July 2026 News, from 18Doors, Embark, the Conservative Movement, jHUB, and Israel

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18Doors

The biggest news this month: “18Doors Announces New Leadership; New Chapter Focused on Building Belonging for Multi-Heritage Families.” I am beyond pleased that 18Doors will continue, under the leadership of Adam Pollack as Executive Director and Fern Chertok as Board Chair, “refocusing on equipping clergy, professionals and lay leaders with the tools to build communities where multi-heritage individuals, couples and families actually belong, and building the network of partners and funders who can sustain that work long-term.” It’s also great to see new funding from the Leon and Toby Cooperman Family Foundation. I hope all associated with 18Doors have much success!

New Leadership at Embark and Congregation Sukkat Shalom

Mem Global has named Alyssa Craft as the new executive director of Embark, its cohort program that helps interfaith and mixed-heritage couples explore Jewish life together. “Guided by a local rabbi, and alongside a cohort of their peers, Embark couples learn how to bring Jewish learning and traditions into their lives in a way that feels relevant and accessible to them, without any prerequisites or expectations to convert.”

A former Houston Hillel professional and alumna of Moishe House, the child of an interfaith family and part of a mixed-heritage marriage herself, Craft wants “Embark to be a movement as much as a program. One that reaches mixed-heritage couples and families in every community, is embraced by rabbis and clergy across denominations and becomes a cornerstone of Jewish belonging nationwide. The stronger the sense of belonging we create for our partners and families, regardless of their religious affiliation, the stronger our Jewish future will be.”

Rabbi Sam Gordon, the founding rabbi of Congregation Sukkat Shalom in Wilmette, was a pioneer in embracing interfaith families. The Chicago Tribune ran a nice story about the new senior rabbi, Allison Tick Brill, at a congregation “busting at the seams.” Rabbi Brill notes that the  congregation’s president, who is Catholic, and its treasurer, who is Mormon, are “deeply committed to the project of the synagogue.” “It is unusual to have the highest leadership roles [in a congregation be] members of other faiths… we believe that the diversity of opinions and the richness that they bring from other traditions enhances our expression of Judaism and strengthens our tent.”

Conservative Movement

The Rabbinical Assembly has just issued a new teshuvah, “Guiding the Conservative/Masorti Rabbi in Supporting Families with Non-Jewish Loved Ones.” The co-editors of the teshuvah, Rabbis Pamela Barmash and Emily Barton, offer “As Conservative rabbis, we can’t perform interfaith weddings. But we can bless the Jewish families they create,” that explains how “they hope to balance tradition, inclusion and the realities of Jewish life today.”

The new teshuvah follows a December 2025 set of recommendations which we commented on previously. An emailing to Conservative synagogue leaders says,

This teshuvah gives Conservative/Masorti clergy new, sanctioned ways to mark meaningful moments in these families’ lives: a public mi shebeirakh before or after a wedding day, a hanukkat habayit ceremony to dedicate a couple’s home, and a welcome for non-Jewish parents on the bimah at their children’s b’nei mitzvah. It also affirms that a Jew observes full Jewish mourning practices for a non-Jewish parent, spouse, or child, and affirms that intermarried individuals can serve in most synagogue roles other than clergy.

But,

On the wedding day itself, clergy will continue to officiate a wedding ceremony only when both partners are Jewish, though this teshuvah focuses on the many meaningful ways clergy and communities can walk alongside a couple before and after that day.

Rabbis Barmash and Barton say that with the teshuvah, halacha “address[es] issues facing intermarried couples and families robustly” and “seeks to honor these couples and families and their commitment to Jewish life in our congregations and communities.”

As I’ve said many, many times in the past, anything the movement does to help interfaith couples and partners from different faith backgrounds to feel welcomed and included is positive, but respectfully, until halacha advances so as to allow Conservative rabbis to officiate for interfaith couples, those couples and partners won’t feel fully included, or feel belonging in Conservative settings.

At this writing I haven’t had a chance to study the teshuvah itself, and will plan to comment next month.

HUC

The Forward reported on an upswing in HUC and JTS rabbinical school enrollment, with both institutions reporting their largest classes in fifteen years. I was curious and inquired whether any part of the HUC increase could be traced to the change in policy which now allows students who are in interfaith relationships to be admitted; I was told that the school doesn’t ask the question, and thus doesn’t have that data.

The article notes that more than one third of Conservative congregations have closed since 2000, as have one in five Reform synagogues.

Cleveland’s jHUB

I continue to be impressed with Cleveland, where, “as intermarriage has risen,” with more Jewish children raised by interfaith parents, they are “Building Jewish identity through education, family engagement.” One synagogue educator says, “we are creating programs to welcome families that have non-Jewish parents;” “We try to take into account, for those parents who might not have the same background, those differences and we try to be inclusive. We find that families of interfaith children are very excited to learn and we want to make it as positive as we can for them.”  Marlyn Bloch Jaffe, the CEO at the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland, says, “Strategically, it is important to offer multiple paths to engagement, because people connect differently,” including “jHUB for interfaith couples and families.”

Remembering Rabbi Kelman

Jweekly published my letter to the editor: “In addition to the many pioneering efforts of Rabbi Stuart Kelman mentioned in Sue Fishkoff’s lovely tribute (“Rabbi Stuart Kelman, Conservative pioneer, 84,” June 3) he was part of the Tiferet Project, a consortium of Conservative rabbis who spent two years studying issues of intermarriage, resulting in a groundbreaking book, “A Place in the Tent: Intermarriage and Conservative Judaism.” The group advocated in the book for making “a genuine place” “for intermarried households within the communal tent” because “by doing so, many Jews who feel there is no place for them or for their Jewish children will come to be a vital part of the Conservative synagogue community and, by extension, the larger Jewish community.”

Smoothing the Path

Smoothing the Path: Strategies for Integrating Newly-Connecting Jews is a fascinating report by Rabbi Julia Appel of Clal. Based on interviews of ten “Jewish seekers” and six Jewish professionals, it asks, when already motivated individuals reach out for a way into Jewish community in Toronto, how institutions could best help them integrate and build a sustainable Jewish life. (Rabbi Appel also wrote about the report for Times of Israel, “We Have the Seekers. Will We Keep Them?”)

The participants included four Jews by Choice, three patrilineal Jews, two matrilineal Jews, and one in the process of converting. Whether any were in interfaith relationships is not noted. Curiously, the only mention of interfaith families is in a recommendation about learning, which notes “a recent uptick in non-Jews wanting to learn more about Judaism as allies,” says the “same basic curriculum would apply to both new seekers and non-Jews with no plans for becoming Jewish,” and then adds, “Additionally, non-Jewish partners of Jews are an interested and invested audience to basic Judaism learning courses.”

But many of the observations about these seekers fit like a glove with respect to interfaith couples and partners from different faith backgrounds, especially this one in the Recommendations section of the report: “Belonging is not simply stated welcome, but actively recognizing people as legitimate members of the Jewish community, especially if they fall outside the commonly assumed Jewish life path.”

