Rabbi Darren Kleinberg has written a very important essay published in eJewishPhilanthropy this week, Hybrid Judaism: The Transformation of American Jewish Identity. Kleinberg was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi in 2005 but describes himself as no longer Orthodox. He writes that identity is not a psychological category that describes who one “is,” but rather a
Where Might Interfaith Families Find Welcoming Jewish Communities?
News in the past few weeks highlights the issue of where interfaith families might find genuinely welcoming Jewish communities. First, I was so pleased to learn that the smiling couple in the photo, Rev. Eleanor Harrison Bregman and Peter Bregman, are being honored by Romemu, a thriving emerging spiritual community in Manhattan where Eleanor, an
Change May Be Afoot in the More “Conservative” Communities
It’s been quiet on the intermarriage front for a while; it feels like most people’s attention is understandably in the political realm these days. But in the past two weeks there has been interesting news and comment on intermarriage in the more traditional, conservative parts of the Jewish community. When people talk about intermarriage, for
Late 2016 Round-up: Major Convening, Major Research… What’s Next?
I think it’s safe to say that we would all have to agree that an awful lot has happened in the past two months. That includes developments in the field of engaging interfaith families Jewishly, which I summarize here. On October 10, eJewishPhilanthropy published my review of a demographic study of British Jews that I
Continuing Promising News from Boston
Every ten years since 1965, Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP), the Boston federation, has conducted a community study. The 2005 study electrified the Jewish media with the finding that 60% of interfaith couples in Boston were raising their children as Jews. The 2015 Study, conducted by the Cohen Center and Steinhardt Institute at Brandeis, reveals a
Are Rabbis Who Refuse To Marry Interfaith Couples Hurting Jewish Continuity?
published by The Forward and on eJewishPhilanthropy reprinted with permission The Cohen Center’s new study, Under the Chuppah: Rabbinic Officiation and Intermarriage, is a game-changer. The many rabbis who don’t officiate at weddings of interfaith couples because they think those couples won’t engage in Jewish life no longer have that leg to stand on. Addressing
Welcome Intermarried But Maintain Norms Preferring In-marriage? A Review of the Jewish People Policy Institute’s Exploring the Jewish Spectrum in a Time of Fluid Identity
The Jewish People Policy Institute has issued a rather amazing report, Exploring the Jewish Spectrum in a Time of Fluid Identity, a project headed by Shmuel Rosner and John Ruskay. The report is based on the 2016 Jewish World Dialogue, which involved surveys and discussions in which 715 highly engaged Jewish leaders from around the
What Happened at the Summit
November 6, 2016 I’m pleased to say that the program at the Interfaith Opportunity Summit on October 26 was very well received. InterfaithFamily has put up a Summit Resource Page with links to presentations by Alan Cooperman, Len Saxe, Yehuda Kurtzer, Wendy Rosov, Archie Gottesman, Honeymoon Israel, Congregation Rodeph Shalom and Kerry Olitzky. The plenaries
What We Learned at the Interfaith Opportunity Summit
November 6, 2016 with Jodi Bromberg published on eJewishPhilanthropy In October 2016, an at-capacity crowd of 300-plus major foundation, federation and organization leaders gathered in Philadelphia at the Interfaith Opportunity Summit: Embracing the New Jewish Reality, the first-ever national convening on the topic of engaging interfaith families in Jewish life and community. The Summit happened
Intermarriage in Britain: Tragedy or Opportunity?
published in eJewishPhilanthropy As a leader in efforts in the United States to engage interfaith families in Jewish life and community, and having considered trying to export those efforts to Britain, I read with great interest the recent report by David Graham of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), “Jews in couples: Marriage, intermarriage,