July 2024 News from the Center

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Instead of a quiet summer, and in the midst of the consuming news of presidential politics and from Israel, there’s been quite a lot about Jewish inclusion of interfaith families in the media this month.

It’s happening against a backdrop of a more general attention to growing “interfaithness” in America. First there was JD Vance described as a convert to Catholicism with a Hindu wife. Then, closer to home, there was discussion of Kamala Harris as a “Baptist married to a Jewish man, … influenced by the religious traditions of her mother’s native India.”

Doug Emhoff, the Second Gentleman, was previously intermarried, and apparently was not Jewishly engaged (he became very much engaged later on); the Forward reports that his children were not raised with and do not identify as Jews.

But then there’s the new Prime Minister of the UK Keir Starmer and his Jewish wife, who the Forward reports regularly mark Shabbat, are raising their kids as Jews, and belong to a liberal synagogue. News like this always raises the question, what can be done to encourage more families like the Starmers?

The HUC Decision, and the Need to Adapt Fundamental Attitudes

Last month JTA published my op-ed, The Reform movement’s decision to admit intermarried rabbis is good. Truly welcoming them would be great. I said the decision was “momentous” and congratulated HUC’s leadership for finally getting to that result. But I said that the messaging surrounding the announcement did not express the fully inclusive attitude towards interfaith marriage that would encourage more interfaith families to engage Jewishly, in turn enabling liberal Judaism to thrive in the future. Instead, it reiterated that “Jewish endogamy is a value,” and added language requiring that students in interfaith relationships commit to “exclusively Jewish practice.” 

I am apparently the unnamed “HUC critic” in Dr. Steven Windmueller’s essay, Hebrew Union College: Facing the Future, which cites my op-ed twice. Dr. Windmueller has been affiliated with HUC for a long time, including as dean of the Los Angeles campus. He seems to be positive about the decision, explaining it as a balancing “the preservation and integrity of Jewish practice” with being “mindful of shifting cultural and social trends.”

But again, his message is not fully inclusive – he says the shifting demographic reality is not “unconditionally embraced” and repeats the “endogamy is a value” statement. He defends the “exclusively Jewish practice” requirement as HUC simply remaining “fully committed to the proposition of its clergy demonstrating serious personal Jewish engagement” – but why would anyone seek to become a rabbi if they were not seriously personally Jewishly engaged? And why was it necessary to add the requirement only when students in interfaith relationships were to be admitted? For more discussion of the Windmueller piece, see the Center’s Facebook post.

In The anguished dilemma of a Reform rabbi, Rabbi Mark Cohn, ordained by HUC nearly thirty years ago, lamented the HUC decision as part of a trend toward “preeminent individualism” and “disengagement from the Jewish people.” Rabbi Cohn then engaged in a revealing podcast discussion with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver.

I found it very curious that Rabbi Cohn officiates at weddings of interfaith couples, defends patrilineal descent, and emphasizes the lived reality of Reform rabbis responding to the needs of their congregants – but disagrees with the decision to admit students in interfaith relationships.

Noting that intermarried rabbis would interface with other Jewish communities and with non-Jewish communities, Rabbi Cohn asks (I’m quoting to the best of my ability) “how serious will I be taken by others if I’m not living a serious Jewish life, a deeply committed and engaged Jewish life.” It seems clear from this that Rabbi Cohn believes that being intermarried is inconsistent with living a serious, deeply committed and engaged Jewish life. Indeed, he turns the “role model” argument around, and suggests that in intermarried rabbi could not be a role model for inmarried couples; that only makes sense if being inmarried is part of what should be modeled. For more discussion of the podcast, see the Center’s Facebook post.

What’s common to what Dr. Windmueller and Rabbi Cohn say is holding on to a preference for inmarriage. Endogamy is a Jewish value; living a serious, committed, engaged Jewish life is inconsistent with being intermarried. These are fundamental attitudes that I believe need to change if we are going to see more interfaith families Jewishly engaged – like Keir Starmer’s family.

At just the right time, Rabbi Micah Streiffer, leader of Laasok and one of the few rabbis in Canada who will officiate at weddings of interfaith couples, makes an important contribution towards changing attitudes. He describes his own shift in thinking in “Embracing Interfaith Wedding Couples: Building the Jewish Future.”

Traditionally, rabbis see officiating weddings as contributing to the Jewish future and sought to ensure that the wedding “really, authentically, is the beginning of a Jewish home.” Traditionally, the criteria to measure whether couples take Judaism seriously has been that both partners are (or are becoming) Jewish.

But Rabbi Streiffer points out that rabbis routinely perform weddings for two Jews who are not really engaged in Judaism because in those cases they see the wedding as an opportunity for engagement. He argues that’s how rabbis should treat weddings of interfaith couples:  in turning them away, “we miss the chance to engage them, and they miss the chance to engage in Judaism.”