Here are other observations that resonated:

  • Low-barrier, nonjudgmental spaces and programs explicitly open to all, regardless of background, were critical starting points. “All interviewees mentioned at some point their fear of “doing it wrong” or their lack of ritual or Hebrew literacy, which discouraged their ongoing engagement.”
  • “When people meet a person and they feel like this person is not judging me and is welcoming me, it makes all the difference. The more personal, human to human contact, the better.”
  • Interviewees “named certain legitimators that made them feel they belonged at a given Jewish event, including being personally invited, knowing someone there, or receiving clear explanations of what to expect.”
  • “Interviewees had to actively determine whether a Jewish community would truly welcome them, rather than merely tolerate their presence.… Patrilineal Jews, Jews of Color, Jews by Choice, LGBTQ individuals, Soviet Jews, or who held other marginalized identities especially could not take their own inclusion for granted.”
  • “[I]nterviewees were not looking for affirmation only of their specific identity. They consistently described gravitating toward Jewish communities explicitly broadcasting acceptance and diversity as core values, which gave interviewees permission to be themselves.” “When spaces were intentionally inclusive of one marginalized group, interviewees across identities understood that those spaces might also include them.”
  • “Having a stated commitment to diversity and pluralism made interviewees feel they could even hold divergent views and still feel that they belonged. At the same time, many noted that feeling they aligned on core values with communal leadership, particularly rabbis, on major issues increased trust and comfort. And seeing other participants who were ‘like them,’ or people they wanted to get to know better, also played a significant role in sustaining engagement. Jewish field practitioners stressed the importance of clarity, noting that ‘people need to know what a space is and who it’s for so they can self-select.’” “Pluralism, clarity of values, and visible diversity allowed seekers to find places where they could bring their full selves, … Communal leadership might … encourage institutions to name both their boundaries and their welcome.”
  • “Interviewees described feeling like they weren’t part of the ‘in-crowd’ of Jewish life, whether because they did not attend Jewish overnight camp, did not grow up in Toronto, did not live in the ‘right’ neighborhood, or did not know the ‘right’ people—like they could never catch up or fully enter the social fabric of Jewish life. Several mentioned ‘Jewish geography’ as something they actually longed for and were trying to give to their children.”
  • “[G]atekeeping – turning people away who are deemed not sufficiently Jewish – [i]s a major problem.” “Finding a community where they met ritual requirements around Jewish status, and therefore could participate fully, was a challenge for those who were not born Jewish according to traditional Jewish law. The assumption of Ashkenazi identity and being born Jewish was frequently named as alienating, even by interviewees who had formally converted. Several patrilineal Jews and converts experienced the casual dismissal of their identity as illegitimate, one even in a Kiddush conversation, which left them feeling like they couldn’t be full members of the community.”
  • “[O]nboarding involves repair, because many adults who are returning to Judaism carry long memories of prior exclusion. Even communities that sincerely aspire to be inclusive can inadvertently cause new injury if past harms are not acknowledged or if insider norms go unexamined. Transparency about communal boundaries can reduce confusion, but it does not eliminate pain, particularly for those who have experienced repeated exclusion. Inclusion will sometimes generate discomfort—especially as assumptions are challenged and insider norms are named. Repair of prior harm cannot be rushed or outsourced.”

News and Opinion from/about Israel

Illustrating the diversity of opinion in Israel, Judah Ari Gross reported for eJewishPhilanthropy that the Jewish Agency for Israel, in “a rare public rebuke of the Israeli government,” criticized two coalition-backed bills that “could undermine Jewish pluralism and weaken the Jewish people.” “One would effectively criminalize egalitarian and women-led prayer at the Western Wall, and the other would reject non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism for the purpose of immigration to Israel.”

Far from the coalition’s position, Nava Anne Grant offers in Ha’arertz, “Patrilineal Jews Like Gwyneth Paltrow Deserve Better From the State of Israel.” Paltrow, a patrilineal Jew married to a Jewish man, had appeared in advertising for real estate in Israel and then criticized for doing so by critics of Israel. Grant writes, “absurdly, according to the outdated standards of Israel’s religious authorities, Jews with Paltrow’s background must often contend with outrageous question marks over their identity and place within the Jewish tribe.”

The ill-treatment of patrilineal Jews is a tragedy. Halakhically, we must make it as easy as possible for people with mixed heritage to formally join the Jewish community. They are some of the Jewish people’s most impassioned supporters. Why would we cast a doubt over their Jewish identity?

Frank interviewed Rabbi Adam Mintz, who runs Project Ruth, an organization “working to make Orthodox conversions more fair and welcoming.” While Jews with patrilineal heritage are not Jewish according to halakha, they have a status called zera Israel – they come from “a Jewish seed.” According to Grant, Rabbi Mintz said that the Jewish community has a history of rabbinical courts which have exercised more leniency toward them, yet the Israeli rabbinate refuses to follow that precedent.

In Other News

  • A story about the revival of the New Orleans Jewish community and Touro Synagogue, a nearly 200-year-old Reform congregation that is “defying institutional decline,” where interfaith families are part of the revival.
  • An interesting essay about “Jewish citizenship” by Joshua Ladon, a senior faculty member at the Shalom Hartman Institute, who lays out a” comprehensive yet flexible vision for meaningful Jewish participation rooted in shared responsibility while open to multiple pathways and commitments.” I wondered if a partner from a different faith background could be considered a “Jewish citizen” under this framework.
  • A cute story in jweekly about a grandson in an interfaith family who decided at age fifteen that he wanted a b mitzvah and wanted his grandmother to have one with him.
  • A beautiful article in the Salt Lake Tribune about the many conversions to Judaism that are happening there.
  • A long, unfortunate story about children apparently refused admission to a day school in Canada because the standards of their mother’s conversion were not acceptable to the school.

June 2026 News: Worth-watching CASJE panel; day school, federation and Reform silence; lessons from eminent rabbis; Milwaukee study

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I don’t need to tell you that there is an awful lot going on in the world that demands attention.

In the Jewish world, most of the attention understandably continues to focus on Israel/Iran/Palestine/Gaza and on antisemitism.

I can’t help but feel that in the Jewish world, almost no one wants to talk about engaging interfaith families. It may be lack of bandwidth – but I think there’s more to it. And it’s especially problematic at this time, when uncertainty about the ongoing status of 18Doors demands, in my opinion, a concerted effort to engage interfaith families.

This month there was one bright development, a panel discussion devoted to interfaith marriage offered by CASJE and co-sponsored by eJewishPhilanthropy.

But elsewhere – in the day school world, the federation world, and the Reform world – silence and missed opportunity.

CASJE Panel

Thank you to CASJE, the highly-regarded Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education, for sponsoring “Jewish–Interfaith Families and the Future of Jewish Life in the United States” with eJewishPhilanthropy on June 11. The last time there was a publicly advertised webinar on this subject was a long time ago.

The 200 people who registered for the program heard from Bruce Phillips and Ted Sasson on recent demographic shifts: Phillips said people with one Jewish parent will outnumber people with two Jewish parents by 2 to 1; Sasson said a high rate of interfaith marriage and a high retention rate (those who identify as Jews) result in a growing population. Keren McGinity spoke about the tenacity of gendered behavior and the need to integrate equal parenting into programming. Rabbi Shena Jaffe explained how Honeymoon Israel is having its deepest impact on partners from different faith backgrounds and those with one Jewish parent. Sophie Mortman described what 18Doors has learned about what drives interfaith family engagement. I encourage you to watch the complete program here, and to see the slides here.

Mortman said that 18Doors hoped to pivot to building a field of professionals, offering training and support, and helping to connect across organizations. In my closing remarks about next steps, which you can view separately here, I encouraged support for that effort, and renewed my call for a concerted effort to engage interfaith families.

But other than the CASJE program, as Bruce Philips said, interfaith marriage seems to have “dropped off the communal radar.”

