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.

September 2024 News from the Center

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As the new year approaches, I can’t help thinking how it’s been an awful year in Israel and Gaza and now Lebanon, and scary in our domestic politics. I sympathize with all the rabbis who want to give sermons that are hopeful. I’m trying to be hopeful, and if it’s any help, the news this month about interfaith family inclusion has been quite positive.

Very Welcome News: New 18Doors Program to Increase Belonging

18Doors and the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston announced the launch of B’Yachad, a program aimed at helping Jewish organizations increase feelings of belonging among interfaith couples and families. Four synagogues, a day school and the federation are participating.  B’Yachad programs are set to follow in Atlanta and Chicago. Rabbi Scott Hausman-Weiss, an 18Doors Board member, said “a community-wide discussion and energy on this subject is desperately needed to develop best practices toward strengthening these families and, in so doing, our Jewish community.”

What Doug Emhoff and the HUC Admissions Decision Say About Attitudes Towards Interfaith Marriage

Emily Tamkin wrote a great story for Ha’aretz, “For American Jews in Intermarriage Partnerships, Doug Emhoff Has Become an Inspiration.” She notes:

For many American Jews in interfaith partnerships, Emhoff’s embrace of his identity and his way of speaking about his partnership [including at the Democratic National Convention] … has meant representation for something they take both as a given and find questioned by others – especially other Jews.

18 Doors’ Adam Pollock agrees that prominent representation for interfaith families can be very validating to them. (Coincidentally, Jonathan Tobin, who is no friend of interfaith marriage, questioned whether Doug Emhoff is a Jewish role model, but was surprisingly not very critical of the fact that Emhoff intermarried.)

Tamkin quotes Rabbi Lex Rofeberg as saying that HUC’s decision to admit rabbinic students in interfaith relationships was “a bigger deal” than Emhoff’s convention speech, because it counters the way interfaith relationships are besieged or attacked in Jewish spaces. Andrew Rehfeld is then quoted as saying that the new policy is recognition of a shift in American Jewish life with many interfaith families deeply engaged. He makes the point, echoed by the USCJ’s Keren McGinity, that partners from different faith backgrounds can result in deeper commitments from their Jewish partners.

Separately, Rabbis Robyn Frisch and Miriam Wajnberg of 18Doors wrote a nice explanation of how the HUC decision affects five different groups – not just prospective applicants or current students, but also congregants, those who grew up in an interfaith family, really everyone in the Jewish community.

They mention one issue which I think is still a sticking point:

And if you’re not Jewish, but your partner is, then you’ll also hopefully come to see that while there may be limits to your ritual participation in given communities, your relationship is not “less than.” The Jewish community values your partner, you and your relationship – without trying to change you. As a couple, you’re not just “welcome” in Jewish spaces; you also “belong” in Jewish spaces.

There certainly are communities where there are limits to ritual participation by those who are not Jewish. I think that makes it very difficult for interfaith couples and partners from different faith backgrounds to not feel “less than” or that they “belong.” Allowing full ritual participation to partners from different faith backgrounds doesn’t mean changing them – it doesn’t make them Jewish; instead, it prioritizes and maximizes not Jewish identity, but Jewish engagement.

More Good News: Bravo Jewish Future Promise

Hadara Ishak, president of the Jewish Future Promise, wrote an important post on the Times of Israel blog, with the sub-title “Building a Bigger Tent for the Jewish Community.” The Jewish Future Promise, founded by my friend Mike Leven, is a wonderful organization that asks for a moral commitment that at least 50% of charitable contributions made upon passing will be allocated to Jewish causes and/or the State of Israel.

So I was incredibly pleased to see the president of such a mainstream organization with such an eminent Advisory Board say:

[E]mbracing a broader definition of Jewish identity and fostering interfaith dialogue, we can stand united and build a stronger, more resilient Jewish future. The inclusion of interfaith families and their diverse experiences will only enhance our collective strength, enabling us to speak with a singular, powerful voice in support of Israel and Jewish values worldwide.

Another very welcome sign of positive change in attitudes.

Is “Nobody Wants This” Net Positive? Not Sure Yet

The just released Netflix series, “Nobody Wants This,” about a “hot” rabbi played by Adam Brody, dating a woman who’s not Jewish played by Kristen Bell, is getting a lot of attention. Benyamin Cohen wrote a nice story for the Forward that featured two intermarried rabbis, Lex Rofeberg and Denise Handlarski. Mira Fox wrote a more critical review, which I can’t respond to fully because I haven’t seem the entire series yet. She suggests that the rabbi in choosing love for a woman not Jewish is giving up his “entire identity and value system” – if that’s the show’s message, I’m not going to like it.

