November 2024 News from the Center

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In our unsettled world, my wife and I were blessed to spend time over Thanksgiving with our wonderful family – our children and their spouses, and especially our four grandchildren, each of them a unique universe of potential, sources of calm and joy. I hope you had a good holiday.

Nobody Wants This and Intermarried Rabbis

The buzz about “Nobody Wants This” has quieted. My What “Nobody Wants This” gets wrong about interfaith relationships today was featured in The Forward’s November 8 newsletter. Matt Goldberg’s “‘Nobody Wants This’ Is About Beating the Jews” criticizes the series as being “indifferent about Judaism as a religion” and for suggesting that Judaism “isn’t a big deal.”

On the other hand, in The Times, a major UK newspaper, Jessica Diner, the global beauty director of Vogue, says:

If there is one reason why I am grateful to Nobody Wants This, it is that, at a time when it feels scary to be a Jew, one of the most watched shows on the planet is a story of Jewish love, portrayed by a Jewish actor, written by a Jewish team …. If a Jewish series can give the wider population the warm and fuzzies and deliver a universal message to be open about love while the world feels like it’s on fire, then that, as a Jew, feels incredibly special.

Another UK piece, “How realistic is Nobody Wants This?” asks whether intermarrying rabbis stretches credibility. It notes that the Assembly of Reform Rabbis and Cantors and the Conference of Liberal Rabbis and Cantors in the UK do not bar rabbis with spouses who are not Jewish. Further, Britain’s Progressive seminary, the Leo Baeck College in London, changed its rules more than a decade ago to allow the admission of rabbinic students with partners who are not Jewish.

The rabbi who co-chairs the Reform Assembly, who is 41, says that for her generation of rabbis, having a partner who is not Jewish is “not an issue;” being “strongly committed to the principle of inclusion within the Progressive movement… [i]t would be quite hypocritical to say that rabbis should have a different standard.”

Conservative Movement, Arnold Eisen, Hartman Institute, “Sabbath Queen”

There’s a lot to report about the Conservative movement’s approach to interfaith marriage this month.

The presentation by Rabbi Aaron Brusso mentioned in our October newsletter is definitely worth watching. Rabbi Brusso was the chair of Rabbinical Assembly’s Standards Working Group, which issued a report earlier this year that recommended significant changes that would empower Conservative rabbis to more fully embrace interfaith couples, but maintaining the ban on rabbinic officiation at weddings of interfaith couples.

Rabbi Brusso explains that Conservative rabbis shouldn’t be in the position of disapproving interfaith marriage. Instead, they should embrace interfaith couples pastorally and encourage them to learn about Jewish practices and take responsibility for deciding how they will engage. He explains to couples how the various elements of a halachic Jewish wedding do not fit when one partner is not Jewish; he also explains that the Torah blessings are a particularly Jewish faith statement. I understood him to suggest that after these discussions, the partners from different faith backgrounds are persuaded that it’s not appropriate for them to have a rabbi officiate at their wedding, or for them to say the Torah blessings.

I also led a webinar for 18Doors’ Rukin Fellows. The current cohort, for the first time, has a significant number of Conservative rabbis. Some of them appeared to be very challenged by my “equality theory” – that in order to feel belonging, and therefore engage Jewishly, partners from different faith backgrounds need to be considered and treated as equal to their Jewish partners. I understood one rabbi to say that they were stewards of a two thousand year tradition that couldn’t easily change because of current demographic reality.

Eisen. Coincidentally, Andy Silow-Carrol interviewed Arnold Eisen, who served as chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, about Eisen’s new book, Seeking the Hiding God. In the interview, Eisen says,

Yes, the number of people who say “I’m a Conservative Jew” is much less than it used to be. I think that is primarily because Conservative rabbis will not perform intermarriages, and if you can’t have a Conservative rabbi [officiate] your wedding and you’re intermarried or the child of an intermarriage, you’re not going to say, “I’m a Conservative Jew.”

 

Hartman Institute. In a very interesting Shalom Hartman Institute podcast, “Spheres of Belonging,” Yehuda Kurtzer says:

At Hartman we’ve been doing some work on the idea of “Jewish adjacents,” the people connected to Jews and Jewish community and who are themselves not Jewish, and we’ve been asking: what are their responsibilities to our norms when they seek to participate in Jewish life, and what are our ethical obligations to them as players in Jewish life?
How do they add to the richness of our community and how do we make space for their involvement without compromising our commitment to a unified identity?