The Day School World

Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools issued a report, which JTA headlined as “Jewish day school enrollment is rising across denominations.” The increased enrollment was measured in community and Reform day schools, among others. I’m all in favor of day schools for those who chose them. But unless I missed it, the report said nothing at all about interfaith families sending their children to day schools – whether that accounted for any of the increase, or whether efforts have been made to increase representation from that population.

The Federation World

Shortly after the Prizmah study came out, eJP reported “Israeli government, JFNA partner on $66.7 million plan to boost Jewish day schools.” Gary Torgow, Jewish Federations of North America board chair, told eJP, “In recent years, formal Jewish education has become a growing focus for JFNA…. Jewish identity and Jewish education are key to the future of the Jewish people and combating antisemitism.” Torgow said October 7 and antisemitism “awakened something in the Jewish community” about the importance of Jewish education.

But my review of national and local Jewish community studies found that only 22% of interfaith families (compared to 51% of inmarried families) provide any K-12 Jewish education for their children. JFNA hasn’t said anything about any effort to increase that participation.

Around the same time, JFNA released “2026 LGBTQ+ Jewish Engagement Report.” eJP headlined this study as “JFNA survey finds LGBTQ+ Jews want more than just a Pride Shabbat dinner.” It’s a very interesting report, with findings about what LGBTQ+ Jews are looking for and respond to that are applicable to interfaith families as well.

But the report is silent about interfaith identities and relationships. The Executive Summary begins by referring to the post October 7 surge in Jewish engagement among “historically marginalized Jews, including LGBTQ+ Jews, Jews of Color, Jews with disabilities, and financially vulnerable Jews.” When JFNA preliminarily reported on surge data among historically marginalized groups, at the May 2025 Jewish Belonging Summit, it included data on interfaith families. Now they’ve stopped talking about it, not even mentioning it in this report.

The survey instrument shows that JFNA asked about racial and ethnic identity, and the report does talk about issues that LGBTQ+ Jews who are also Jews of color face. But the survey didn’t even ask respondents if they were in interfaith relationships. Bruce Phillips’ analysis of the 2020 Pew data shows that 77% of gay or lesbian Jews, compared to 43% of straight Jews, are in interfaith relationships. Doesn’t that huge intersectionality merit study and comment?

The Reform World

In April I wrote about an eJP essay by a URJ leader that referred to the “multiplicity of diverse Jewish identities” but did not mention diverse faith backgrounds. I said, “The leaders of the Reform movement seem to think that interfaith family inclusion is at the center of its work because it was pioneered by the movement, and that they have been successful at it, so they don’t need to talk about or prioritize doing anything about it.” That was also the case at the May 2026 Re-CHARGING Reform conference, where interfaith family engagement was not on the agenda, as I previously reported.

Now the URJ is holding a biennial in December. In February I submitted a proposal for a program session to be called, “Interfaith Marriage – Where Do We Stand?” with potential speakers including someone from 18Doors, myself, and someone on the URJ staff. This month I was told that my proposed session would not be included. I did not get a specific answer to my follow-up question, “is one of the 65 sessions going to be about interfaith family inclusion? Even in part?” I was told, “Interfaith families are the norm in Reform communities and inclusion of interfaith families is both a topic worthy of its own time and also part of every other conversation. It is fair to say that many sessions will be relevant.”

I am very glad that many interfaith families find welcoming and inclusive Reform congregations. I personally benefited from the movement making that happen, as have so many others. But I can’t agree that the movement doesn’t need to talk about or prioritize doing more about it. As I said in April, “only 13% of interfaith families belong to synagogues. I wouldn’t be satisfied with that level of success.” I agree that “inclusion of interfaith families is … a topic worthy of its own time,” but that discussion apparently will not happen.

* * * * *

All of this leaves me feeling like interfaith family engagement is being erased from the communal discussion, like it doesn’t matter. Over twenty-five years ago when I started InterfaithFamily, I spent a great deal of time debating with Jewish leaders who condemned interfaith marriage. Their policy response was to seek to discourage or reduce interfaith marriage, and not support any programming aimed to engage interfaith families. As a result, over those years, the concerted effort that I believe was necessary did not happen.

Today, thankfully, almost no one outside of the Orthodox world is condemning interfaith marriage. But there’s so much silence about it. And the result of the silence is the same as the result of the condemnation: engaging interfaith families is not prioritized.

In fairness, parts of the community are promising. 18Doors’ Adam Pollack just posted on LinkedIn about a study it is doing with one camp, and other camp partnerships that involve training and helping camps build communities of belonging for mixed-heritage families. But so much more needs to be done.

Learning from Rabbi Matalon, and Rabbi Dreskin

Andy Silow-Carroll had a very interesting interview with Rabbi Rolando Matalon as he retired from Manhattan’s B’nai Jeshurun, “one of the most influential synagogues in American Jewish life.” The congregation decided in 2017 that its clergy could officiate at interfaith weddings despite doing so being forbidden by the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, which Rabbi Matalon left in 2018.

Rabbi Matalon’s explanation why he decided to officiate is well worth reading. He then describes his conditions:

If a couple commits to building a Jewish home, raising Jewish children, converting children when necessary through mikveh [ritual immersion] at an early age, and participating in Jewish community, then we would officiate. We would not perform a kiddushin, traditional ceremony, exactly as it had been done, but a modified ceremony. The couple also had to commit to a serious process of learning and engagement with the rabbi over nine months to a year, and at some point explicitly affirm their commitment to a Jewish home and Jewish child-rearing.

Rabbi Matalon is pleased with the decision because it “broadcast that BJ is a welcoming community that wants to engage people rather than push them away. At the same time, we didn’t eliminate standards or expectations altogether. We said: If you’re interested, come and let’s engage seriously.” I have to wonder if this could not be a solution for the Conservative movement as it continues to struggle with this issue.

Coincidentally, I only recently saw this October 2024 piece in which Rabbi Billy Dreskin, a senior Reform rabbi, explains why he changed a position in 2022. Previously, he would not officiate for a Jew and a person who practiced another religion and intended to in their home. Now he will; his explanation is well worth reading. He concludes, “I love Judaism. And I want it to continue to exist. The world needs it to continue to exist. But in this time of schism and toxic dissent, I love love even more so. And while I will always celebrate when two Jews marry, I won’t ever again stand in the way of two human beings promising to love and care for each other forever. In fact, I will respond to their request for officiation with a wholehearted and grateful, ‘Yes!’”

Milwaukee Jewish Community Study

A reminder that interfaith marriage isn’t going away: the Milwaukee Jewish Federation released its 2024-2025 community study, conducted by the Cohen Center at Brandeis. Consistent with our analysis of 26 other local community studies conducted since 2013, people in interfaith relationships feel less of a sense of belonging to the Jewish people or their local Jewish community than inmarried people.

  • 42% of intermarrieds (compared to 74% of inmarrieds) feel very much a sense of belonging to the Jewish people (p 61); the respective averages of 26 other communities are 25% and 47%.
  • 13% of intermarrieds (compared to 35% of inmarrieds) feel very much a sense of belonging to the Jewish community where they live (p 61); the respective averages of 26 other communities are 6% and 26%.
  • 17% of intermarrieds (compared to 35% of inmarrieds) feel very emotionally attached to Israel (a traditional measure of belonging) (p 94); the respective averages of 26 other communities are 20% and 40%.

With respect to Jewish behaviors, 22% of intermarrieds, compared to 49% of inmarrieds, were current members of Jewish congregations (p 47). The study does not report the percentage of intermarrieds compared to inmarrieds who provide Jewish education for their children.

