I hope your holidays have been meaningful in our very challenging world. It’s been quiet with respect to interfaith family inclusion; a few items reflect a wide range of attitudes towards interfaith marriage.
Embark: Embracing Interfaith Couples
The best piece this month was in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent about a new Embark cohort there, led by Rabbi Megan GoldMarche, a campus rabbi at Penn Hillel. Embark is featured in our July newsletter. Run by Mem Global, it is “a program for interfaith and mixed-heritage couples who want Judaism to be part of their household. It is not a conversion class, though it shares qualities and lessons with one.”
I love what Rabbi GoldMarche, who aims to show interfaith couples that Jewish life is “accessible,” says:
More importantly than whether Jews marry Jews is whether we raise Jews. The people who are going to keep Judaism alive aren’t all going to be Jewish.
The goal is for the couple to be able to have a Jewish home together. I think we all know these days that you can have a Jewish home even if one person in the couple is not Jewish…. They can live a rich Jewish life whether they convert or not.
Identity – Challenged By Matrilineality
In “I came to America as a Jewish refuge. For some Jews, I still don’t count,” Radmilla Suleymanova, an immigrant from Turkmenistan, tells a powerful story.
Raised as a Jew by her father who is Jewish and her mother who is not, even attending Orthodox yeshivas as a child, her extended family did not consider her Jewish. But she “felt a deep connection with my Jewish roots” and felt deeply that “The Diary of Anne Frank” and “Schindler’s List” were “the history of my people.” She visited concentration camps, went on Birthright trips, yet “All the while, I carried a sense that my identity was being rejected or denied.”
[M]any Jews I encountered kept reminding me that, because my mother was not Jewish, they did not consider me Jewish either. I felt pushed out and repeatedly reminded that I was the other. Not good enough. Not one of us.
She considered conversion, but it “presented a contradiction. It would have required me to approach Judaism as an outsider, and I had never experienced myself that way. I didn’t need a stamp or diploma to become what I already was.” Conversion “was about conceding that everything I had loved until then somehow did not belong to me. I wasn’t willing to do that.”
Suleymanova is realistic, respectful, and assertive:
I understand that some Jews will never consider me Jewish. They are entitled to their beliefs, but not to rewrite my childhood or my inheritance.
I am not asking every Jewish community to bend the rules for me. But I do think the children of Jewish men get a raw deal. Jewish fathers are very influential in the home. They often set the tone, raise their children Jewish, share customs and histories. Fathers pass down identity.
I no longer need anyone to tell me what I am and whether I belong. I know what I inherited. I know who I am.
The Reform Movement: Positive – and Proactive?
There was another nice piece in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent – an interview with Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who had some very positive things to say about interfaith marriage. (I didn’t love the way the Exponent posed the question: “Intermarriage rates are at record highs in the U.S. How can we still find ways to build strong Jewish homes in this environment?”)
Rabbi Alexander Schindler’s stance to lovingly embrace interfaith families was “the most brilliant shift… [looking] back, absolutely critical.”
The “idea that intermarriage looks like decline is a mistaken assumption.”
We have focused on bringing interfaith families into the mainstream of Jewish life and we are now succeeding…. We are now the largest movement. Part of the reason is our embrace of interfaith families.
There are things that a couple can do that increase the sense of belonging. We show up with arms extended.
I have questioned whether the Reform movement is coasting on its laurels, or proactively planning to do more to attract more interfaith families. At the time of our June newsletter, at the upcoming biennial there were no sessions that would specifically be about interfaith family inclusion (although I was told “many sessions will be relevant.”) I said that only 13% of interfaith families belong to synagogues, and that for a synagogue movement, that data should be a spur to focused action. After the original version of this blog was posted on September 30, I was pleased to learn that there will be a session, co-led by 18Doors’ Rabbi Miriam Wajnberg and Rabbi Ari Perten from Mem Global, called “Welcoming Isn’t Enough: Why Multi-Heritage Families Still Feel Like They Don’t Belong.”
Let’s Talk About It – or Not?
A beloved rabbi, Al Axelrad, died recently. A very nice obituary in JTA described him as an early pluralist, founder of a havurah, advocate to end the war in Vietnam and divest from South Africa, activist to free Soviet Jews, and creator of adult bar/bat mitzvahs. It neglected to mention that Rabbi Axelrad was a pioneer in officiating at weddings of interfaith couples.
The obituary in the Boston Globe did mention it: “A passionate advocate for interfaith understanding and marriage, he believed that supportive partners and spouses of different faiths could strengthen Jewish families, the Jewish population and community life all around.”