Conservative Rabbi Ari Kaiman, reiterating the view that it is inappropriate for a partner from a different faith background to say the Torah blessings, says:

Not only Jews find meaningful living through Judaism, and there are many people in our congregation who are finding meaning and community. It was an anxiety to think, well, what does that mean for our halakhic practice? But Judaism itself, halakha, articulates boundaries and porousness. There’s nothing that’s forbidden about a non-Jew learning Torah. There’s nothing forbidden about a non Jew sitting in a prayer service. There’s something that would be inappropriate about a non Jew saying at the Torah, asher bachar banu mikol ha’amim, who chose us from all other peoples. It’s incoherent.

And so the, but I also don’t have a lot of non-Jews saying, Hey, that’s the thing I want to do. Or if they were to say that, I would say, that’s really interesting. Let’s explore that more because maybe you want to be Jewish. But what we strive for is welcoming people for who they are and not having expectations of them becoming like us or like Jewish any more than they want to be.

Kurtzer then notes the need

to acknowledge the seriousness of a commitment to halakha and other forms of normative thinking that require of us to take boundaries seriously, and at the same time an effort to enable a productive porousness that keeps more people in than it leaks them out. This is one of the greater missions of rabbinic work: the curation and definition of peoplehood through listening to the needs both of individuals and the greater Jewish people.

“Sabbath Queen.” At the most inclusive end of the spectrum, “Sabbath Queen,” a new film about Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, is getting a lot of attention. Lau-Lavie, founder of LabShul, was ordained at JTS, but left the Conservative movement to officiate at weddings of interfaith couples. A review of the film says he advocates for “the need to leave tribalism without leaving Judaism.” It quotes Lau-Lavie as saying “It is necessary to move from the old paradigm of either/or to ‘yes and’… When you welcome someone fully, that person becomes part of the community. We must blur the old boundaries because it is practical and realistic.” He continues:

You love who you are now, in community with, or in a neighborhood with, or in relationship with, beyond the tribal boundaries that we grew up with. It’s not instead of who and where we are. It’s in addition to that. Either you stay behind your walls, or you meet people where they’re at, welcome them in, and keep Judaism thriving and expansive and inclusive. Keep it love-driven, not fear-based. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But there is no other recipe for survival.

Gary Rosenblatt explains that Lau-Lavie had hoped to change the Conservative movement’s policy on officiation “from within,” but after a “year of intense study of Jewish texts and in conversation with rabbis and congregants, he found a path he believed would enable him to officiate,” developing “a new form of wedding ceremony, incorporating certain Jewish rituals, preceded and followed by a commitment by the couple to study and engage in Jewish life.”

Rosenblatt writes about a scene in the film from a LabShul board meeting when, after Lau-Lavie said he planned to join the Rabbinical Assembly, a LabShul member said “’My family needs you,’ reminding him that he had created a community based on inclusivity.”

In “Welcoming the ‘Sabbath Queen’” Peter Fox, noting that Lau-Lavie left the movement because he chose to officiate at the wedding of a Jewish-Buddhist gay couples, put it more bluntly: ““It’s funny, because the gayness isn’t controversial. It’s the interfaithness … such a mindfuck, right?”

Interfaith families and antisemitism

18Doors’ board chair, Laurie Beijen, and chief program officer, Adam Pollack, write that the increase in antisemitism has affected interfaith families in different ways than their Jewish-Jewish counterparts. Some partners from different faith backgrounds lack foundational knowledge about antisemitism; couples face communication challenges, with one partner feeling upset and unsupported and the other confused and unaware. The organization partnered with ADL to offer guides for interfaith families on how to identify, address and talk about antisemitism, and how to be an ally as a partner who is not Jewish, as well as spaces for couples to discuss their experiences. They conclude,

Despite the challenges unique to interfaith couples regarding antisemitism, there are also immense opportunities. Having family from different backgrounds allows for increased awareness, influence on opinions and the formation of a coalition of allies, ultimately leading to greater advocacy and safety for Jews and their loved ones.

Jack Wertheimer’s Latest

Jack Wertheimer addresses the impact of October 7 and resurgent antisemitism on American Jews in “What American Jews Gave After October 7: An Accounting.” I don’t think he is aware of how negatively his comments about interfaith relationships come across. He says, “Jews in online discussion groups and other social media have described breakups with intimate partners who disagreed with them about the war; some have decided to swear off dating non-Jews as a result.” And “There even is evidence of a substantial increase in the numbers of non-Jews, many in relationships with Jews, who have been motivated by the resurgence of anti-Semitism to throw in their lot with Jews by converting to Judaism.” Noting that Employee Resource Groups are “attracting younger Jews between the ages of 35 and 45, many of whom are intermarried,” he adds, “Perhaps for the first time in their adult lives, they wish to connect with other Jews in some kind of collective effort.”

