November 2024 News from the Center

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In our unsettled world, my wife and I were blessed to spend time over Thanksgiving with our wonderful family – our children and their spouses, and especially our four grandchildren, each of them a unique universe of potential, sources of calm and joy. I hope you had a good holiday.

Nobody Wants This and Intermarried Rabbis

The buzz about “Nobody Wants This” has quieted. My What “Nobody Wants This” gets wrong about interfaith relationships today was featured in The Forward’s November 8 newsletter. Matt Goldberg’s “‘Nobody Wants This’ Is About Beating the Jews” criticizes the series as being “indifferent about Judaism as a religion” and for suggesting that Judaism “isn’t a big deal.”

On the other hand, in The Times, a major UK newspaper, Jessica Diner, the global beauty director of Vogue, says:

If there is one reason why I am grateful to Nobody Wants This, it is that, at a time when it feels scary to be a Jew, one of the most watched shows on the planet is a story of Jewish love, portrayed by a Jewish actor, written by a Jewish team …. If a Jewish series can give the wider population the warm and fuzzies and deliver a universal message to be open about love while the world feels like it’s on fire, then that, as a Jew, feels incredibly special.

Another UK piece, “How realistic is Nobody Wants This?” asks whether intermarrying rabbis stretches credibility. It notes that the Assembly of Reform Rabbis and Cantors and the Conference of Liberal Rabbis and Cantors in the UK do not bar rabbis with spouses who are not Jewish. Further, Britain’s Progressive seminary, the Leo Baeck College in London, changed its rules more than a decade ago to allow the admission of rabbinic students with partners who are not Jewish.

The rabbi who co-chairs the Reform Assembly, who is 41, says that for her generation of rabbis, having a partner who is not Jewish is “not an issue;” being “strongly committed to the principle of inclusion within the Progressive movement… [i]t would be quite hypocritical to say that rabbis should have a different standard.”

Conservative Movement, Arnold Eisen, Hartman Institute, “Sabbath Queen”

There’s a lot to report about the Conservative movement’s approach to interfaith marriage this month.

The presentation by Rabbi Aaron Brusso mentioned in our October newsletter is definitely worth watching. Rabbi Brusso was the chair of Rabbinical Assembly’s Standards Working Group, which issued a report earlier this year that recommended significant changes that would empower Conservative rabbis to more fully embrace interfaith couples, but maintaining the ban on rabbinic officiation at weddings of interfaith couples.

Rabbi Brusso explains that Conservative rabbis shouldn’t be in the position of disapproving interfaith marriage. Instead, they should embrace interfaith couples pastorally and encourage them to learn about Jewish practices and take responsibility for deciding how they will engage. He explains to couples how the various elements of a halachic Jewish wedding do not fit when one partner is not Jewish; he also explains that the Torah blessings are a particularly Jewish faith statement. I understood him to suggest that after these discussions, the partners from different faith backgrounds are persuaded that it’s not appropriate for them to have a rabbi officiate at their wedding, or for them to say the Torah blessings.

I also led a webinar for 18Doors’ Rukin Fellows. The current cohort, for the first time, has a significant number of Conservative rabbis. Some of them appeared to be very challenged by my “equality theory” – that in order to feel belonging, and therefore engage Jewishly, partners from different faith backgrounds need to be considered and treated as equal to their Jewish partners. I understood one rabbi to say that they were stewards of a two thousand year tradition that couldn’t easily change because of current demographic reality.

Eisen. Coincidentally, Andy Silow-Carrol interviewed Arnold Eisen, who served as chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, about Eisen’s new book, Seeking the Hiding God. In the interview, Eisen says,

Yes, the number of people who say “I’m a Conservative Jew” is much less than it used to be. I think that is primarily because Conservative rabbis will not perform intermarriages, and if you can’t have a Conservative rabbi [officiate] your wedding and you’re intermarried or the child of an intermarriage, you’re not going to say, “I’m a Conservative Jew.”

