People who know me know that I am rarely satisfied. When something really positive happens, I am usually immediately thinking of what more could be done. But I want to pause and say that I am as happy and proud as I could be that InterfaithFamily.com is playing a role in what is being described
Volunteering and Intermarriage
There’s an interesting story in the Jewish Week, Is Volunteering Jewish?. Repair the World commissioned a “first of its kind” study of the attitudes and behaviors of young Jewish adults when it comes to volunteering. What jumped out to us was the rare finding in studies of this sort of something positive about intermarriage: “children
Another Step Towards a Changing Judaism
My friend and wonderful writer Judy Bolton-Fasman’s most recent column is a great one, and not just because of the shout-out to InterfaithFamily.com. In An Interfaith Family with a Jewish Heart, Judy writes about the bar mitzvah of the son of one of her oldest friends, Vicki, and her Lutheran-raised husband, Kurt. It’s a very
More on InterfaithFamily/Chicago
There’s been a lot of interest since we announced InterfaithFamily/Chicago yesterday. We expect to make an announcement in June that we’ve hired a Director and that work will get started as of July 1. In the meantime, here is some more information about the project. The objectives of IFF/Chicago are: • People in interfaith relationships
A Major New Initiative for InterfaithFamily.com
We made a big announcement at InterfaithFamily.com today. In July we will be launching InterfaithFamily/Chicago, a two-year pilot initiative to coordinate and provide a comprehensive set of local programs aimed at engaging Chicago-area interfaith families Jewishly. This is big on two intertwined levels – programming and funding. In the almost ten years since InterfaithFamily.com was
Young American Jews, Israel and Intermarriage, Revisited
I’m feeling a little vindicated after reading the Jewish Week’s recent editorial, Future Rabbis, Conflicted About Israel. Almost exactly a year ago, there was controversy in the Jewish media over Peter Beinart’s argument that young American Jews feel conflict between their liberalism and Zionism because of the policies of the Israeli government towards the Palestinians,
My Interview with Steve and Cokie Roberts
I had a very interesting interview with Cokie and Steve Roberts last week. We talked about their new book, Our Haggadah, which I’ve blogged about before, and which our Board member Rabbi Rim Meirowitz reviewed very positively. I asked the Robertses what their goals were in terms of what they hoped interfaith couples would do
Limmud Chicago 2011
I led a session on “changing attitudes towards intermarriage” today at Limmud Chicago. It was fun! An interesting mix of people came – several who identified themselves as Orthodox, several young adults, several who looked like grandparents, and in between. We did a “take the temperature of the room” exercise where I asked people if
A New URJ President and the Reform Commitment to Engaging Interfaith Families
We want to congratulate Rabbi Rick Jacobs on being chosen as the next president of the Union for Reform Judaism. When the retirement of the current president, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, was announced, I wrote about my mixed feelings. While I applauded many of Rabbi Yoffie’s initiatives, the Reform movement’s record on engaging interfaith families during