Wertheimer says, “The question keeping professionals in the field up at night is how much of Jewish communal life can be sustained if the donor base continues to shrink.” Expressing negative attitudes about interfaith marriage is not likely to increase the donor base.

The December Holidays Are Coming

Hey Alma’s advice columnist tackles Will I Confuse My Jewish Kid If We Celebrate Christmas. We definitely agree that in the family posing the question, celebrating Christmas wouldn’t confuse the child’s Jewish identity at all. But we weren’t sure about the unsolicited advice that encouraged the parents to share more of their own interfaith identities and backgrounds.

I’m disappointed that the folks at Kveller and Hey Alma are talking about Chrismukkah. I’ve defended interfaith families from criticism because they celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah for over twenty years, while also saying that “Chrismukkah Is a Bad Idea.” Celebrating each distinct holiday doesn’t mean mushing them together – even if they fall at the same time.

Celebrities

Martha Stewart on what things were like in 1961: “I went home and told my dad [about the engagement], and my dad slapped me. And he slapped me hard on my face and said, ‘No, you’re not marrying him. He’s a Jew.’ I remember getting that slap.”

The Forward’s Benyamin Cohen asks, “Is Seth Meyers Jewish? His wife, kids and jokes are.” Cohen reports that “Over the years, he’s become ‘Jewish enough’ for his in-laws.” He believes “that’s the only religion that that happens in. Which is why it’s great that it’s the only religion that ends with -ish.” I say it doesn’t matter whether he’s formally Jewish or not.

In Other News

  • Interfaith Work and Interfaith Families: A Toolkit is a new resource created by Susan Katz Miller and Dalia El Ariny, for interfaith families and multiple religious practicioners, organizations that work with them, and scholars who conduct research about them.
  • Our friend Marion Usher was the scholar in residence at Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation. You can watch her initial presentation here.
  • News from Israel: ynet reports that “The Reform movement converted 303 people in Israel last year, a record number compared to previous years, which is about 17% of the aggregate converts in Israel during this period.”
  • The Jewish News Service chose to highlight, from new research presented by the UJA-Federation of New York, that “Sephardic and Mizrachi New Yorkers … have lower intermarriage rates … than the overall New York Jewish population.”
  • Finally, a really wonderful story: “How My Southern Interfaith Family Pulled Together the Perfect Bat Mitzvah.”

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.

Intermarriage Round-up

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My Google alerts for “interfaith” and “intermarriage” picked up eight interesting items in the last month.

Rabbi Kerry Olitzky has written what sounds like a great new Haggadah That’s Full of Welcome. Published by Behrman House just in time for Passover, the haggadah is for families “who want to be as welcoming as they can be,” especially “for those on the periphery, for those who have been historically disenfranchised, for those who have been excluded” from the Jewish experience.” Customs from other traditions are mentioned because “people sitting around the table may have experiences within their own traditions with water” and “It’s a way to bring them closer to the Jewish experience.”

Rabbi Jillian Cameron, director of InterfaithFamily/Boston, wrote a great piece, “It’s Not My Face That Makes Me Jewish:”

Over the years I have at times marveled at the fact that I stayed connected to Judaism, after years of being told I wasn’t Jewish, because I have a mother who isn’t or from being questioned based on my appearance. Perhaps it was my stubbornness, my teachers and friends who helped boost my Jewish confidence or simply the fact that I wasn’t about to let these comments diminish my passion for Judaism or derail my dream of being a rabbi. But I know many who have faced these same questions and comments who are now wholly disconnected from Judaism, plagued with feelings of rejection or frustration. Those who weren’t as lucky as I have been. We are the poorer for this loss.

[I]t’s really time to open our minds to what the Jewish community actually looks like right now, in all its glorious diversity—and celebrate the infinite faces of Judaism.

Ryan Lavarnaway, a Major League Baseball player who played for Team Israel in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, has intermarried parents (his mother is Jewish, his father Catholic) and didn’t have a bar mitzvah or attend synagogue as a child, but had a Jewish wedding with a Jewish woman and joined a synagogue, and feels more connected to his Jewish identity and the Jewish community after traveling in Israel with Team Israel.

Christine Wolkin, a Honeymoon Israel trip participant, says HMI’s goal is “to make non-traditional Jewish families feel welcome in the Jewish community and to inspire them to incorporate Jewish values into their lives.” She says “My husband and I still have many questions about how we are going to raise our family, but after this experience we feel strongly that no matter what our decision, we are now a part of a supportive community that shares the same concerns.”