 

Hartman Institute. In a very interesting Shalom Hartman Institute podcast, “Spheres of Belonging,” Yehuda Kurtzer says:

At Hartman we’ve been doing some work on the idea of “Jewish adjacents,” the people connected to Jews and Jewish community and who are themselves not Jewish, and we’ve been asking: what are their responsibilities to our norms when they seek to participate in Jewish life, and what are our ethical obligations to them as players in Jewish life?
How do they add to the richness of our community and how do we make space for their involvement without compromising our commitment to a unified identity?

Conservative Rabbi Ari Kaiman, reiterating the view that it is inappropriate for a partner from a different faith background to say the Torah blessings, says:

Not only Jews find meaningful living through Judaism, and there are many people in our congregation who are finding meaning and community. It was an anxiety to think, well, what does that mean for our halakhic practice? But Judaism itself, halakha, articulates boundaries and porousness. There’s nothing that’s forbidden about a non-Jew learning Torah. There’s nothing forbidden about a non Jew sitting in a prayer service. There’s something that would be inappropriate about a non Jew saying at the Torah, asher bachar banu mikol ha’amim, who chose us from all other peoples. It’s incoherent.

And so the, but I also don’t have a lot of non-Jews saying, Hey, that’s the thing I want to do. Or if they were to say that, I would say, that’s really interesting. Let’s explore that more because maybe you want to be Jewish. But what we strive for is welcoming people for who they are and not having expectations of them becoming like us or like Jewish any more than they want to be.

Kurtzer then notes the need

to acknowledge the seriousness of a commitment to halakha and other forms of normative thinking that require of us to take boundaries seriously, and at the same time an effort to enable a productive porousness that keeps more people in than it leaks them out. This is one of the greater missions of rabbinic work: the curation and definition of peoplehood through listening to the needs both of individuals and the greater Jewish people.

“Sabbath Queen.” At the most inclusive end of the spectrum, “Sabbath Queen,” a new film about Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, is getting a lot of attention. Lau-Lavie, founder of LabShul, was ordained at JTS, but left the Conservative movement to officiate at weddings of interfaith couples. A review of the film says he advocates for “the need to leave tribalism without leaving Judaism.” It quotes Lau-Lavie as saying “It is necessary to move from the old paradigm of either/or to ‘yes and’… When you welcome someone fully, that person becomes part of the community. We must blur the old boundaries because it is practical and realistic.” He continues:

You love who you are now, in community with, or in a neighborhood with, or in relationship with, beyond the tribal boundaries that we grew up with. It’s not instead of who and where we are. It’s in addition to that. Either you stay behind your walls, or you meet people where they’re at, welcome them in, and keep Judaism thriving and expansive and inclusive. Keep it love-driven, not fear-based. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But there is no other recipe for survival.

Gary Rosenblatt explains that Lau-Lavie had hoped to change the Conservative movement’s policy on officiation “from within,” but after a “year of intense study of Jewish texts and in conversation with rabbis and congregants, he found a path he believed would enable him to officiate,” developing “a new form of wedding ceremony, incorporating certain Jewish rituals, preceded and followed by a commitment by the couple to study and engage in Jewish life.”

Rosenblatt writes about a scene in the film from a LabShul board meeting when, after Lau-Lavie said he planned to join the Rabbinical Assembly, a LabShul member said “’My family needs you,’ reminding him that he had created a community based on inclusivity.”

In “Welcoming the ‘Sabbath Queen’” Peter Fox, noting that Lau-Lavie left the movement because he chose to officiate at the wedding of a Jewish-Buddhist gay couples, put it more bluntly: ““It’s funny, because the gayness isn’t controversial. It’s the interfaithness … such a mindfuck, right?”

Interfaith families and antisemitism

18Doors’ board chair, Laurie Beijen, and chief program officer, Adam Pollack, write that the increase in antisemitism has affected interfaith families in different ways than their Jewish-Jewish counterparts. Some partners from different faith backgrounds lack foundational knowledge about antisemitism; couples face communication challenges, with one partner feeling upset and unsupported and the other confused and unaware. The organization partnered with ADL to offer guides for interfaith families on how to identify, address and talk about antisemitism, and how to be an ally as a partner who is not Jewish, as well as spaces for couples to discuss their experiences. They conclude,

Despite the challenges unique to interfaith couples regarding antisemitism, there are also immense opportunities. Having family from different backgrounds allows for increased awareness, influence on opinions and the formation of a coalition of allies, ultimately leading to greater advocacy and safety for Jews and their loved ones.