People who participated in programs or were interested in participating were asked about barriers to participation; interestingly, 17% of inmarrieds listed feeling unwelcome as a barrier, higher than the 7% of intermarrieds who did the same (p 70).

The open-ended comments in the study include (p 145):

Synagogues, while being inclusive, still maintain policies related to marrying couples who include both a Jewish and non-Jewish member that are hurtful and tend to push those couples away. This limits synagogue membership and alienates these folks from the greater Jewish community. – male, 75

When I got married, many years ago, my non-Jewish husband was not welcomed into my family’s synagogue. Things have changed, but I think if he had been, we might have raised my children more in the Jewish faith than his[Christian] church. – female, 56

The study conclusions and recommendations include (p 151): “Evidence from both the quantitative findings shared throughout this report and the qualitative findings shared in Chapter 12 revealed that many intermarried individuals and their families feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in Milwaukee Jewish organizations.”

With respect to research, I missed the Cohen Center’s study of Northeast Florida, and the Cohen Center has recently announced that a synthesis of data from all of their 30 local community studies is now available in their Benchmark Report; I’ll comment on these in a future newsletter.

March 2026 News: How Interested Are Jewish Leaders in Engaging Interfaith Families? Some Talk, and Research Support, But Little Action

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I was busy this month with three presentations on what’s necessary for interfaith families and partners from different faith backgrounds to feel belonging in Jewish settings: with Cohort 5 of the 18Doors Rukin Fellows on March 10, with students and faculty at a lunch & learn at the Hebrew College Rabbinical School on March 17, and at an Academy for Jewish Religion/CA colloquium of students and alumni on March 30.

But I can’t say, based on this small sample, that Jewish leaders are becoming more interested in engaging interfaith families.

Talk

There is some discussion going on. There was an interesting commentary in the British Jewish press on the US Conservative movement’s recent report on intermarriage, which we’ve discussed at length in previous newsletters. I learned that the European branch of the movement, the International Rabbinical Assembly, is “studying the impact of intermarriage on our communities and assessing whether our traditional responses are achieving their goals or whether different approaches are necessary.”

At the Jewish Funders Network’s conference this month, according to eJP, “the theme of new voices in the philanthropic world was a topic,” and Jonah Platt talked about the opportunity to “start to create new institutions, or reprioritize our current ones in the way that they’re operating, and bring in all these other people who have not been engaged and want to be and don’t necessarily know how or what to do, but want to do it.” But if there was specific talk about engaging interfaith families, it wasn’t reported.

In early March there was an “unconference” in Miami to talk about the renewal of American Jewry. eJP reported that “Many issues already firmly in the Jewish communal zeitgeist came up repeatedly during panels,” including “the importance of better welcoming interfaith families.” An attendee confirmed to me that there appeared to be much interest in interfaith families. But shouldn’t representatives from organizations that work with and advocate for inclusion of interfaith families be included in gatherings of this type if the goal is real progress?

Research

I was pleased to see that the March 25 issue of the CASJE (Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education) Research Digest featured studies about interfaith families and their children, and that it mentioned our paper, What Recent Studies Reveal About Interfaith Family Inclusion.

The digest points to “a clear trajectory: in the years ahead, a growing share of Jews in the US will have only one Jewish parent;” that “more children of intermarried couples are identifying as Jewish because Jewish institutions became significantly more welcoming and inclusive toward intermarried families starting in the 1980s and 1990s;” and that “participation in Jewish educational opportunities can play a critical role in supporting children of intermarriage growing into adults who identify as Jewish and participate actively in Jewish life.”

These kinds of research results should support more programmatic efforts to be inclusive of interfaith families and to engage their children in Jewish educational activities. Whether they will – not clear.

Inaction/Action

Data in the appendix of a new study by the Cohen Center of 2025 Birthright Israel trips shows that the percentage of trip applicants who indicated that their parents were intermarried (those who did not say “all parents Jewish”) ranged between 33% and 37% between 2017 and 2020, reached a high of 41% in 2021, then declined to 32% in 2022, 29% in 2023, 24% in 2024, and a low of 19% in 2025. Given the trajectory of more Jews having one Jewish parent, it’s clear that Birthright needs to attract more applicants from that category, not fewer.

The study notes that the impact of trip participation appears to be greater among political liberals and on those who come from less engaged Jewish backgrounds, and states that attracting liberal Jews and those with less exposure to Jewish education is key to Birthright’s continued success. But it doesn’t say anything similar, that attracting children from interfaith families is key to Birthright’s continued success.

One concrete positive development this month was “Creating Belonging for Multiheritage Families,” an article by Michelle Barton and 18Doors’ Miriam Wajnberg in the journal of Prizmah, the network of Jewish day schools. The article relates the process by which the Shlenker School in Houston, with help from 18Doors, addressed the question parents raising children in interfaith families can ask: whether their family fully belongs.

“As family structures and Jewish journeys diversify, schools are called to examine whether their policies, cultures, language and rituals truly foster belonging or simply allow participation without full inclusion. Belonging is not synonymous with enrollment or participation. It reflects whether families feel seen, valued and confident that their full identities fit within the life of the school.”

The authors describe three obstacles that interfaith families face to belonging in Jewish communities and day schools: (1) an insider/outsider element; (2) a stigma against those who marry someone from another background; (3) “The belief in matrilineal descent creates barriers for multiheritage families to fully feel a sense of belonging in Jewish communities and schools.” “Even when a child from a multiheritage family may be fully accepted in one denomination or setting, that acceptance may not extend to all Jewish settings, resulting in ‘othering.’”

It is very heartening to see day schools focusing on interfaith family belonging. Almost twenty years ago, in 2007, for the tenth anniversary of the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (which became part of Prizmah in 2016), I wrote “Interfaith Families and the Future of Jewish Day Schools.” I said:

“Schools can make themselves more accessible to these [intermarried] parents by making explicit statements of welcome, couching their specifically Jewish values in universal terms, and providing extra explanatory information on Jewish holidays, rituals and culture.” “Day schools could become laboratories that attempt to resolve the thorny issues of recognition. Every participant in a Jewish day school community could be considered – in some way – part of the Jewish community and people.”

It’s almost twenty years since I said, “Imagine how radically different the future of Jewish day schools would be if even ten percent of this growing population [of interfaith families] chose Jewish day schools.” We’re not even close to that yet – the recent Boston 2025 study found that 1% of children of interfaith families attended day schools compared to 23% of children of inmarried families. Efforts to foster belonging could lead to more enrollment. The many funders who support day schools might consider directing some of their funding to those efforts.

In other news 

I think Mira Fox was too dismissive of something in “Is Goy a Slur, an Antisemitic Dogwhistle or a Word for Non-Jews?” She says “goy” “simply means ‘non-Jew,’ or foreign nation which isn’t inherently insulting; Jews are far from the only group to have a term for outsider – think gringo in Spanish or farang in Thai. This can, of course, be exclusionary. There is certainly the sense that outsiders cannot understand or participate in certain activities of an in-group – an idea that is not limited to Jews. And sometimes that is used to discriminate or insult.”

I say that for people in interfaith relationships, any use of “goy” by Jews not just can be exclusionary, it is exclusionary and makes the partners from different faith backgrounds feel like outsiders. Even if the word has innocent meanings, I think any use of it by Jews is a bad idea.

