The Reform movement made a public announcement today that it is closing its regional offices and replacing existing program departments in its national office with teams of specialists. Everyone who cares about outreach to interfaith families should be deeply concerned about the implications of these developments on outreach to interfaith families, which the Reform movement
Madoff and Intermarriage, Part 2
Last week, Micah Sachs posted about Jonathan Tobin’s first article as editor of Commentary magazine. In a time of limited resources and funding difficulties facing Jewish non-profits, Tobin is arguing for a “circle the wagons” approach against reaching out to interfaith families. I wanted to share the letter to the editor that I’ve submitted: Dear
Jesus and Christmas
It’s our busiest time of year again at InterfaithFamily.com. I’m writing this on December 24th at 9:00 am — and we’ve already broken the record for the highest number of monthly unique visitors to our main website, with 30,831 so far. There is something about Hanukkah and Christmas that stirs up everything about interfaith relationships
Breaking New Ground with Jewish Leaders
Last week the United Jewish Communities (UJC) held its annual convention, called the General Assembly (GA). Something different and potentially very significant happened: there was talk about intermarriage, in a positive way. Since I got involved in the professional Jewish world nine years ago, I think I’ve been to every GA except for two that
Ron Klain, Rahm Emanuel, and the Christmas Madness
A story in IsraelNationalNews.com commenting on the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as President-Elect Obama’s chief of staff, and of Ron Klain as Vice President-Elect Biden’s chief of staff, leads with: “Both appointees are Jewish, but while Emanuel is an observant Jew, Klain intermarried more than 20 years ago and his family observes Christmas.” This is the
Hope, Not Fear
I started InterfaithFamily.com as an independent non-profit in January 2002. There was a time three or four years into it that I gave serious thought to closing down. I started to write an essay that I thought I would submit to Moment magazine complaining bitterly about the lack of funding support for outreach to interfaith
The Associated Press and Officiation
Associated Press religion writer Rachel Zoll recently wrote an article about the difficulties interfaith couples can face trying to find a rabbi to officiate at their wedding. She gives examples of rabbis whose status as rabbis is questionable, who do not respect Jewish tradition in the weddings they conduct, and who charge unreasonable fees for
An Unnoticed Outreach Hero
Rabbi Abraham J. Klausner died on June 28. The obituaries in the Jewish press, including JTA and the Jerusalem Post, described how Rabbi Klausner, the leader of a Reform synagogue in Yonkers, N.Y., for 25 years, was the first Jewish chaplain in the US Army to enter Dachau and had been a leading advocate for
Enough Is Enough
April 2007 (with Micah Sachs) One of the most uplifting parts of the Passover seder is when we sing “Dayenu.” Each verse speaks to a different gift that God gave the Jewish people, followed by the celebratory chorus “Dayenu”–“it would have been enough.” If God had only allowed us to leave Egypt, goes the first
Don’t Write Off the Intermarried: A Case for Community Outreach
February 12, 2007 (with Micah Sachs) With a response from Steven M. Cohen Charles Dickens’ classic A Tale of Two Cities begins with the famous opening line: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Sociologist Steven Cohen’s new study on intermarriage has a similar title, but a different spirit. Ignoring