As you know, the Center’s work addresses interfaith family inclusion. But it is difficult to focus these days on anything other than the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
While these issues are of vastly different scale, there is a commonality: othering. The othering of interfaith families and partners from different faith backgrounds leaves many to feel they don’t belong in Jewish settings. The othering of innocent Palestinians leaves many to starve.
As one rabbi said, “What kind of Torah are we living if it does not reach into the rubble and say, ‘You are human. You too are children?’”
We hope Jewish leaders will heed the increasing calls imploring them to speak out. We applaud the Reform movement and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly for doing so.
Conservative Turmoil
On July 2 JTA reported that a leading Conservative synagogue, Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Minneapolis, would allow its clergy to participate in, but not officiate, weddings of interfaith couples. The stated goal is to make the congregation “more welcoming and inclusive.” The clergy participation comes with conditions: no rituals from other religions, outside the synagogue, not officiated by any clergy.
We’ve covered the Conservative movement’s wedding officiation challenge for a long time (see for example this July 2017 blog post and November 2024 email newsletter). While any step forward is a good thing, we’ve always maintained that not allowing the movement’s rabbis to officiate at weddings of interfaith couples undermines its efforts to be welcoming and inclusive.
JTA also reported that, apparently for financial reasons, the movement terminated Keren R. McGinity’s position as director of intermarriage engagement and inclusion. On July 16, eJP published Jay Deitcher’s “Conservative movement cuts interfaith specialist position, alarming advocates,” with the sub-title, “After making moves toward allowing USCJ clergy to officiate interfaith weddings, latest move indicates the movement may be maintaining its status quo.”
Deitcher writes that “To many, it appeared that the movement was poised to cross the Rubicon and allow its clergy to officiate interfaith weddings,” but that “After heading toward acceptance of interfaith couples, the pendulum appears to be swinging back – a welcome development for more traditional voices in the movement.”
Quoted in the eJP story, Conservative Rabbi Oren Steinitz said, about McGinity’s dismissal, that not having a full-time paid intermarriage inclusion position is “honestly a spit in the face of so many congregations that are not only grappling with these issues, but it’s a spit in the face of these interfaith families that are basically becoming the backbone of Jewish American communities.” Lay leader Joshua Kohn said, “without investing in interfaith families, the movement will continue to shrink.”
Deitcher reports that the movement’s Intermarriage Working Group is processing the feedback from an ongoing survey and is expected to make recommendations in the fall. In the meantime the USCJ released an internal statement asking congregations not to take individual actions (like the Minneapolis congregation did) that “preempt or circumvent the collective work still underway.”
We’ll watch with great interest. But it seems unlikely that the Working Group will recommend that rabbis be allowed to officiate at weddings of interfaith couple; it seems likely that the movement will continue to struggle to attract and retain intermarried families and their relatives.
In the middle of the official news, there is a fascinating Facebook post by Conservative Rabbi Ari Yehuda Saks that generated numerous comments. Saks argues that Conservative rabbis should be allowed to participate in, and even officiate, weddings of interfaith couples, and even co-officiate with clergy from other religious traditions. He argues that interfaith marriages cannot be halachically valid, but rabbis could participate by avoiding the elements of a wedding ceremony that make it halachically valid (for example, by not using the word “kiddushin,” not exchanging something of value, etc.). As Rabbi Jen Gubitz said in a comment on the post, the rabbis wouldn’t be violating halacha, they just wouldn’t be operating in the halachic system.
But interfaith couples would be alienated by being told that their marriage does not count, in any respect, as Rabbi Gubitz and also Rabbi Lex Rofeberg make clear in the comments. Rofeberg goes on to say that “If it is not possible for halakha to shift in order to meet the sacredness of interfaith families, our takeaway from that should be that halakha is fundamentally not a Jewish pathway that is a good fit for our time.” I would say that halachic systems, like the Conservative movement, that cannot evolve in ways that are truly inclusive of interfaith families, will dwindle as interfaith families stay away from them.
Missed Opportunity
On July 23 eJP published “Experts champion Jewish education as the key to thriving Jewish communities.” I appreciate that the author cites one of the better things I’ve written for eJP, “The Pew number that matters: 72%.” Unfortunately, the link was for a throw-away mention of “record-high intermarriage,” along with antisemitism and Israel, as challenges to Jewish life in America.
The article tells about yet another group of Jewish leaders getting together and talking about “the condition and direction of Jewish life in America for the coming generations.” It’s understandable that the current focus of these kinds of discussions is antisemitism and the conflict in Israel and Gaza. But not talking at all about the imperative to engage more interfaith families by making them feel that they belong in Jewish communities is a missed opportunity to address a critically important long-term issue.
In Other News
- A far-right lawmaker in Israel is proposing to change the law that allows individuals with one Jewish grandparent to claim citizenship, a move that would exclude many people in interfaith families.
- Some lighter news: a very nice story about a rabbi with a fascinating interfaith family background. “Growing up in an interfaith family made me painfully aware of how unwelcoming Jewish spaces can be to those of us who don’t fit the mold,” said Rabbi Cody R. Bahir. “Too often, people’s Jewish journeys include pain – stories of exclusion or judgment.” At his new synagogue “I strive to create a space where every Jewish, Jew-ish, Jewish-adjacent, Jewish-relative or Jew-curious person feels embraced.
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