Also noted:

January 2026 News: What’s Changed In Twenty-five Years; Important New Research; Making Jewish Camp Accessible; More Conservative News

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How Times Have Changed

On January 11 I spoke at Congregation B’nai B’rith in Santa Barbara CA for the second time – the first was in December 2005. I took the opportunity to reflect on what’s changed about interfaith family inclusion over the past twenty years – and what work remains to be done. You can see the presentation on this video; the powerpoint slides are visible, and I’d be glad to share them.

One thing that’s changed is the fading away of the explicit hostility to interfaith marriage that was prevalent among Jewish leaders in 2005. In 2001, Sylvia Barack Fishman had done a study which concluded that interfaith families who say they are raising their children as Jews “incorporate Christian holiday festivities” into their lives such that Jewish identity is not transmitted to their children, even though they say that these festivities have no religious significance to them. I described this back then as “simply ridiculous,” based on surveys and an essay contest conducted by InterfaithFamily (now 18Doors).

After Fishman turned the study into a 2004 book, Double or Nothing?: Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage, I expressed fear that Jewish leaders would say that the “latest research” showed that “interfaith couples who were trying to raise their children as Jews shouldn’t bother because they won’t succeed,” and that “the Jewish community shouldn’t waste resources on outreach to mixed-married families, since the vast majority are not ‘really’ raising their children as Jews.”

I expressed hope that responsible Jewish leaders would insist on more conclusive social science research “before writing off the new families of the half of all young Jews who are intermarrying, thereby alienating their Jewish parents and relatives as well.”

I’m feeling vindicated all these years later. The Cohen Center at Brandeis just announced a new study which I think provides that more conclusive social science research. It notes:

Other work [citing Fishman’s 2004 book] has suggested that Jewish families who celebrate Christian holidays, or use Christian holiday decorations such as Christmas trees, struggle to instill Jewish identity in their children – even if these families do not treat these holiday activities as religious.

However, the results presented here suggest that at least some of the families who celebrate Christmas expose their children to more Jewish experiences than other families that had no Christian experiences at all…. [E]xposure to some non-Jewish religious-cultural experiences during childhood does not necessarily preclude high levels of involvement in Jewish life. (page 22)

The study (you can read a more detailed review here) even finds that children who celebrated Christmas and Easter (presumably in interfaith families) but were otherwise Jewishly involved “were more likely to have had a bar or bat mitzvah, to have attended Jewish supplementary school, and to have attended Jewish camp” than children who celebrated Hanukkah and Passover and had no other Jewish or Christian experiences (presumably these are inmarried families). (page 21)

Think of it – research confirms that some interfaith families are more Jewishly engaged than some inmarried families! Twenty years ago, we used to say that interfaith marriage didn’t determine the Jewish engagement of a family, the family’s choices did; we used to say that the Jewish partners in interfaith families couldn’t take their Jewish engagement for granted, they had to work harder at it. The new study seems to confirm that we were right.

Coincidentally, with all this looking back, in early January JTA published an article about the long-ago (1926) interfaith marriage of songwriter Irving Berlin that described issues around interfaith marriage as long-standing and continuing.

Even back then there were enlightened views. The editor of a Jewish newspaper actually said, “Mazel tov, Mr. and Mrs. Berlin!” Irving Berlin said, “It never struck me that I would be sacrificing a parcel of my Jewishness by marrying Ellin, and I suppose Ellin felt the same way about her religion. I am proud of my Jewishness, but you will never convince me that intermarriage is anti-anything.”

Jewish Camp

“For multifaith families, Jewish camp doesn’t have to feel awkward anymore” is a very promising report about the Foundation for Jewish Camp partnering with 18Doors to increase participation of children from interfaith families in overnight camp.

Noting that only about 22% of overnight campers come from interfaith families, 18Doors’ Adam Pollack says “That gap [with the high rate of interfaith marriage] tells us camps are not yet representative of the Jewish population today. We’re trying to find ways to make Jewish overnight camp accessible and appealing to families who already consider themselves part of the Jewish community but may not feel certain that camp is for them…. We know how transformative camp can be. We want all Jewish kids – including those from multi-heritage families – to have access to that experience.”

Conservative News

The main point of my Santa Barbara talk was that we still need to adapt attitudes and policies so as to help interfaith families and partners from different faith backgrounds feel that they belong in Jewish communities. The tension between including interfaith families and maintaining traditional understandings of Judaism as a boundaried system just for Jews continues to manifest in the ongoing turmoil in the Conservative movement.

As reported last month, the movement’s Joint Working Group issued a report with a goal to “engage intermarried couples more fully” but retaining the movement’s ban on their rabbis officiating at weddings of interfaith couples.

The report says that the Working Group “commissioned thirteen informal position papers from historians, social scientists, and rabbis.” I was invited to make a submission to the Working Group, and with their permission it is now public, on our new resource that chronicles related developments in the movement since 2014.

There was a lot of discussion about the report this month. 18Doors’ Adam Pollack offered a very interesting and positive response. I hope he’s right that “By ‘acknowledging and healing hurt,’ the movement has set a new course toward belonging” for interfaith couples. I hope 18Doors can help the movement in implementing the report’s recommendations. But I also hope the movement will address and change its position on officiation as I believe it must to truly be a place of belonging for interfaith families.

Conservative Rabbi Ari Yehuda Saks explained why, despite the movement easing its stance on interfaith marriage, he is quitting the Rabbinical Assembly:

I could not in good conscience remain a member while being prohibited from co-officiating intermarriages — ceremonies that I, from deep study and pastoral experience, have come to believe are not only possible within the halakhic, or Jewish legal, tradition, but are also vital for the future of American Judaism.

On the other end of the spectrum, Conservative Rabbi Amy Walk defended the movement’s approach. While pleased that the movement apologized for its past rejections of interfaith families, she says criticism of not allowing Conservative rabbis to officiate is short-sighted, binary, sloppy thinking.

Rabbi Walk said these critics “abandon ideas about commandment and covenant.” But the movement adapted halacha to allow women to be rabbis, and to allow wedding officiation for gay and lesbian couples – was that abandonment of commandment? And if the rationale for not officiating is Judaism’s traditional view that interfaith marriage is wrong, doesn’t maintaining the ban on officiating undermine the report’s efforts not to disapprove of and reject interfaith couples?

Even further out on the spectrum, Conservative Rabbi Daniel Gordis in a substack post says he was “stunned” at the Conservative movement’s apology; he “would argue that the policy against intermarriage has been a central pillar of maintaining Judaism’s tribal nature.” Gordis recognizes that defending the tribal dimension of Jewish life “has becoming increasingly difficult in a world in which young people, Jews definitely among them, find tribal sentiments either foreign, or outright objectionable.”

Gordis’ attitude is a prime example of what still needs to change. Thinking of Judaism as a tribe of Jews, instead of as a community of Jewishly-engaged people, is a huge obstacle to engaging interfaith families.

And finally, from the Orthodox perspective, Rabbi Emanuel Feldman says that by “’welcoming people as they are,’ the Conservative movement is declaring that they accept intermarriage.”

