July 2023 News from the Center

Progress The Forward ran a great article by Joanne Kaufman: ‘Are you a Jew?’ To serve on a synagogue board, increasingly the answer can be ‘no’.  Kaufman says that the Jewish movements “don’t track the number of congregations with non-Jewish board members… But conversations with leaders in those movements indicate that while it’s not typical to

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June 2023 News from the Center

Re-CHARGING Reform – More Silence and Missed Opportunities There was an important conference May 31-June 1, Re-CHARGING Reform Judaism. More than 300 rabbis and lay leaders attended, according to JNSand Religion News Service accounts. I wasn’t invited, but have watched several of the sessions on youtube, including the keynote by lead organizer Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch

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Interfaith Marriage in Pop Culture

I’ve been troubled by the negative messages communicated about interfaith marriage in pop culture for a long time. Back in 2003, the TV show “The O. C.” had an episode about “Chrismukkah,” a blending of Hanukkah and Christmas. I wrote “Chrismukkah” Is a Bad Idea, saying that “as the antithesis of maintaining special traditions, [Chrismukkah]

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Awakenings: An Important New Book that Doesn’t Grapple with Inclusion

An important new book about the current state and future of American Judaism takes a positive approach to welcoming and engaging interfaith families – but doesn’t grapple with the fundamental challenging issues involved in including partners from different faith backgrounds. In Awakenings: American Jewish Transformations in Identity, Leadership, and Belonging, Rabbis Joshua Stanton and Benjamin

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Who’s More Inclusive: Emerging or Legacy Spiritual Communities?

When I ran InterfaithFamily (now 18Doors), a prominent philanthropist told me more than once that engaging interfaith families was an issue that would “take care of itself over time” because “young people are inclusive.” I was skeptical, but had no way to test or even shed light on the hypothesis – until now. The Center

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We Still Don’t Include Interfaith Families

[This op-ed was submitted to the Forward, which published an edited version, Our Continued Rejection of Interfaith Families Hurts Everyone, December 21, 2020.] Seven years ago, the Pew Report’s finding that 72% of non-Orthodox Jews were intermarrying rocked the Jewish world. The Pew Report did not examine why interfaith couples are relatively less Jewishly engaged

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My Experience as an Intermarried Rabbi

Guest Post by Rabbi Ed Stafman At 30 years old, I married my wife – the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. I considered myself an atheist and secular Jew. Because religion was unimportant to me, it had little bearing on who I would marry. My family put no pressure on me about my intention to

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Seminary Admissions: Modern-day Discrimination

GUEST POST BY SUSAN RIZZO When I was a kid, I wanted to be a dentist.  Why?  My dad’s best friend was a pediatric dentist.  He had a cool office with ceiling-mounted television screens above each chair and video arcade consoles in his waiting room.  I figured there couldn’t be a better job!  Here I

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Will Our Post-Corona Vision Include Engaged Interfaith Families?

[This essay originally appeared in eJewishPhilanthropy and is reprinted with permission.] As any regular consumer of Jewish media in general – and eJewishPhilanthropy essays in particular – knows, there is an ongoing extensive discussion about the massive disruptions caused by the Coronavirus pandemic and the opportunity to re-envision the Jewish community. Strikingly missing to date

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