18Doors’ Miriam Wajnberg offers “A Rabbi’s Review of the First Three Episodes” and it’s the best I’ve seen so far, listing the delightful moments and the cringe-worthy ones. Another interesting review concludes “delightful despite flaws.”

JTA’s story by Shira Li Bartov, “How a real-life rabbi coached Netflix’s ‘Nobody Wants This’ about making interfaith relationships realistic,” points out that the show comes at a time when Jewish institutions are increasingly accepting intermarried rabbis, pointing to the HUC decision among others. She adds that the stereotypes of Jewish women in the show overbearingly objecting to the “shiksa” (a word I hate) runs counter to that trend of acceptance.

Kveller has a story about whether the word “shiksa” is offensive. Hey Alma has a story that fact-checks the accuracy of “the Judaism” in all ten episodes of the show. The show’s creator, Erin Foster, is the subject of a long piece, “Erin Foster brings her conversion story to the forefront in ‘Nobody Wants This’.”

Also in the News

  • An awful piece in the Cleveland Jewish News by someone who’s been described as an “Israeli ultranationalist” who tells parents not to send Jewish children to Ivy League schools because they’ll intermarry, risking the future of Jewish identity in America. I hate the way anti-interfaith marriage views seep into a mainstream Jewish publication — another example why ongoing advocacy for more positive attitudes about interfaith marriage is needed.
  • On the other hand, times certainly are changing. This obscure mention caught my eye in a piece describing the history of the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle: “during the turbulence of the late 1960s … [t]here was also a big debate about whether interfaith marriage announcements should be printed in a Jewish publication.”
  • And I was pleased to see, in a September 16 email solicitation for a contribution from the Conservative movement, that Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal included, as one of five examples of what gifts supported, that the movement “developed new interfaith bylaws and resources to help congregations create a true sense of belonging for all.”

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Best wishes for a better, hopeful, and healthy new year.

Interfaith Marriage in Pop Culture

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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] only confuses children being raised with one religious identity in an interfaith family.”

A few years later, Jennifer Kaplan, a very talented filmmaker, made a documentary, Mixed Blessings, that featured four interfaith couples. I appeared with Jen and Marion Usher at a talkback after a showing of the film at the Washington DC JCC. My position was that the film did not show any happy Jewish outcomes, so the message was that interfaith marriage did not result in positive Jewish engagement.

This August, there were three problematic examples of negative messages in film, podcasts and TV.

American Birthright

The excellent Boston Jewish Film Festival included a new documentary, American Birthright, which I found to be very disturbing. Part of the movie is about filmmaker Becky Bordo’s journey of discovery of what being Jewish means to her. That part is fine. Anyone who wants to become observant in an Orthodox way, more power to them.

Becky’s journey is prompted by her sister marrying a partner from a different faith background, the first time that has happened in their family. That part of the movie, that trashes interfaith marriage, is not fine. While there are some contrary voices, the overwhelming message that comes through is that intermarriage is a “time bomb,” it threatens the survival of the Jewish people, one who intermarries “cuts the chain,” a Jew has to be separate, the children of intermarriage won’t be Jewish. One rabbi intimates that Becky’s sister really isn’t of a different religion than her fiancée, because of her lack of Jewish practice.

Another rabbi, who apparently is a renowned teacher of kabbalah and spirituality, says that “You can’t find your soul mate outside of your soul family” and that Becky’s sister “disconnected herself from a level of potential, that’s the truth of intermarriage.” How can a person who expresses such hateful views teach anything about spiritual practices and self-development? How is it different from saying that Black people are inferior or that LGBTQ practices are evil?

This promotion of hateful views about interfaith marriage is extremely disappointing. The messages turn interfaith couples away from Jewish engagement. That outweighs any value American Birthright has as an exploration of one person’s journey. I agree with 18Doors’ Molly Kazin Marshall, who is “sick” of how the film “perpetuates harmful stereotypes about interfaith marriage.” I’m disappointed that Jewish film festivals are choosing to include the film and that it is getting glowing reviews.

Bonjour Chai

A recent episode of the Bonjour Chai podcast asked, Will Interfaith Marriages Save Judaism – Or Destroy It? Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar and is produced in part by the Canadian Jewish News. The episode was sparked by Sklar’s recent wedding to his husband, who is not Jewish; the wedding apparently was a wonderful celebration, officiated by Sklar’s Reform rabbi, Mark Glickman, in Calgary.

The hosts interview two Reform rabbis in Canada, Rabbi Lily Kowalski of Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom in Montreal, and Rabbi Philip Bregman, rabbi emeritus at Temple Sholom in Vancouver, to “tackle the big questions, including whether an interfaith wedding can be truly Jewish, how parents in interfaith relationships can instill Judaism in their children’s lives, and whether interfaith marriages might well spell the end of Judaism—or actually save us.”

