CASJE/eJP Panel June 11
I’m pleased to be making remarks at a panel discussion on “Jewish–Interfaith Families and the Future of Jewish Life in the United States” hosted by CASJE and eJP, on Zoom on June 11, 12 to 1:30 pm ET. The panel follows publication of CASJE’s research digest on children of intermarriage and includes Keren McGinity, Ted Sasson, Bruce Phillips, Rabbi Shena Jaffee and Sophie Mortman. To register and for more information, visit https://www.casje.org/jewish-interfaith-families-panel.
Re-CHARGING Reform, Particularism and Universalism
The Re-CHARGING Reform Judaism conference happened again on May 27-28. The program schedule indicates that engaging interfaith families was not on the agenda – another missed opportunity.
A write-up in eJP about Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch’s keynote, which primarily addressed the Reform movement and Zionism, describes him as favoring Jewish particularism over universalism. The context wasn’t about interfaith families – but talk about particularism always makes me a little nervous. That’s because some see interfaith marriage as decreasing love for the Jewish people – rather than as potentially expanding it.
Hirsch’s talk elicited a strong response from Andrew Rehfeld, president of HUC, and that elicited a response from Jonathan Tobin. I was pleased that none of them blamed interfaith marriage for anything, in particular Tobin, who is no friend of interfaith marriage. I was more pleased that he was critical of “some within the Orthodox movement” who are “triumphalist” and indifferent about the liberal denominations, and who “write off the importance of the mass of non-Orthodox Jews as essentially irrelevant,” and of the “many in Israel” who “mimic this disdain.” I completely agree with Tobin that it would be a “catastrophe” if most of those who are affiliated with liberal denominations or who are unaffiliated were “lost to the Jewish collective.”
The Hartman Institute and Belonging
The biggest development this month was the Shalom Hartman Institute’s release of an important white paper, “Building Communities of Belonging: Jewish Identity, Conversion, Intermarriage and Adjacency,” written by Hartman fellow Christine Hayes.
Hartman is a preeminent Jewish leadership educational institution. So it’s noteworthy that it makes a series of positive statements about interfaith families and about interfaith family inclusion:
- “While intermarriage has increased steadily over the past half-decade, its effect on personal Jewish identity, on the creation of Jewish families, and on organized Jewish life has not followed demographers’ predictions.” Intermarried Jews are raising Jewish children, and partners from different faith backgrounds often play a significant or sometime lead role in creating Jewish households. (pp. 21-22)
- “[E]volving realities of Jewish identity, Jewish status, and communal belonging” prompt “many local Jewish communities and organizations to question whether they are actually as welcoming and inclusive as they want to be and to turn a critical eye toward their policies and practices around” intermarriage (and conversion and Jewish adjacency). (p. 2, 4) Some of those policies and practices “were not designed for their community or organization as it is currently constituted,” that is, with active involvement of people in interfaith relationships. (p. 22) Further, some policies and practices can “hinder belonging” (p. 2); some communities and organizations may be motivated by “a desire to grow … by developing policies and practices that extend Jewish status, or membership in good standing, to a larger number of interested individuals.” (p. 15)
The strength of the paper is its review of historical approaches to Jewish identity, status and standing. “While most community leaders are familiar with the general halakhah on these topics, they are often unaware of the way halakhah has played out in different historical circumstances over the centuries.” (p. 4) It reviews Jewish status based on patrilineal, double, and matrilineal descent (pp. 16-17), as well as Jewish status based on “the incorporation of foreigners” into the community or by religious conversion. (pp. 17-18) I learned a lot. For example, it’s confusing that the term ger in the Torah refers to “stranger” or “resident alien,” but in later texts refers to converts; the paper explains very clearly how that linguistic change happened, and its serious implications.