Jack Wertheimer’s Latest

Jack Wertheimer addresses the impact of October 7 and resurgent antisemitism on American Jews in “What American Jews Gave After October 7: An Accounting.” I don’t think he is aware of how negatively his comments about interfaith relationships come across. He says, “Jews in online discussion groups and other social media have described breakups with intimate partners who disagreed with them about the war; some have decided to swear off dating non-Jews as a result.” And “There even is evidence of a substantial increase in the numbers of non-Jews, many in relationships with Jews, who have been motivated by the resurgence of anti-Semitism to throw in their lot with Jews by converting to Judaism.” Noting that Employee Resource Groups are “attracting younger Jews between the ages of 35 and 45, many of whom are intermarried,” he adds, “Perhaps for the first time in their adult lives, they wish to connect with other Jews in some kind of collective effort.”

Wertheimer says, “The question keeping professionals in the field up at night is how much of Jewish communal life can be sustained if the donor base continues to shrink.” Expressing negative attitudes about interfaith marriage is not likely to increase the donor base.

The December Holidays Are Coming

Hey Alma’s advice columnist tackles Will I Confuse My Jewish Kid If We Celebrate Christmas. We definitely agree that in the family posing the question, celebrating Christmas wouldn’t confuse the child’s Jewish identity at all. But we weren’t sure about the unsolicited advice that encouraged the parents to share more of their own interfaith identities and backgrounds.

I’m disappointed that the folks at Kveller and Hey Alma are talking about Chrismukkah. I’ve defended interfaith families from criticism because they celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah for over twenty years, while also saying that “Chrismukkah Is a Bad Idea.” Celebrating each distinct holiday doesn’t mean mushing them together – even if they fall at the same time.

Celebrities

Martha Stewart on what things were like in 1961: “I went home and told my dad [about the engagement], and my dad slapped me. And he slapped me hard on my face and said, ‘No, you’re not marrying him. He’s a Jew.’ I remember getting that slap.”

The Forward’s Benyamin Cohen asks, “Is Seth Meyers Jewish? His wife, kids and jokes are.” Cohen reports that “Over the years, he’s become ‘Jewish enough’ for his in-laws.” He believes “that’s the only religion that that happens in. Which is why it’s great that it’s the only religion that ends with -ish.” I say it doesn’t matter whether he’s formally Jewish or not.

In Other News

  • Interfaith Work and Interfaith Families: A Toolkit is a new resource created by Susan Katz Miller and Dalia El Ariny, for interfaith families and multiple religious practicioners, organizations that work with them, and scholars who conduct research about them.
  • Our friend Marion Usher was the scholar in residence at Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation. You can watch her initial presentation here.
  • News from Israel: ynet reports that “The Reform movement converted 303 people in Israel last year, a record number compared to previous years, which is about 17% of the aggregate converts in Israel during this period.”
  • The Jewish News Service chose to highlight, from new research presented by the UJA-Federation of New York, that “Sephardic and Mizrachi New Yorkers … have lower intermarriage rates … than the overall New York Jewish population.”
  • Finally, a really wonderful story: “How My Southern Interfaith Family Pulled Together the Perfect Bat Mitzvah.”

October 2024 News from the Center

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Nobody Wants This

The news this month was pretty much all about the Netflix hit show, Nobody Wants This, in which “hot rabbi” Noah falls for Joanne who’s not Jewish; she says she’ll convert then realizes she’s not ready; he appears to choose to stay with her which means he won’t get the promotion to senior rabbi he’s always wanted.

The Forward published my take on it, What “Nobody Wants This” gets wrong about interfaith relationships today. I enjoyed watching the show. It depicts some aspects of Jewish life in a refreshing, positive way, while it’s portrayal of Jewish women is awful.

But the messaging about interfaith relationships is terrible. It suggests that nobody in the Jewish community wants interfaith relationships; that they don’t produce Jewish children; and that if the partner from a different faith background doesn’t convert, the Jewish partner will lose their Jewish identity (or in Rabbi Noah’s case, his dream to be senior rabbi).