Curious about the Catholic view of intermarriage? An article in a Catholic publication defines a “mixed” marriage is between a Catholic and a non-Catholic Christian, while an “interfaith” marriage is between a Catholic and a “non-Christian.” The Catholic party wishing to enter into either has to obtain special permission from his or her bishop, which is “usually granted on the condition that the Catholic party will not be pressured into abandoning the Catholic faith, and that he or she will remain free to fulfill the duties of a Catholic parent, which includes raising the children in the faith. For the Catholic party to receive this permission, the non-Catholic party must agree to these terms.”

The Indian-American and Jewish-American experiences with intermarriage appear to be similar. According to an article in India New England News, twenty years ago, only 15% of Indian-American marriages were interracial or interfaith; ten years ago, it was 40%; today, it is almost 80%. A party planner attributes this to most Indian-Americans of wedding age growing up in the US and meeting people in high school or college; she refers to “the death of arranged marriages.” She also says the success rate of interracial marriages is very high.

I’m a big fan of the Forward and its editor-in-chief, Jane Eisner, except for her disapproving views on intermarriage, with which I’ve found myself always disagreeing. But in her March 12, 2018 Jane Looking Forward column, in revealing that she has a rare genetic bleeding disorder that is more common in Ashkenazi Jews than other populations, Eisner wonders whether the passing down of genetic diseases will change “with the high rates of intermarriage among the non-Orthodox?” and then seems to identify a positive consequence: “Shouldn’t we move beyond tribalism to embrace a more varied concept of the Jewish people, to include those of different races and ethnic origins?”

In Brazil, a Jewish woman married a woman from a different faith tradition; they were married under a chuppah, circled each other, and broke glasses. A cantor who is not employed by a synagogue officiated; he said,

It was not a Jewish marriage because one of the brides is not Jewish, it was a spiritual marriage with a Jewish symbology…. It is very important to welcome the union of two people who love each other, regardless of faith, gender or anything else. I feel very happy and honored to be able to bless a union where love, which should have no boundaries or limits, is sovereign…. I follow my perception of what I consider to be the needs of Judaism these days…. The Jewish bride is very tied to the traditions and asked me to reproduce the symbolism of a Jewish marriage because of the importance it had for her.

Finally, an interesting article in eJewishPhilanthropy about the Jewish Millennial Engagement Project in Washington DC run by a group of Conservative rabbis in partnership with Conservative organizations and the DC Federation explains disruptive innovation practices. I’d be interested to know how the project works with interfaith couples, who aren’t mentioned in the article.

The Next Celebrity Interfaith Couple?

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It’s uncanny. Almost exactly a year ago – July 31, 2010 – the big news in InterfaithFamily.com’s world was the wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky, and all of the following discussion about the Jewish community’s not very embracing reaction. Now, on August 1, 2011, we may have the next big news for interfaith families. Yes – it’s the finale of The Bachelorette.

I want to make if very clear that I am too busy dealing with important matters to watch low-brow TV shows like The Bachelorette. However, on what is kind of a “date,” I do accompany my wife as she watches the show. As such, I know that this season’s bachelorette, Ashley, is down to two contenders, Ben and J.P., that she’s going to pick one of them this coming Monday night, and that while Ben seems to be a good person, my favorite is J.P., and well, he’s Jewish.

I remember (only vaguely of course because I’m not really watching) that there was one early mention that J.P., at the time one of many contenders, was Jewish, but nothing else was ever said. In a recent episode when Ashley visited the families of the remaining contenders, J.P.’s mother on Long Island came across as a stereotypical very warm and loving but a little intrusive Jewish mother. Interestingly, there was no mention of religions or religious differences in that episode.

Now the Morton Report has surfaced the issue with The Bachelorette: Will One Contender’s Religion Be an Obstacle? The writer, Pat Fish, says:

Why is this important? Well, religion is something people about to embark on a life together do discuss. Also, some Jewish people discourage mixed marriages though they do tolerate them. Interestingly, I’ve never known J.P. and Ashley to discuss their religious differences, at least not on camera.

I will be very interested to again accompany my wife on Monday night to see how this unfolds. If Ashley picks J.P. I do hope they’ve talked about religion or do so soon, and we’ve got lots of resources that can help them have that discussion. If they end up getting married, we’re here to help, with our Jewish Clergy Officiation Referral Service, our Guide to Wedding Ceremonies for Interfaith Couples, and lots of other weddings resources. And hopefully the Jewish community will take this opportunity to not tolerate, but to embrace, another interfaith couple.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

My Interview with Steve and Cokie Roberts

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I had a very interesting interview with Cokie and Steve Roberts last week. We talked about their new book, Our Haggadah, which I’ve blogged about before, and which our Board member Rabbi Rim Meirowitz  reviewed very positively.