Also in the News

  • On January 27 the Jewish Grandparents Network hosted a virtual Grandparents Learning Fest that included a session led by Rabbi Samuel Klein, the director of Jewish engagement at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, titled “Doing Jewish, Feeling Jewish, Being Jewish: Grandparents as Guides in Mixed-Heritage and Multifaith Families.” The session was to “share practical insights and provide inspiration for grandparents to nurture Jewish identity in diverse families.”
  • “Talking to Children About Jewish Identity in an Interfaith Family” is a new offering on the Reform Judaism website.
  • A lovely story in The Free Press, “I’m Christian. My Wife Is Jewish. Our Marriage Is an Act of Faith,” by a Catholic editor who says his marriage to a Jewish woman brought him closer to God. I loved this part:

One day when our children were small, I was playing with them in our living room. Our 3-year-old son was keen to put things in their proper categories. Attempting a slightly more advanced version of the ‘square pegs in square holes’ game, he observed, ‘I’m Jewish and Rachel is Jewish and Mommy is Jewish.’ His brow furrowed, and he looked at me with a compassion that still causes my heart to ache. ‘Don’t worry, Daddy; Toby is an Episcopalian.’ Toby was our dog at the time.

* * * * *

Congregation B’nai B’rith in Santa Barbara is a warm and thriving synagogue with a very popular monthly Sunday morning breakfast and speaker series. The audience of about 120 was very engaged, with questions during and after the presentation. Rabbi Daniel Brenner told me they had great feedback, with one person inspired to restart their interfaith family conversation series. I’m very interested in speaking elsewhere.

One last point about the Cohen Center’s new study shows that interventions can increase feelings of belonging: it found that for those who were Jewishly involved but celebrated Christmas and Easter, the percent that reported feeling “very much” part of a worldwide Jewish community after participating in a Birthright Israel trip increased from 27% to 37%. (page 19)

Finally, thank you to all who made a year-end contribution to the Center. Support is always welcomed, at www.cfrij.com/donate.

December 2025 News: Antisemitism and Interfaith Marriage; Conservative News; Views from Buchdahl, Sanderson and Kurtzer; December Holidays; Missed Opportunities; Pew Data

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Addressing Antisemitism – a Personal Note, and the Importance of Inclusion

As usual in December, there’s a lot to report on about interfaith family inclusion. This year, it’s important to start with how that relates to antisemitism.

The month began with a report that Senator Cory Booker had married a Jewish woman. At the time, I commented on the Center’s Facebook page that I was glad to read that Booker’s friend Rabbi Matthew Gewirtz of Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, New Jersey participated at the wedding, with Booker’s pastor.

Then there was a report that Booker lit Hanukkah candles for the first time at home – on the same day as the horrible antisemitic attack in Australia. He said, “My parents sort of told my brother and I about the ancient evil of antisemitism and the urgency to fight against it. But now that I’m married to a Jewish woman and we’ll – God willing, b’ezrat Hashem, have Jewish children, it’s taken on an even deeper, more personal sense of urgency.”

I’ve often felt that one positive by-product of interfaith marriage is that it can result in more allies of the Jewish people, and of Israel. I don’t just mean the partner from a different faith background – I mean all of their relatives, too. People who are not Jewish and might have no reason to think one way or another about Jews now, after their loved one is in an interfaith relationship, have a reason to be positive and supportive.

In that vein, I was very touched and moved this week when my son-in-law’s mother emailed me to say, “I have been struggling to find the words to let you know our abhorrence of the Australia attack. It is frightening what is happening, not just here but in the world, with the appearance of antisemitism.” My first thought was that it would not be irrational for her to regret that our mutual beloved grandsons are at risk of hate and even violence because they are Jewish. But that wasn’t her response. Her response was, “I can only have hope and do what I can.”

Our advocacy is motivated by the belief that we will have more people Jewishly engaged or supportive of their relatives’ Jewish engagement, the more we help make interfaith families, especially the partners from different faith backgrounds, feel a sense of belonging in Jewish communities. Addressing rising antisemitism is one reason why that advocacy is so important – something that Pulitzer Prize winning author David Shribman pointed out in “Welcoming the Intermarried: A Challenge and An Opportunity.”

Shribman writes that addressing the findings in our paper, What Recent Studies Reveal About Interfaith Family Inclusion, that “those in interfaith relationships don’t feel nearly as strong a connection to the Jewish people, or to their local Jewish communities, as those in relationships of two Jews” is “vital to the survival of Judaism in the United States, and to the preservation of Jewish values, especially at a time of rising antisemitism and divisions within the Jewish community over Israel and its response to” October 7.

Conservative News

It is fair to say that the Conservative movement is still struggling with how much of a sense of belonging it will foster among interfaith families and partners from different faith backgrounds. There is a lot that is positive in the movement’s just-released Joint Intermarriage Working Group Report. But the question of wedding officiation overshadows the progress.

The authors of the report “deeply apologize” for their historical stance disapproving of interfaith marriage. They “celebrate the meaningful contributions of Jewish-adjacent partners and spouses, and the children of such unions, in the work of creating and sustaining Conservative/Masorti Jewish households.” They want to “welcome, bless, and affirm intermarrying couples” (albeit only those “who are committed to solely Jewish practice.” They “recognize the delicate balance between ensuring that non-Jewish partners are aware of the option to convert while avoiding undue pressure.” They want to “ensure an appropriate path to formal affirmation for those who already identify as part of the Jewish people.” The “primary goal” of the process of finding a life partner is not endogamy, but “to empower the individual to articulate for themselves the kind of Jewish life they seek to lead. If they seek a partner, their goal would be to find a partner aligned with that vision of Jewish life.”

Much of this is quite remarkable coming from the movement. I hope all of their next efforts help them reach their goal to “engage intermarried couples more fully.”

But the elephant in the room remains whether and how Conservative rabbis will be allowed to participate in weddings of interfaith couples. Articles in eJP and JTA focus on the division in the movement over that issue.

It seems clear from the report that some members of the working group want the movement to allow more participation. The report itself talks about a “halakhah that recognizes that boundaries shift depending on circumstances and are not always a reason to say ‘no’; halakhah can also provide an opportunity to be inclusive and say ‘yes.’” They talk about having “ritual options to welcome, bless, and affirm couples with one Jewish partner and one partner who, while not formally Jewish, is firmly committed to co-creating an exclusively Jewish household. This includes opportunities to bless the couple, independent of the traditionally prescribed Jewish wedding ceremony, in the synagogue or elsewhere, before, on the day of, and after the wedding date.”

Ultimately, it’s going to be up to the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, who the report asks to provide further clarification because “the standard of religious practice [which bans wedding participation] was created in part as a statement of disapproval of certain relationships and that we are shifting away from messages of disapproval.” The report asks the CJLS to “clarify whether other paradigms of marriage besides kiddushin that the CJLS has already developed and approved [presumably referring to gay and lesbian unions] might apply in the case of the union of a Jew with someone who is of another background.” In striking evidence of the split in the movement on this issue, the report notes that “Working group members asked that it be reported that there was not unanimity on this issue.”

Keren McGinity is quoted in the JTA article saying that fears of a “mass defection” if the movement were to allow its rabbis to officiate “have long been overstated.” She aptly pointed out that “avoiding change … also carries risks, pointing to the 2020 Pew study showing that fewer than half of Jews raised Conservative still identify with the movement. That is hugely concerning.”

Indeed it should be.

Three Thought Leaders with Important Statements

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl is on a tour this month speaking about her wonderful book, The Heart of a Stranger, which I have read and hope to write about in more detail later. I was struck by this comment in an interview in San Francisco:

“You can be a part of a family by just being born into it … and you can also become family through what’s called a covenantal relationship,” such as between spouses, Buchdahl said. “We don’t share any blood, but we made a covenantal promise, and that made us into a family. Every one of us who wants to be a part of the Jewish community [is] in a covenantal relationship with our people and with God. What if we were to imagine that everyone who wants to be a part of that covenant is 100% fully Jewish?”

