A proposal I made for a workshop at the annual convention of the Jewish Federations of North America has been accepted. In November, I will be speaking before an audience of important Jewish leaders on this question: Can We Encourage In-Marriage and Welcome Interfaith Families? The session will involve presentations by me and my ideological
A New Year of Creative Ferment
Summer ended this weekend and I was thinking it would be nice to ease into the Jewish New Year, spend some time quietly introspecting on the past year and what’s to come. Instead all signs are for a year of creative ferment in attitudes in the intermarriage world, started perhaps by my August op-ed in
Turf Wars
I have long felt that JCC’s are a prime location for welcoming interfaith families and engaging them in Jewish life. Unfortunately, with some exceptions, most notably the Pathways program at the Atlanta JCC, most JCC’s do not offer programming aimed specifically for people in interfaith relationships. I was reminded of all of this by a
Jewish Behaviors
When Micah Sachs was InterfaithFamily.com’s managing editor and blogger extraordinaire, he would every once in a while post a “Link Sink” with interesting but not necessarily thematically related links. I’ve been away some and not blogging regularly, so I thought I might revive that practice. But it didn’t turn out that way. Anita Diamant, a
InterfaithFamily Welcomes Karen Kushner!
The Board and staff of InterfaithFamily.com are thrilled that Karen Kushner has joined us as Chief Education Officer. We are establishing a presence on the West Coast, with Karen in San Francisco, and want to extend a big and warm welcome to her and tell you about our exciting plans. This development has been a
There Is Still Work To Be Done on Welcoming Interfaith Families
I’ve blogged previously on a recent report in the Forward that Steven M. Cohen had found, in a study for the Foundation for Jewish Camp, that most interfaith couples feel like that have an open invitation to be part of Jewish life, that outreach “has been misguided by focusing simply on being welcoming” and that
The Significance of Chelsea Clinton’s Wedding
The Jewish World Reacts to the Clinton-Mezvinsky Wedding — and It Isn’t Pretty
It’s been a long week at InterfaithFamily.com, starting with the news last Saturday night that Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky had a rabbi and a minister at their wedding with very evident Jewish traditions. In this post I’m going to try to just summarize the coverage. I’m still reflecting on the significance of it all,
The News is Out: Co-officiation for Chelsea and Marc
The New York Times reported that Rabbi James Ponet, the Yale Hillel director, and Reverend William Shillady, a Methodist minister, co-officiated at the wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky on July 31. According to the Times, at 7:23 p.m. the family made an announcement via e-mail. The Times said that the ceremony “included elements
Mazel Tov in Advance to Chelsea and Marc
With the big event happening Saturday night, this is our last chance to send a Mazel tov in advance to Chelsea and Marc. With the air space above Rhinebeck cleared, and guests reportedly required to turn in their camera phones, we don’t know when word will leak out about the ceremony and who officiated –