I asked the Robertses what their goals were in terms of what they hoped interfaith couples would do with Our Haggadah. Cokie Roberts, a serious Catholic, said her goal was to make it as easy as possible to participate in and host a seder. She said Passover is a joyous festival, but people are intimidated about preparing for it, setting the table, and conducting the service. As I’ve said before, I applaud Cokie Roberts for being so supportive of interfaith couples engaging in Jewish practices like the Passover seder.

I asked whether they thought that interfaith couples would still be having seders twenty or thirty years from now, and both were quite certain that they would. Steve pointed out that seders have been conducted for thousands of years, and Cokie said the seder is joyous, addresses universal themes, is home based (avoiding the barriers that synagogues sometimes present), and personally customizable.

But my question posed the issue that I really wanted to explore – the interplay between Jewish identity and Jewish practices. Because if interfaith couples don’t identity their families, or their children, as Jewish, then in another generation, will the children of those families, themselves married, perhaps intermarried – will they still be interested in conducting or participating in the Passover seder?

Cokie’s answer was that what children will do in terms of Jewish practices is always a question – and aptly added that it is a question about children of two Jewish parents, too. They told me that their family has more Jewish content than the families of Jewish relatives of Steve who are in-married. Cokie said that given the reality of intermarriage, a good solution is to celebrate Jewish traditions as “a major part of the family.”

But that raised the identity/practice question again. Steve said his goal in writing the book was to provide guidance, models and encouragement to the many young interfaith couples that he encounters among his students. The model the Robertses themselves offer is to embrace both religious traditions. They said that choosing one religion, “ceding” to the other, wouldn’t work for them, because each was so deeply tied to their tradition.

So my identity/practice question is still pending. The Robertses said they don’t talk about their own children’s identity or practice, I assume out of respect for their privacy. It sounds like the Roberts’ seders are so wonderful that their children would want to continue to have them for their families. But I’m left to wonder what will happen down the road if the children of interfaith families aren’t raised as and don’t identify as Jews.

I respect the Roberts’ approach and their integrity. They are very serious about religion. Steve said he felt that couples getting married who decide to “just get a judge” because they have difficulty finding clergy “in most cases do a disservice to themselves.” He asks those couples to consider that they come from traditions and can find a way to reflect them – and not pretend they are neutral characters.  He clearly feels that religious traditions can enrich young couples’ lives.

The Robertses are not directive when interfaith couples ask their advice, either. There say there is no necessarily right way for anyone and they don’t push their model on anyone. They readily acknowledge that choosing one religion for a family and children is one way that interfaith couples can go. That is what InterfaithFamily.com has always recommended, although we hasten to add that children should learn about the other religious tradition represented in their family, and participate in it to the extent parents want them to.

We talked about other subjects and we clearly had common ground in many areas, especially the need for the Jewish community to be more welcoming to interfaith couples. Both Cokie and Steve are incredibly smart and articulate – they are great spokespersons for their approach to interfaith family life. Which leaves me, in the end, still wishing that Cokie and Steve Roberts were in IFF’s camp.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

More Portman

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One of the people interviewed by Abigail Porgrebin for her 2005 book, Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk about Being Jewish, was Natalie Portman.  Hillel’s website has a long and very interesting excerpt from the book.

Portman’s father is an Israeli physician, her mother an American artist. She lived in Israel until she was 3, then in the US, but visited Israel frequently. She attended a day school until eighth grade, but her parents weren’t religious; they didn’t belong to a synagogue and she didn’t become Bat Mitzvah, but she goes to services on the High Holidays if she is in Israel. She has close relatives who were murdered in the Holocaust. “The first time I felt comfortable in an American religious institution was in college, because [Harvard] campus Hillel was inclusive. And it’s nice having Shabbat dinner every week with everyone.” She wrote a letter to the editor of the Harvard Crimson challenging an article alleging Israeli racism.

Here is the source of all of the media comment so far on her views on intermarriage:

When it comes to Portman’s own romantic life, she says she’s not necessarily looking for a Jewish husband. “A priority for me is definitely that I’d like to raise my kids Jewish, but the ultimate thing is just to have someone who is a good person and who is a partner. It’s certainly not my priority.” She says her parents don’t push her one way or another. “My dad always makes this stupid joke with my new boyfriend, who is not Jewish. He says, ‘It’s just a simple operation.’” She laughs. “They’ve always said to me that they mainly want me to be happy and that’s the most important thing, but they’ve also said that if you marry someone with the same religion, it’s one less thing to fight about.”