The paper’s questions for discussion include, “How does an awareness of multiple approaches to intermarriage affect your community’s attitudes, aspirations, and options around intermarriage?” (p. 23) That is the key usefulness of the paper, and I recommend it highly. It certainly could be helpful, for communities and organizations that want to be welcoming and inclusive to interfaith families and partners from different faith backgrounds, to understand the historical approaches to intermarriage that are so clearly spelled out in the paper, that resulted in their current policies and practices, and that could be returned to, or turned away from, as new approaches are considered.
While the consideration of historical approaches is important, I believe that Jewish leaders and Jewish communities and organizations who want to be welcoming and inclusive also need to consider the attitudes they express about interfaith marriage and partners from different faith backgrounds, either in their statements or through their policies, and how those attitudes and policies can enhance or discourage feelings of belonging.
The paper does suggest good discussion questions that would surface those attitudes and what influences them: “does your community or organization view intermarriage as a problem or an opportunity?” “How has the presence (or absence) of intermarried people affected your community?” But the term “tribalism” does not appear in the paper. Social science data that some partners from different faith backgrounds feel “other,” like “outsiders” or “less desirable alternatives,” is not mentioned.
In the section devoted to people who are Jewish adjacent “without marital ties to the community,” the paper refers to “the fear that Jewish adjacency will dilute or negatively impact the character of Jewish communities persists.” (p. 29) The same fear persists with respect to the impact of interfaith marriage. That is a fundamental attitude that needs to be addressed. Some would say that in the more liberal denominations in the Jewish community, fundamental attitudes are the last remaining obstacle to inclusion, with the acceptance of interfaith marriage only a reluctant concession to social reality, instead of the affirmatively positive that is needed.
The paper expressly does not recommend any particular policies or practices, and recognizes “the legitimacy of multiple pathways and practices grounded in Jewish tradition.” (p. 2) As a result, it does not directly address the constraints that current understandings of halakhah with respect to matrilineal descent and rabbinic officiation at weddings of interfaith couples impose on Conservative-affiliated communities and organization who might want to change their policies and practices to be more inclusive. (Questions of status under halakhah loom large in a discussion of the white paper on the Canadian Jewish News’ “Not in Heaven” podcast.)
All in all, though, it’s very positive that the Hartman Institute wants to support communities and organizations that want to be welcoming and inclusive of interfaith families, and the white paper is a very helpful resource toward that end.
Israel
There’s not-good news from Israel on issues related to inclusion of interfaith families. Proposed legislation is pending that would change the Law of Return so as to allow citizenship only to converts according to Orthodox standards (criticized in the article by Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch) and to give control to Orthodox authorities over religious practices at the Western Wall. An influential Israeli writer and speaker also said that Jews who do not immigrate to Israel are “traitors” (criticized by Rabbi Josh Weinberg).
Canada
The Canadian Jewish News’ North Star podcast discussed “Canadian Jews trending toward more newcomers, intermarriage and aging.” Panelists said that of all households with marriages and at least one Jewish person, half are in-marriages and half are intermarriages; that there are “an increasing number of Jewish children who are living in mixed households;” that the federation “could have events for mixed families;” and that “day schools can think about how they want to cater to those families.”
In other news:
- In “Reading a Pakistani author’s 30-year-old novel helped me understand my parents’ views on intermarriage,” a young Jewish woman who reads a novel about a Zoroastrian community in Pakistan. Unlike liberal Jewish communities, the Zoroastrian community excommunicates those who intermarry, which calls into question the usefulness of drawing any lessons about interfaith marriage from them.
- An interesting article about a ledger kept by a Polish mohel from 1883 to 1920 recording circumcisions including of children of intermarried mothers who were not Jewish.
- Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi offers “Great TV: ‘Boston Blue’ & Its Shabbat Tradition,” reviewing a show about an interfaith, interracial family.
- I’m not on Instagram, but a friend told me that influencer Amy Albertson, @theamyalbertson, posted “Here’s to all the non-Jewish moms raising Jewish kids. Thank you for opening your lives to a huge legacy, history and culture.”
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