I believe that if engaging interfaith families is going to be a priority, it needs to be called out. It needs to be named. So I’m very attuned to omissions – when I think golden opportunities to refer to engaging interfaith families are missed. Two weeks ago Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the excellent leader of the
A New Phase
I’m excited about a new phase in my professional life, and in the ongoing growth of InterfaithFamily. After founding InterfaithFamily as an independent non-profit in October 2001, and leading it until my able successor Jodi Bromberg took over as CEO in March 2015, and staying on to help as an employee through June 2016 –
Responding to the Intermarriage News
March 2002 Recent weeks have been filled with news and opinion about intermarriage. Unfortunately, important Jewish leaders continue to respond in ways that will discourage interfaith families from engaging in Jewish life. Item: The American Jewish Identity Survey 2001 reports that 51% of Jews are intermarrying; 33% of “core” Jews–those who say Judaism is their
Does “Interfaith” Still Matter?
with Jodi Bromberg published on the Jewish Education and Engagement blog of the Jewish Federations of North America; reprinted with permission We are swimming in an ocean of intermarriage. So, why does “interfaith” still matter? Terminology Interfaith is a big term that to us doesn’t connote anything about religious practice. It doesn’t mean a couple practicing
The Future of Judaism: The Children of Intermarriage
Published in PJ Library’s PROOF Magazine and reprinted with permission. Since the Pew Report more than two years ago, it has been clear that the non-Orthodox Jewish community is increasingly an intermarried community. Seventy-two percent of non-Orthodox Jews who married since 2000 married someone from a different faith background. Half of young Jewish adults have
Will Jews Ever Normalize “Non-Jews” [a Term We Don’t Like to Use] and Marrying Them
I had a very interesting day yesterday. It started with a phone interview with a graduate student in journalism writing a story about Jewish-Muslim relationships. She had a Jewish parent and a Muslim parent herself, and was involved with a group of young Jewish-Muslim couples. She told me that some of them had decided to
Positive News from the Millennial Children of Intermarriage Study
Theodore Sasson and his colleagues at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis released this week an important new study, Millennial Children of Intermarriage, funded by the Alan B. Slifka Foundation. The study reports that millennial children of intermarriage – born between 1981 and 1995 – are less likely than children of inmarriage
Why We Should Accept Rabbis Who Intermarry
Vitality or Decline?
Today’s Statement on Jewish Vitality, advocating strategic responses to respond to the challenges of the Jewish future, is extremely disheartening for what it says and what it doesn’t say about interfaith families. Twenty-five years after continuity efforts began, it is still the case that most of our Jewish thought leaders, exemplified by those who signed
Bravo Reconstructionists!
The Reconstructionist movement has once again led the way to a more inclusive Judaism by taking the bold step to accept and graduate rabbinic students who are intermarried or in committed relationships with partners who are not Jewish. The main argument advanced against ordaining intermarried rabbis is that rabbis should serve as role models for