According to this interview, Portman said she was comfortable using her celebrity on behalf of Israelis causes. Perhaps if she is going to have an interfaith marriage, she’ll be willing to use her celebrity on behalf of the cause of engaging interfaith families in Jewish life?

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

The Mixed Marriage of the Century

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I didn’t think the wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky would be eclipsed so soon, but here comes the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton. People everywhere are just fascinated by the British royal family. Through our lens here at InterfaithFamily.com, we can’t help but focus on the “intermarriage” aspect of the relationship. No, Kate Middleton isn’t Jewish – now wouldn’t that be an interesting situation! – but she is a “commoner” and, well, you can’t be much more “royal” than William, the future King of England.

The Jewish community’s response to interfaith marriages might take a lesson or two from the British aristrocracy’s response to its own kind of mixed marriage. Their attitudes have certainly adapted over the years towards a welcoming approach. It isn’t all that long ago that King Edward VIII was forced to abdicate in order to marry Wallis Simpson, a commoner (and divorcee to boot). But Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles have publicly expressed their complete delight with Prince William’s choice.

The British don’t have any qualms about the status of the children of a royal-commoner marriage: any child of William and Kate will be not merely royal, but, well, the heir to the throne. That goes further than the Reform movement’s approach, where a child of an interfaith marriage is at least presumptively potentially Jewish if raised Jewish.

The British also make it easy for someone marrying in to acquire royal status. I’m no expert on this. I’m not sure if by reason of the marriage, Kate becomes a Duchess or a Princess, or that happens by the Queen just conferring that status on her. Either way, she becomes part of the royal family. It would be nice if the Jewish community considered our partners who aren’t Jewish part of the family in the same easy way.

The press has focused on how solicitous William has been of Kate. After all, he’s lived his entire life with what I’m sure are peculiar or at least particular “rituals” of the royal family, and she’ll have to get used to all of that. William reportedly promised her father that he would help her to adjust. Wouldn’t it be great if the Jewish partners in interfaith couples took the same kind of approach with respect to sharing Jewish traditions with their partners?

Here at InterfaithFamily.com we’re positive about the potential for couples from different backgrounds to build fulfilling lives together and to decide to affiliate their family with the tradition of one partner while honoring and respecting the tradition of the other. We’re happy to see that at least at the outset, it looks like Prince William and Kate Middleton have a good chance of doing just that. So we’ll send them an early mazel tov!

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

Chelsea and Marc in the Jewish News Again

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Each year the Forward, the only national Jewish newspaper, publishes a list called the “Forward 50” which they describe this year as a list of “men and women who have made a significant impact on the Jewish story in a Jewish way.”

Way back in 2001, I made the list, to my mother’s everlasting pride – she thought it was a list of the fifty most important Jews. I had criticized one of the leading critics of intermarriage as subjectively biased, and I think the Forward staff liked the controversy.

As usual, the list this year is entertaining reading – in particular this year because they added a 51st space, for two people: “Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky, high-profile intermarriage.”

If you read this blog you know that we’ve had a lot of comment on the Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding, starting back when their engagement was announced, continuing with speculation about what kind of officiant they would have, and most recently with comment on the not very enthusiastic reaction of Jewish leaders to their wedding because a rabbi co-officiated with a Methodist minister before Shabbat had ended.

According to the Forward, the wedding “reinvigorated the intermarriage conversation for a new generation of American Jews.” Chelsea’s wedding to “an involved Jew… was a validating first in many ways” referring to the photos of a chuppah, a ketubah, and the groom in a tallis and yarmulke – “The Clintons and Mezvinskys telegraphed to the world that Judaism has nothing to hide.”

In explaining why they went beyond 50, clearly the controversy was again important: Chelsea and Marc are included “For the hot debate this couple caused about who is a Jew and what role nuptials play in religion, for how they captivated the American imagination and energized the conversation around Jewish identity.”

Next week I will be speaking at a session at the Jewish Federation of North America’s annual convention on the question, “Can we encourage in-marriage and welcome interfaith families?” We had a planning call for the session today and the other panelists did not seem thrilled to hear that I plan to bring up the Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding in my presentation. But I still feel strongly that the tepid reaction of Jewish leaders missed an opportunity to extend an enthusiastic welcome to a prominent couple that could have helped to inspire many other young couples to consider Jewish traditions for their own weddings and lives together. I’m glad that the Forward has kept the Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding in the spotlight.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

The Significance of Chelsea Clinton’s Wedding

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In my last blog post, The Jewish World Reacts to the Clinton-Mezvinsky Wedding — and It Isn’t Pretty,  I said I was still reflecting on the significance of Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, and would have more to say about it.