Rabbi Kowalski’s part of the interview is fine, she expresses what I would describe as the current position of most Reform rabbis, who will officiate for weddings of interfaith couples on certain conditions, usually that the couple commit having a Jewish home and children.

But the part of the interview with Rabbi Bregman was outrageous. Rabbi Bregman was ordained in 1975, so he is probably in his mid-70s, and thankfully he says he only does occasional weddings these days. He opposes officiation at weddings of interfaith couples because the definition of a Jewish marriage is that it is between two Jews, and if it’s not a Jewish wedding, a rabbi has no role. Upwards of 80% of his colleagues disagree.

David Sklar asks politely but with evident frustration whether he thinks that saying no will push Jews away – they won’t feel part of Jewish communities if they’re not accepted with their partner; Rabbi Bregman’s answer is to talk about boundaries and say they are welcome to participate but subject to our rules. He even equates an interfaith couple asking a rabbi to officiate, to someone asking to bring non-kosher food into a synagogue.

The worst thing is Rabbi Bregman saying that when he did weddings, 90% of the children of intermarried couples, when they were around 25 years old, would not identify with any type of Judaism; pressed by Sklar whether that is a fact or an assumption, he says “absolutely.” That’s just not true, and it’s outdated; the 2020 Pew Report (pp. 43-44) says that 21% of children born before 1970 of one Jewish parent identified as Jewish, while an increasing percentage, 47% of those born between 1970 and 2000, do so. Or maybe the worst thing is Rabbi Bregman referring to “bastardizing” Jewish wedding traditions for your personal preference. And of course he’s “not into” children of intermarriage celebrating Christmas, Kwanzaa, etc., “we know what happens with that.”

This is really awful stuff. It’s one thing for Orthodox rabbis to trash interfaith marriage, as in American Birthright; but it’s tiresome and disappointing to hear Reform rabbis do the same, even older ones.

The hosts play a clip of Rabbi Glickman’s comments at Sklar’s wedding, and he got it right – he says the moment was foreordained from the time of creation, and is the kind of truly sacred moment that God wants to have.

The Rehearsal

After buzz in the Jewish press, I watched episode 5 of Nathan Fielder’s new HBO show, “The Rehearsal.” The premise of the show is kind of crazy – Fielder is rehearsing various situations that people deal with, in this case being married and raising children with actors he recruits, in this case his “wife” Angela and his five or six year old “son” Adam. In this episode, we see Angela supervising Adam reading something about Jesus; then Nathan gingerly asking first about exposing Adam to Jewish traditions, then about celebrating Hanukkah as well as Christmas. Angela is not receptive, at a critical point refusing to expose Adam to Judaism because “Judaism denies that Christ came and died for us. I can’t deny that. I wouldn’t raise a child to deny that. Because it’s the truth.” Nathan goes on secretly to take Adam to a synagogue and to a Hebrew tutor, who then confronts Angela, declaring her an anti-Semite. The episode ends with Angela leaving the show, and Nathan’s parents coming to celebrate Hanukkah with him and Adam.

Like I said, the entire premise of the show is crazy – not real. There are some underlying truths. One is that many young adult Jewish men who haven’t been very Jewishly engaged as adults find that it’s important to them to pass on Jewish traditions to a child. Another is that interfaith couples should talk about what’s important about religious traditions in their lives early on, certainly before getting married.

But what’s disturbing about the episode is the message that interfaith relationships are fraught with this kind of conflict. I completely disagree with the Forward’s Mira Fox, who says that the show gets “at some pretty cutting truths… the nearly unavoidable conflict in Christian-Jewish relationships.” Later Fox acknowledges that in real life, Angela would never marry someone who wasn’t a Christian.

In another great review of the episode, Hajdenberg says “The dynamic depicted in the show may not be a perfect example of a real-life situation.” That’s putting it very mildly.

JTA’s Jackie Hajdenberg interviewed the real-life cantor who plays the Hebrew tutor on the show, Miriam Eskenasy, who describes the reality of many interfaith relationships:

I would say more than half of the kids that I’ve worked with come from interfaith families. My grandson is half not-Jewish. [W]hat I’m finding out is that, most often than not, it’s the non-Jewish parent who makes the commitment to raise the Jewish child, and takes the kid to the bar mitzvah lessons, is invested in learning Hebrew, or asking questions about stuff or being interested — whether they convert or not.

You’d never guess watching the show that that is the reality – a reality I’d love to see depicted in pop culture.