermarried non-Jews can find what moderately affiliated Jews find in the synagogue — spiritual experience; peace, reflection, and family; community; learning; and even connection to Jewish tradition. Again, this will be more likely to occur if universal themes are emphasized. Just as the authors found, for example, that “the particularist opening of the Aleinu prayer . . . which praises God ‘who has not made us like the nations of the earth,’ does not resonate at all for our interviewees” (162), it would be even more off-putting to intermarried non-Jews seeking spiritual satisfaction in a Jewish worship service. They, like the authors’ subjects, would “prefer the prayer’s universalist conclusion, which looks forward to the day when God will be ruler of all the earth.” (162)

In sum, the community could choose to capitalize on the abiding strength of feelings of Jewish identity, the potential for heightened Jewish involvement by the Jewish partner and for movement toward that position by the non-Jewish partner, and their common quest for meaning and purpose. Like the moderately affiliated Jews who are engaged in continually changing personal journeys, interfaith families can move toward increased Jewish involvement. The personal stories that are so important to people — for example the stories of Molly, Edward, and Karen and their spouses who converted long after marriage — could be shared as exemplary lessons for others (instead of the objects of criticism they are to Cohen and Eisen). The community could foster Jewish holiday participation by interfaith families and inclusion of non-Jewish spouses in the synagogue, with emphasis on universalist themes. After all, like the moderately affiliated, if the intermarried find their participation to be obstructed, and if they do not find personal meaning in an observance, they will discard it.

The essential condition that underlies all of the analysis in The Jew Within is the fact that “life in an open society means that group boundaries are weakened and transgressed.” Cohen and Eisen’s moderately affiliated Jews walk a tightrope between viewing ethnic distinctiveness favorably while not wanting to be special, exclusive, or separate from others. This condition is magnified by intermarriage since “group identity cannot but weaken when Jews increasingly find themselves on both sides of ethnic boundaries.” Paradoxically, fostering inclusion of interfaith families by emphasizing universal themes in holiday observances and worship services will contribute to the maintenance of Jewish distinctiveness as effectively as can be done in the modern American context.

Arnold Eisen’s Reply: A Reply to Ed Case’s Review of The Jew Within
January 2001

Steven M. Cohen and I want to thank Edmund Case for bringing our new book, The Jew Within, to the attention of the readers of InterfaithFamily.com. His summary of our findings and conclusions is careful and almost always accurate. He is also correct in his perception that Steve and I harbor “hostility toward intermarriage”–if by that shorthand phrase he means that we believe, as we do, that Jewish communal institutions should not encourage intermarriage, and that –while according a full welcome to all the members of interfaith families–those institutions should work toward the conversion of the non-Jewish spouse and children. That hostility, however, does not extend in the least to the members of interfaith families. Case’s comment that we “snidely characterize” the views of some of the individuals we interviewed, or that we “disdainfully suggest” something concerning one interviewee in particular, a woman who happens to be one of the individuals in the book from whom I learned the most, is thus way off the mark. I write this reply because I believe more is at stake here than imputation to us by Case of an attitude of disdain toward intermarried couples that we absolutely do not hold. I am afraid the matter speaks to the way the entire issue gets discussed all too often in the Jewish community.

Simply put, we have enormous respect for the people we interviewed, and were repeatedly impressed by their articulate and thoughtful comments. We do not always agree with them, as we do not always agree with one another, with our spouses, or with our friends. We at times criticize their attitudes or behaviors, again as we at times criticize those close to us. And–having the benefit of hearing tapes of remarks that those we interviewed heard only once, when they made the remarks, and reading transcripts of their comments over and over again–we see some things in our interviewees which they may not have realized about themselves. To say that person X does not recognize factor Y at work in his or her life, or that person A does not hold commitment B, is not to show these people any lack of respect –unless Case believes that to hold our position on intermarriage is automatically to disdain and disrespect all those who are intermarried, a contention which we totally reject.

The basis for our position is well stated by Case himself, namely that “all the social scientific data shows that the chances of living Jewishly and raising children as Jews are much lessened in an intermarriage.” Of course, as Case observes, this does not mean that the latter never happens. All of us probably have personal experience of intermarried couples who are “living Jewishly” and “raising children as Jews.” We have no “disbelief” on this matter. Quite the opposite. But one does not want to base communal policy on what a minority manages to achieve against the odds, and against the inherited norms of the Jewish tradition, which have served the Jewish people well for two millennia. More important, one wants to improve those odds, to revitalize that tradition, by working to increase the percentage of intermarried families who do live substantially Jewish lives and raise Jewish children. We can accomplish this in part, as Case suggests, by welcoming intermarried families, providing special programming as needed, offering experiences of learning and of ritual, of prayer and of fellowship, which are so deep and beautiful and satisfying that both adult partners want more of this for themselves, and want desperately to pass it on to their children. But we also accomplish this end by encouraging conversion.

I believe that we can say simultaneously to both spouses in intermarried families: we are glad you are both here with us, we hope you will help us build our communities and enrich our tradition; we think Judaism has important things to say to Jews and non-Jews alike, and we know we have much to learn from you as from all the members of our community, Jews and non-Jews alike. But we also hope that you can understand our desire that Jewish homes now as in the past inculcate one religious tradition and not two; that Jewish spouses now as in the past go deeply into life over the years side by side with a person committed to doing so in the same tradition; that Jewish children have the advantage of two Jewish role models, if two parents are present, rather than one; that we not have to sacrifice the wonderfully “particular” in our tradition to the no less profound “universal.”

This is not to pass judgment on the value of individual lives, or families, or marriages. Regrettably, Jews sometimes do that, and Jews married to non-Jews, insulted more than once, often hear such criticism even when it is not intended. Our interviewees told us with virtual unanimity that the thing they like least about Jews and Judaism is being told by other Jews that they are not real Jews, or good Jews. We share their concern. We pass no such judgment on individual marriages or lives. Our intent is to support a particular policy on the part of Jewish communal institutions– not to make the intermarried among our sample or our communities into “objects of criticism,” as Case charges. Indeed, as the study makes clear, Jews who are married to Jews also likely married without thinking very deeply about what sort of Jewish home they wanted to provide for one another and their children. They too must negotiate over Jewish issues as they arise, discovering as they go that they cared about things of which they were not aware. They must choose as they go between personal inclinations and communal obligations (or between personal obligations and communal inclinations!), or between differing inclinations and differing senses of obligation. We are not living in a time or place where the “Jewish” in a self lines up neatly on one side of a line, and the “American” or “modern” or “feminine” on the other. The “good” is also not all on one side; the “Jewish” is open to multiple interpretations. Our selves are multiple, and often fragmented. Our choices are complicated, our loyalties manifold.

All the more reason that we discuss these difficult matters with one another honestly and seriously, the better to build the strong communities, and provide the profound experiences of tradition, which alone will attract Jews (and their non-Jewish partners) to Judaism. We hope The Jew Within will help its readers to do so, perhaps because they will read what “Gil” or “Tony” or “Molly” has to say about God, or about the choice between public school and Jewish school, or about the meaning of Israel or the Holocaust or Passover, and will say “That’s what I think, too,” or “I never thought about it that way before” or “this is outrageous.” Steve and I had all of those reactions at various point, and many fruitful discussions and debates as a result. We wish the same for our readers.