While all of that is wrong, the show’s exaggerations do reflect an underlying reality – many interfaith couples do not feel a sense of belonging to the Jewish people, because of lingering negative attitudes about interfaith marriage. I’m hoping that Season Two will change the messaging and show a happy interfaith family raising children with Judaism; with Rabbi Noah becoming senior rabbi at a congregation that accepts him as intermarried; and perhaps even with Joanne taking an Introduction to Judaism course, whether or not it leads to conversion right away.

In a NY Times interview, the show’s co-producer, Sara Foster, says that “to draw an audience in for 10 episodes you need conflict.” I get that, and maybe what I’m hoping for doesn’t provide that. But given the messaging about interfaith marriage, let alone the stereotyping of Jewish women, it seems tone-deaf to me when her sister Erin Foster, the show’s writer and co-producer, says she feels fortunate to have shined “a positive light on Judaism and Jewish people and Jewish culture.” I feel the same way about Sara’s statement that “for there to be a Jewish romantic comedy that is number one across the world… is good for Jewish people.”

I tried to keep track of all of the writing about the show but can’t report on everything, let alone all the social media buzz. A Canadian academin, Celia Rothenberg, thinks that the stereotypes and depiction of interfaith marriage is harmful. I especially like Rabbi Denise Handlarski’s piece, in Hey Alma, I’m a Rabbi in an Interfaith Marriage — Here’s What I Think About ‘Nobody Wants This’; Lior Zaltman’s piece in Kveller, Should Jews Want Netflix’s ‘Nobody Wants This?’; Jessica Radloff’s piece in Glamour, Netflix’s Nobody Wants This and the Persistent Jewish Stereotype; and Keren McGinity’s piece in JTA, Netflix’s ‘Nobody Wants This’ casually celebrates Judaism. I want a second season.

There were other pieces in the NY Times and Time and Moment; an interview in the LA Times with and a profile of Erin Foster and her response to criticism of the show; a piece by Samira Mehta that puts the show in the context of past plays and movies featuring Jewish men dating women from different faith backgrounds; Rabbi Talia Kaplan explains “Why the charming ‘hot’ rabbi in ‘Nobody Wants This’ is bad for clergy and congregants everywhere”; an interesting podcast on the show with Conservative rabbis Michael Knopf and Jesse Olitzky; a piece by a British Reform rabbi; even a piece from Australia. Susan Katz Miller reasonably asked why Joanne had to be someone who is an ex-Christian (as opposed to from some other religious background) while “her people” – people who are practicing two faiths in an interfaith relationship – are never represented; she also objected to the pressure on Joanne to convert.

There were even commentaries from the Orthodox community. In a piece on Aish, a Jewish matchmaker says, not in an offensive way, that love cannot conquer all and that marrying within the faith is a foundational value that enriches our lives and communities.

But a piece in Jew In The City, by Allison Josephs, is offensive. She among other things refers to intermarriage as a “cardinal sin” that “leads to the extinction of the Jewish people” and says the non-Orthodox community is “marrying itself out of existence.” She says Rabbi Noah, by choosing Joanne, “becomes part of the extinction of the Jewish people.” Jew In The City describes itself as a nonprofit “dedicated to changing negative perceptions of religious Jews and making engaging and meaningful Orthodox Judaism known and accessible. This is achieved by highlighting an approach based on kindness, tolerance, sincerity, and critical thinking.” Tolerance?

Conservative Movement News

Just as this newsletter was about to be sent, a powerful essay appeared on Mark Hoffman’s Times of Israel blog: Too Little, Too Late for Conservative Judaism? Hoffman describes the movement’s recent efforts to reassess its approach to interfaith marriage, and discusses a very interesting-sounding presentation by Rabbi Aaron Brusso that I haven’t had a chance to fully watch yet. I’ll plan to comment more in the November email newsletter.

In Other News

This profile of Alexandra Meyer, tells about a young woman who grew up in an interfaith family, with a Jewish mother, with no synagogue or camp or bat mitzvah, who built a Jewish life through her own exploration as a late teen and in college, and is now the managing director of GatherDC,  a nonprofit that helps young adult Jews connect to Jewish life and to each other.