Rabbi Streiffer cites the famous story of Shammai turning away the person who seeks to convert while learning the entire Torah standing on one foot, but Hillel converting him saying the “golden rule” is the entire Torah and inviting him to study. Hillel answered the inquiry “not with a litmus test but with an invitation. Hillel seems to understand that the very fact that this non-Jewish man has stepped into his study is, in itself, an act of Jewish engagement. And further, he seems to understand that inviting him for a process of learning is an opportunity to deepen that engagement.”

To Rabbi Streiffer, an interfaith couple asking a rabbi to officiate is in itself an act of Jewish engagement; if they welcome and invite them in, they have an opportunity to build a Jewish future. What underlies this kind of thinking, that emphasizes invitation and engagement opportunity, is a fundamental approach that what is important is not whether people are Jewish – a litmus test for inclusion – but rather, what people do Jewishly.

I can’t agree more that “we, as a Jewish community, need to shift away from litmus tests and toward creating engagement opportunities.” And that “rabbis need to figure out authentic ways that we can say ‘yes’ – that we can stand on the bima, in the classroom, and even under the chuppah with individuals who care about Jewish life, including when they are not Jewish themselves.” For more discussion of Rabbi Streiffer’s piece, see the Center’s Facebook post.

Finally, at an even more progressive end of the spectrum, we have Episode 439 of the Judaism Unbound podcast, in which Rabbi Lex Rofeberg and Dan Libenson have a fascinating discussion with their guest Rabbi Ari Saks. Saks, ordained as a Conservative rabbi by JTS, works with interfaith couples who are “doing both,” including through his podcast Interfaithing.

Rabbi Saks has a halachic perspective, yet says that interfaith marriages are “Jewishly great,” as Rofeberg puts it. Saks says that his role at a wedding of two Jews is to “enact a halachic wedding” that requires both partners are Jews; but his role at weddings of interfaith couples is to “represent the Jewish side.” Because of that, he says he can do things he wouldn’t do in a halachic wedding – like co-officiate, with representation from the other faith background, or officiate on Shabbat.

It is fascinating, and I think rare, that Rabbi Saks is not bothered by having the name of Jesus said under the chuppah at weddings he conducts. He sees that as a statement not of theology, but about one partner’s relationship with Jesus, with Saks standing behind the couple.

Most fascinating is the suggestion that halacha can adapt to a more favorable view of interfaith marriage. (This is reminiscent of what Noah Feldman suggests in his book To Be a Jew Today). Saks suggests that the interfaith weddings he conducts, which he says are “questionable to some” – and that’s putting it very mildly – might in the future be viewed more generally as appropriate, or even normative. He refers to Blu Greenberg’s famous comment that “where there is a rabbinic will, there is a halachic way;” he refers to a Talmudic view that it takes one with real understanding to come up with a lenient position. The reason the Torah prohibits intermarriage with some tribes was that it would lead Jews astray to idolatry. The fact that today many interfaith couples want to embrace Judaism, not to take Jews away from it, could justify a different rule. For more on Rabbi Saks, see the Center’s Facebook post.

What’s Happening in the Institutional World

From the traditional world, a Chabad international gathering of young professionals includes a session on intermarriage led by Rabbi Eliezer Shemtov, author of “Rabbi, why can’t I marry her,” who said “It is our responsibility to adequately educate our community members on the importance of marrying Jewish and the dangers of intermarriage.”

From the liberal world, the Reform movement has launched “a new venture within the URJ focused on making it possible for individuals from a wide range of backgrounds (Jews of Color, LGBTQ+ identifying Jews, Jews with disabilities, people from interfaith backgrounds, including but not limited to single people, people with kids and people choosing to remain childfree, and others from a variety of often underrepresented backgrounds) to engage with Judaism in ways that are meaningful to them.” It’s not clear whether this effort, led by assistant vice president Sarah Norton, will focus on people in interfaith relationships.

I often note when institutions don’t say anything about interfaith families in situations where I think they should. This month, in the Conservative world, an otherwise very interesting essay, “Conservative Judaism must slay its zombies,” doesn’t say anything about the movement’s approach to interfaith families. An article about JCC’s innovating for changing times doesn’t say anything about any focus on engaging interfaith families. The board chair of Global Jewry’s essay “Toward a United Jewish People” doesn’t say anything about interfaith families being included in that unity.

Also in the news:

  • A nice piece, “This Is the Jewish People,” about all of the people from different faith backgrounds participating in a progressive synagogue, with Linda Rich concluding, “A few short decades back, many thought that intermarriage would destroy the Jewish people. We lacked the confidence to imagine that our way of life would appeal to others, that more would opt in, and that fewer would opt out.”
  • Another nice piece by Robert Jones, who argues that the period of time between Juneteenth and the Fourth of July could, like the ten days of repentance, be a period for critical improvement; this caught my eye: “Among the many gifts of being in an interfaith marriage is the ongoing invitation to experience and learn from a tradition that is not your own. As I’ve participated in the Jewish High Holidays over the last 20 years, I’ve been moved by the power of the moral space that opens in the ten days [of repentance].”
  • A reality show about an Orthodox Jewish man engaged to a Catholic woman who may be converting?
  • A Kveller article by an intermarried woman raising her daughter with Jewish humor.

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