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

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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

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Why We Should Accept Rabbis Who Intermarry

In a Forward editorial today, Jane Eisner says we should expect a rabbi to raise his or her children in a Jewish home, to maintain that home as the most sacred place in the Jewish eco-system. The fallacy in her argument is her assumption that intermarried rabbis would not do so. People who seek to

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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

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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

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Choosing Love and Family at a B’nei Mitzvah

I’ve been to a lot of bar and bat mitzvahs in my life, but I’ve never been so deeply moved as I was on a recent Shabbat. My cousin, Nancy Sharp, who I’ve always adored, has experienced a life of tragic loss and re-found joy. Her husband, Brett, who I remember vividly as a most

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Do Intermarried Jews Support Israel?

In an article in Ha’aretz, Michael Oren: New book meant to enlist American Jews to fight Iran deal, Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the US, has launched a PR tour for his new book “Ally,” which according to press reports addresses President Obama’s attitudes and positions towards Israel. One of Oren’s comments as reported

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Mazel Tov, Michael Douglas – and Our Cause

Today was a very big day for everyone who wants to see interfaith families engage in Jewish life and community. As we previously covered in a post in January and another in April, the Genesis Prize Fund had announced that it was awarding its $1 million annual prize to Michael Douglas in order to emphasize

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TransJewish?

Does the huge conversation about Rachel Dolezal, who resigned as president of the Spokane, WA, chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People after it was revealed that she identified as African-American while her parents are White, have any relevance to efforts to engage interfaith families in Jewish life and community? I’m

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