This sounds an awful lot like what the Center has consistently advocated for: that everyone from a different faith background who wants to be part of the Jewish community should be thought of as and treated equally with their Jewish partner.

Jay Sanderson, president of American Jewish University, explicitly refers to the importance of including interfaith families in “The Jewish Future Is Calling.” AJU’s goal is “to reimagine and rebuild the foundation of Jewish life in North America.”

Sanderson says AJU “transformed Jewish learning when it launched the first intensive class for interfaith couples and individuals exploring conversion, helping countless people build Jewish homes and families.” They are now expanding to create “more welcoming pathways for anyone Jewish, Jew-ish and Jew-curious and nurturing the earliest steps of every Jewish journey.” They are offering in-person classes in multiple cities, to connect “interfaith couples and individuals learning about Judaism to each other so they can build peer groups that continue beyond the class.”

Sanderson says AJU is “building a Jewish future where Jews, no matter where they live or how they self-define, can find a place inside a reimagined Jewish community, one where every voice has value and everyone is contributing to the Jewish future.” This all sounds very promising, if a bit generalized; it’s not clear whether the voices of partners from different faith backgrounds would have equal voice and be allowed to contribute equally.

Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, wrote a brilliant essay, mostly about divisions between the Left and the Right over Israel: Our Fragile Tents: Community, Consent, and Care. One response to the 1990 National Jewish Population Study (with its finding of a high rate of interfaith marriage) was to “cultivate attachment through radically open approaches to welcoming people in.” This “found expression in the shift of liberal Jewish leaders who first tried to fight against intermarriage, then accepted it as inevitable, then welcomed interfaith families, and eventually worked to break down the barrier between Jews and the “Jewish-adjacent” among their stakeholders.”

“Opening the flaps of the Big Tent promised new possibilities for the Jewish community to expand and for all the moral gains that come with greater inclusion.”

Kurtzer laments that since October 7, “the primary emphasis of Jewish leaders has moved from widening the Big Tent to narrowing it, and from building Jewish community to trying to protect it.” “The kind of fear that has taken root in the Jewish community – of danger on the outside, of threats already on the inside – destroys any desire or incentive to think expansively about our networks of belonging.”

To reverse this trend, Kurtzer says “[W]e must be clearer about when and how we set boundaries in Jewish communities, so that our safety instincts do not harm our efforts to be welcoming more than they need to.” He says it is fair for institutions to cease partnering with other institutions over major values disagreements, but “it is a terrible side effect when individuals who affiliate with the rejected institution … are treated by members of the first institution as heretics.” Although he’s talking about divisions over Israel here, this made me think of how Orthodox leaders tend to be so disparaging of liberal Jews. They could maintain boundaries where halachic status matters (like marriage), while uniting with liberal Jews on other causes common to the larger Jewish community. Kurtzer doesn’t address this specifically; it would be interesting if he did.

Kurtzer makes an interesting observation about what belonging means, talking about being

“uplifted by an experience of communal singing and prayer, one that makes you feel connected to everyone in the room, or [experiencing] the warm hug of strangers caring for your needs in your own home while you are sitting shiva…. We have core anthropological, psychological, spiritual, and even biological needs for community in ways that are hard to define – though most of us can tell when a community ‘feels right’ and when it is time to move to a different one.”

It would be interesting to know what Kurtzer thinks is needed to cultivate those kinds of feelings of belonging in partners from different faith backgrounds.

December Holidays

Jessica Grose’s “What My Children Taught Me About Interfaith Tradition” is a very beautiful essay in her NY Times newsletter. She describes realizing that her family had “integrated” their interfaith household – she’s Jewish, she doesn’t identify her husband’s faith background, but it included Christmas: “On Sunday night, my family decorated our Christmas tree … Earlier in the day, my older daughter was practicing her Torah portion, and my younger daughter was working on a school slide show about the menorah we use every year …”

Looking back, she had wanted her children “to know what it meant to be Jewish, but … wanted to impart that in a way that didn’t feel oppressive or a rejection of my husband’s faith.” She hadn’t expected, as her children matured, that what she describes as “blending faiths” would become easier: “Our older daughter chose to start attending Hebrew school when she was 10, and has become part of a Jewish community that is welcoming to interfaith families. Her sister is eager to follow in her footsteps.” They also enjoy Christmas holiday rituals and traditions.

It’s interesting that she describes this as “blending faiths” – they clearly are very Jewishly engaged as a family. But she concludes with a key observation – that her daughters “don’t have to abandon any part of themselves for our family to feel whole.”

In a similar vein, in a nice article in the Boston Globe, Meredith Goldstein says, “There is no Christmas tree in the world that can erase who I am and the fact that I was raised by Ashkenazi Jews who studied music in New York City.” I liked this: “I believe that when people of different backgrounds get together and share a home, all of these traditions can and should coexist so everyone feels seen.”

Our friend Rabbi Melinda Mersack of Cleveland’s jHUB is featured in “Observing different holidays can be done, rabbis say,” emphasizing the importance of couples communicating what’s important to them about their holiday celebrations. Rabbi Matt Cohen is also featured, and I love what he says:

“In interfaith families, it’s important everyone feels equally a part of our community. We reach people through education, by teaching someone who is not Jewish, who is taking part in celebrating a holiday they haven’t celebrated in their upbringing, that they are just as much a part of our community.”

In other December holiday news:

Missed Opportunities

Two essays responding to the ATRA study on the rabbinate alluded to, but could have said more about, interfaith relationships. In “We have an opportunity to revamp liberal rabbinic education and Jewish lay leadership,” Rabbi Rebecca Sirbu notes that many contemporary Jews and their families “have non-Jewish members,” without saying more about the implications for rabbinic education. In “Rabbinical training doesn’t have a pipeline problem – we have a preparation problem, Rabbi Jesse Paikin says that “Genuine pluralism demands more porous boundaries than many legacy institutions prefer,” again without saying more about what those boundaries might be with respect to interfaith families.

Similarly, in an eJP interview about a new study by about disability inclusion, Matan’s terrific executive director Meredith Polsky says, “Disability spans every aspect of Jewish community life,” giving two examples: “If you work with individuals who identify as LGBTQ, there’s going to be people with disabilities. If you work with Jews who are multiracial, there’s going to be people with disabilities.” It’s unfortunate she didn’t include interfaith families among these other historically disadvantaged groups.

Pew Data

Some interesting new data from Pew considers why people keep their religion or leave. Jews are pretty high up (76%) in keeping their childhood faith (ranked third, after Hindus (82%) and Muslims (77%), but before those with no religion (73%), Protestants (70%), Catholics (57%), Latter-Day Saints (54%) and Buddhists (45%).

What struck me was how important a sense of community was as a reason why lifelong Jews remain are Jewish compared to other groups: Among U.S. adults who were raised Jewish and still identify as Jewish by religion, 57% cite liking the sense of community (compared to 38% of Catholics and 46% of Protestants).

Among those Jews, 60% say liking the traditions is an extremely or very important reason they are Jewish (compared to 46% of Catholics and 33% of Protestants); about half of Jews (53%) say they are Jewish because it’s their family religion (compared to 44% of Catholics and 30% of  Protestants).