Well I did reflect on it and I wrote an op-ed and the Forward published it today: The Missing ‘Mazel Tov.’

I would love to quote the entire piece here but please read it on the Forward site. In a nutshell, I think the significance of the Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding is because of their celebrity the way they conducted their wedding could inspire many other interfaith couples to seriously consider incorporating Jewish practices in their weddings – like Chelsea and Marc did so prominently – and hopefully in their lives together after their weddings. In addition, I think it was very fortunate that Chelsea and Marc were able to find a rabbi of the stature of James Ponet to co-officiate the wedding with a Methodist minister.

Instead of an enthusiastic, hearty “Mazel tov,” the reaction of Jewish leaders, as detailed in my last blog post, was to pronounce the wedding as “not a Jewish event.” This was the worst possible response to express, because it can only serve to discourage and push away not just Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky, but the thousands of other interfaith couples who are watching.

Because of space limitations, the Forward cut two paragraphs, which I’ll include here:

“There is a serious disconnect between what young couples want and what our religious leaders want to provide. Thirty to 45% of the requests made to InterfaithFamily.com’s Jewish Clergy Officiation Referral Service are for rabbis who co-officiate. In recent research done for us, rabbis who do not officiate reported overwhelmingly that they are able to successfully tell couples they can’t officiate without alienating them; but interfaith couples emphasized that a rabbis’ refusals to officiate are likely to turn them away from their congregations.”

“JTA quotes Jewish sociologist Steven M. Cohen as saying that we should celebrate the marriage of these individuals, but not the type of marriage it represents. The head of the Conservative movement said “intermarriage is not ideal” but we “must welcome interfaith families.” This have-it-both-ways response simply won’t cut it with young couples. If you were Chelsea Clinton, considering whether to get more involved in Jewish life, how would you feel?”

I hope you will read the entire piece and welcome your comments and suggestions here.

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.

The Jewish World Reacts to the Clinton-Mezvinsky Wedding — and It Isn’t Pretty

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It’s been a long week at InterfaithFamily.com, starting with the news last Saturday night that Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky had a rabbi and a minister at their wedding with very evident Jewish traditions. In this post I’m going to try to just summarize the coverage. I’m still reflecting on the significance of it all, and will have more to say about that.

At the beginning of the week the media coverage from the Jewish angle focused on what happens next for newly married interfaith couples. On Monday there was a story on ABCNews.com, Chelsea Clinton’s Interfaith Marriage Challenge: Kids, Holidays, Soul-Searching.The writer, Luchina Fisher, noted that the wedding featured many Jewish traditions: the couple married under a chuppah or canopy; the groom wore a yarmulke or skull cap and tallis or prayer shawl; friends and family recited the Seven Blessings typically read at traditional Jewish weddings. She then quoted me:

“To me that’s an indication that the groom identifies Jewishly,” Edmund Case, the head of InterfaithFamily.com told ABCNews.com. “It’s also apparent that Chelsea must have been fine with it or it wouldn’t have happened. Also, given the prominence of her family, they must have been accepting of it.”

Cathy Grossman also had a story on Monday, Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding reflects mix of religions in USA. Cathy noted,

The website InterfaithFamily.com offers DVDs for a Love and Religion course created by Marion Usher, a marriage and family counselor who has run workshops for interfaith couples for 16 years at the Jewish Community Center in Washington, D.C. DVD sales soared after Usher began offering advice online timed to the Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding.

On Tuesday I had a second post on the Huffington Post, where I tried to answer the question, Chelsea Clinton’s Interfaith Marriage: What Comes Next? Later on Tuesday, though, the coverage from the Jewish perspective turned away from what couples like Chelsea and Marc face, and started reporting on negative reactions to the wedding in the Jewish world. Jacob Berkman had a story for JTA, which is starting to be widely re-printed in local Jewish papers:  Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding raises questions about intermarriage. After a great introduction – “Is it possible that the first iconic Jewish picture of the decade is of an interfaith marriage? Photographs taken Saturday show the Jewish groom wearing a yarmulke and a crumpled tallit staring into the eyes of his giddy bride under a traditional Jewish wedding canopy with a framed ketubah, a Jewish wedding contract, in the background.” – Jacob starts quoting Jewish leaders expressing ambivalence.