His Wikipedia entry adds:
Beginning in the first years of his rabbinate, Axelrad advocated for rabbinic officiation at marriages of a Jew and a non-Jew, although only under limited circumstances. Noting that supportive non-Jewish spouses could be involved in raising Jewish children, he proposed that rabbis should be understanding of a non-Jewish partner’s reluctance to convert to Judaism for any of a variety of reasons. For couples willing to raise Jewish children, Axelrad proposed that the cooperation and support of a rabbi at the outset of the marriage could be crucial in their decision to do so.
Rabbi Axelrad was supportive in the early years of InterfaithFamily (now 18Doors). I’m sure his memory is a blessing for many, many people.
Unclear, Seems Negative
Phoebe Maltz Bovy, opinion editor of the Canadian Jewish News, refers to “October 8 endogamists” – young Jewish women who want to date only Jewish men because they are experiencing antisemitism (or anti-Zionism). To the extent this is accurate and prevalent, it is a sad development.
Bovy makes an interesting observation about her own experience: “Birthright Israel was, I learned while participating, about finding a Jewish partner with whom to make Jewish babies.”
She seems to be negative about interfaith marriage: “Throughout history, Jewish family lines have assimilated out of the Jewish people via such marriages, often with the Jewish spouse converting out.”
The Traditional Perspective – Interfaith Marriage = the End of Judaism
An Orthodox media outlet, the Jewish Press, had a story about Todd Brody, who started a website, ChoosingTheChosenLife.com, to publicize stories of people who became traditionally observant. Brody espouses the traditional view:
I realized that if I didn’t make a change, my children might not marry Jews. And if they didn’t, then Judaism in my family line could end with me. That thought shook me.
We talk about Jewish continuity, but for many Jews, the reality is that without observance, the likelihood of intermarriage skyrockets. And once that happens, within a generation or two, the Jewish identity fades. I didn’t want to be the link in the chain where it broke.
Becoming observant wasn’t just about my own spiritual growth. It was about ensuring that my children, grandchildren, and great‑grandchildren would be part of the Jewish future.
In Other News
Season Three of Nobody Wants This is coming this month. The first eight paragraphs of a Times of Israel blog post, “Put Me Down for Outrage,” makes the interesting point that “the show asks Joanne, and, by extension, the audience, to take Noah’s Jewish commitments seriously.” (The rest of the post is critical of the way actor Adam Brody talked in an interview about the conflict in Gaza.)
Regarding the Radmilla Suleymanova essay, you quote: “I didn’t need a stamp or diploma to become what I already was.” Conversion “was about conceding that everything I had loved until then somehow did not belong to me. I wasn’t willing to do that.” Conversion would and should not affect what she already knows about *herself*; it merely makes her status official to all Jews.
I know that when I was younger, I was told that the reason for matrilineal descent was that the mother sets the tone of the home, and Ms Suleymanova seems to have been told that as well because she spends some time making the point that fathers can do that too. However, once I got older, I was told a more practical reason: you always know who a child’s mother is…
I completely understand and sympathize that someone raised as a Jew whose mother is not Jewish but father is Jewish understandably considers themselves Jewish. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want a common definition so that stories like this do not cause trauma for such Jews growing up when they have to interact with the wider Jewish world.
Thank you for your comment. This is a very complicated situation. I can understand why Ms. Suleymanova would feel that conversion would undermine the way she had been raised; I can also understand that others in a similar situation wouldn’t understand it that way, and see it as confirming what was already the case. I know that some rabbis are having “affirmation” ceremonies which satisfy the requirements for conversion, but may help address these concerns.
I understand the traditional rationale for matrilineality as the certainty of who the mother is – today it’s so easy to establish paternity.
I wish there could be a common definition but I don’t think it should be matrilineality given the prevalence of interfaith marriage. I argue that a person who has either a Jewish mother or father, who is raised and considers themselves as Jewish, should be recognized to have Jewish status by all Jews – and that where halachic status is important, it can be addressed. I think it is in the interests of Orthodox Jews to consider non-halachic Jews to be Jewish for many issues of concern to all Jews. If an Orthodox child falls in love and wants to marry a non-halachic Jew, that person could choose to convert, under auspices satisfactory to that Orthodox family.
Your comment confusingly ultimately seems to agree with mine: although first you say that you don’t think that the common definition of who is Jewish should be matrilineality, you then say that if someone needs for their Jewish status to be confirmed halachically, conversion is the optimal solution.
Sorry about any confusion. I don’t mean to quibble. Yes, I don’t think that the common definition of who is Jewish should be matrilineality. If there is a situation — like a potential marriage, or a particular ritual — where halachic status matters to the parties, in that case, if the parties agree, then conversion can resolve any issue.