First, Steven M. Cohen tries to have it both ways: “we should celebrate the particular marriage of these two fine individuals, but we ought not celebrate the type of marriage it constitutes and represents.” Then Rabbi Eric Yoffie reportedly told JTA, “The Reform movement frowns upon its rabbis conducting weddings on the Sabbath.” “Rabbi Steven Wernick, the CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, said intermarriage is certainly ‘not ideal,’ but that the Conservative movement in 2008 decided that it must welcome interfaith families and ‘help their spouses along their spiritual journeys.’” At least Rabbi Yoffie also said, “I look at the couple and my response is, ‘I hope they will make a choice to raise their children in a single religion and tradition and second, as a Jew and rabbi, I hope it will be Judaism.”

It was left to me to make an unequivocal statement: “Case said that accepting this marriage and welcoming this intermarried family into the Jewish fold could help pave the way for the Jewish community to be more accepting of others.” I was also quoted as saying that “the Clinton wedding certainly had stirred interest in intermarriage, noting that traffic to his website was up 35 percent in July compared to the same month last year. “

Also on Tuesday, Julie Wiener put up her article that would appear in the New York Jewish Week, which focuses on co-officiation. Julie says that “Even as the number of liberal rabbis willing to preside at weddings of Jews to gentiles appears to be growing, co-officiation with clergy of another faith, while hardly unheard of, remains taboo.” Julie quotes me:

“The mainstream of the Reform rabbinate is not with co-officiation yet,” says Ed Case, CEO of InterfaithFamily.com, which since 2007 has run a free referral service for interfaith couples seeking clergy to officiate at their wedding. Despite the mainstream opposition, 40 percent of the almost 400 rabbis and cantors in IFF’s database (some ordained by the Reform and Reconstructionist seminaries, some by nondenominational ones) are willing to co-officiate, and in the past six months 31.5 percent of the approximately 120 couples each month using the service have sought someone to co-officiate. (In 2009, 43 percent of couples contacting IFF were seeking someone to co-officiate.) “I’ve had Reform rabbis say they don’t want to have anything to do with us because our referral service” provides co-officiating rabbis to those couples who want them, Case says.

Julie interviewed Rabbi Ellen Dreyfuss, the president of the Reform rabbis’ association, who said “The rabbi’s presence and officiation at a wedding is reflective of a commitment on the part of the couple to have a Jewish home and a Jewish family, so co-officiation with clergy of another faith does not reflect that commit. It reflects, rather, indecision on the part of the couple… Religiously it’s problematic because [the bride and groom are] trying to create a both and there’s no such thing as a both.” Rabbi Richard Hirsh, executive director of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, also says that “having a co-officiated ceremony points in the direction of a home that won’t be primarily Jewish.”

As Rabbi Kerry Olitzky of JOI aptly points out, however, “the common assumption is that when a couple wishes a rabbi to co-officiate, the couple is going to bring up the future children in two faiths or the couple has not made a decision…. That’s probably a premature conclusion to make.” And I said, about Rabbi James Ponet, who co-officiated at the Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding, “I think it’s really significant that a highly regarded rabbi would be willing to co-officiate and before Shabbat was over. I think it’s positive too. Maybe it will have some influence.”

Julie gives our own Rabbi Lev Baesh the last word:

Lev Baesh, a Reform rabbi and CCAR member who is the director of InterfaithFamily.com’s resource center for Jewish clergy and oversees the referral service, says he co-officiates because, “My view is that any Jew who wants Jewish ritual in their life should have it.”
Even if a couple hasn’t yet decided whether or not to have a Jewish household, “the wedding is a great opportunity to show Judaism is something that has meaning and value for them.”
The hope is that if they have a good experience, then “down the road” these couples will get more engaged in Jewish life.
“I know that I’m not just hoping this, because I also do a lot of baby namings,” Rabbi Baesh says.

Finally, on Thursday, Allison Gaudet Yarrow at the Forward wrote Wedding Blues: Rabbis At Odds With Their Rules, which again focuses on co-officiation. Yarrow’s summary: “Top leaders from all the major streams of Judaism – Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and Reconstructionist – were at pains to stress that the Sabbath day nuptials of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky were not a Jewish event.” She quoted me as saying,

In his work with Interfaithfamily.com, which offers, among other things, a clergy referral service, CEO Ed Case sees a disconnect between rabbis who feel they can navigate the interfaith issue without offending interfaith couples and those particular couples’ experience of interacting with rabbis who won’t perform or recognize interfaith unions.
“For better or for worse, what couples want and what lay people want are different than where the rabbinate is. People don’t feel bound by requirements or traditions, and they want to do what they want to do,” he said.
Case hoped interfaith couples would look at the Jewish rituals in the Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding and think, “If this is good enough for Chelsea Clinton, it’s good enough for me.”

This post originally appeared on www.interfaithfamily.com and is reprinted with permission.