In Other News

  • I thought it was extreme and unnecessary for Zohran Mamdani’s aide to have to resign because she made antisemitic posts on social media when she was 19 – given that now she’s married to a Jew and raising their children as Jews! This seemed like a pretty good case for  redemption to me.
  • Rabbi Barbara Aiello offers “The Challenges of Jewish Christian Grandparenting.”
  • A large synagogue’s executive director explains how he says “shalom y’all” to be inclusive.

Please Support the Center

We found spiritual support for our advocacy in an unusual place this month: the new bishop of the Church of Norway, whose focus is inclusion, not conversion; her calling has been to “swing open the doors … as wide as possible.”

We rarely ask for another kind of support – financial – but in the spirit of the season, with year-end rapidly approaching, we would be grateful for it. If you find our newsletter useful, if you value advocacy for inclusion of interfaith families – please make a contribution, in any amount, at www.cfrij.com/donate. Thank you!

September 2025 News: Conservative movement, 18Doors, PJ Library, Jew vs. Jew, & Data

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More Conservative News

eJewishPhilanthropy has focused on one aspect of interfaith family inclusion, that relating to the Conservative movement, this month. Adam Pollack and Sophie Mortman of 18Doors had an oped, “Conservative rabbis are already engaging interfaith families, with or without the movement.” They report that many Conservative rabbis want to be inclusive of interfaith families and that 18Doors is helping them to do so, which is very good. But in my opinion, these efforts collide with the movement’s current understandings of halakhah which lead to policies that exclude partners from different faith backgrounds from Jewish engagement (and, since partners tend to stick together, the Jewish partners too).

As one parent who is not Jewish said in the recent Parenting When Jewish and Something Else study, referring to a nearby Conservative synagogue: “It would be great for our son to do his bar mitzvah there and I could participate. But I know that Conservative synagogues have a lot of restrictions and traditions I’m excluded from. I don’t want my children feeling like I’m excluded.”

Later in the month Rabbi Steven Wernick, former CEO of the United Synagogue, wrote “Here’s what renewal looks like in the Conservative movement.” Rabbi Wernick is an excellent congregational rabbi leading a thriving Conservative synagogue. He says they cultivate belonging primarily by offering free membership to those under 40 and building relationships during the early years – an excellent strategy. He says they embrace interfaith families with warmth and respect with non-judgmental invitations – also excellent.

But in my opinion, he goes way too far calling that approach “radical welcoming.” My question is, do the interfaith families in the congregation feel belonging, and choose community there, when confronted with the boundary that the clergy won’t officiate at weddings of interfaith couples – and all that implies about status issues and other restrictions on ritual participation by partners from different faith backgrounds? And how many interfaith families don’t come in the door because of those restrictions?

Rabbi Wernick says the boundary is vital to halakhic integrity. As I wrote in my response to Rabbi Brusso’s Sources essay last month, which took a similar position, if the movement cannot evolve halakhah, as it has in the case of women, and gay and lesbian Jews, in ways that validate interfaith marriage and permit officiation, more and more people are going to say, “I’m not a Conservative Jew.”

(eJP had another piece, “Conservative Judaism’s Procedural Paralysis,” which didn’t focus on interfaith families.)

News from 18Doors and…

18Doors and Honeymoon Israel announced Rabbi Shena Potter Jaffee as Director of Rabbinic Talent Development. The organizations share a “deep commitment to giving rabbis and Jewish educators the tools, training, and support they need to engage young multi-heritage couples and families in meaningful, inclusive ways.” Rabbi Jaffee will lead 18Doors’ Rukin Rabbinic Fellowship, and oversee the recruitment and training of rabbis and educators across North America who lead immersive travel experiences for young couples through both Honeymoon Israel and Togethering, which are coming together.

News from PJ Library

Jessica McCormick, director of family experience at PJ Library, writes in eJP that “PJ Library has the highest impact on families who need accessible, parent-led Jewish engagement the most. 42% of households we reach aren’t affiliated with a synagogue, and less engaged families and multifaith families score higher than average on every measure we track. In other words, PJ Library books and programming help those families even more with everything from increased knowledge of Jewish traditions to greater confidence in engaging their children with Jewish values.” Their Get Together microgrant initiative helps families host gatherings, “encouraging them to be the builders of their own Jewish community, which is itself a core Jewish value. Because when families get together, belonging takes shape. And that sense of belonging? It’s exactly what will help keep Jewish life vibrant for the next generation.”

Looking Back at “Jew vs. Jew”

Andy Silow-Carroll, a terrific journalist, interviewed Sam Freedman on the 25th anniversary of his book “Jew vs. Jew.” One comment caught my eye: “If the Jewish vote becomes more conservative or more Republican, two statistics will tell you why: the birth rate and the rate of interfaith marriage.” I can understand that the Orthodox have a high birth rate, and tend to be conservative and Republican. But I was afraid that the comment meant that interfaith families, or the children of interfaith families, aren’t Jewish, which would also result in a higher percentage of Jewish voters being conservative and Orthodox.

So I contacted Sam and am very glad to report that that is not his view. He says that interfaith families tend to be Democrats, and he is concerned that if pollsters stop counting many adult children of interfaith families as Jewish voters, then the share of Jewish votes for Democrats will appear to be dropping. But he didn’t mean to suggest that he thinks they shouldn’t be counted as Jewish voters.

Data

eJP reported on a CASJE webinar I attended, “Signals of a Surge: What does Jewish engagement look like post-October 7th?” where panelists from the JFNA, Hillel, UJAFed-NY, URJ and Prizmah described their research. eJP also reported on the JFNA’s recently-released breakdown of a survey released this spring that showed that “the impact of ‘the Surge’ is waning more quickly among Jews from minority populations, including LGBTQ Jews, Jews of color, Jews with disabilities and financially vulnerable Jews, than it is among the broader Jewish community.”

Mimi Kravetz, JFNA’s chief impact and growth officer, said, “We’re sad and disheartened to see that these marginalized groups are engaging so much less than they were at this time last year….   It’s still higher than baseline. There’s still people showing up more. But there has been a more significant drop among these most marginalized groups.” She also said that what affects the sense of engagement and belonging of Jews of Color is that “they need to see a reflection of themselves in leaders and other participants. They need space to show up as their whole self, whatever that looks like for them. They need to see visible evidence of diversity and inclusion policies and practice, and that those policies will be followed, and they need to know before they enter.” I’d say the same is true of interfaith couples and families.

Although none of the panelists at the webinar offered any data on either surging or declining engagement by interfaith families, David Manchester said JFNA was currently working on an analysis of that data. He also aptly said, as quoted by eJP, “The hardest thing to walk into a Jewish program is the concern about not knowing people. … What I’ve over the last few years been saying to people is [that it] doesn’t matter what the topic of the program is, it is a relationship-building program, and that needs to be our top goal if we want to keep these people engaging in the Jewish community.”

Jimena: Jews Indigenous To The Middle East and North Africa released a fascinating study, “Sephardic & Mizrahi Jews in the United States: Identities, Experience, and Communities.” Sephardic Jews are estimated to be 10% of American Jews, and they have lower intermarriage rates – the study says 25% compared to Ashkenazi Jews’ 36% (based on data in seven communities studied by the Cohen Center, plus New York, p. 66). The goal of the study is to create a more inclusive Jewish environment for Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews.

The study includes portraits of four communities. I learned about a Syrian Jewish community’s Takkana edict from 1936 which forbids not only intermarriage, but also marriage to converts (p. 85); that interviewees from a Persian community gave “mixed reports” with some saying interfaith marriage is “definitely not common” and others describing it as “a former taboo that is now being challenged” (p. 102); and that in a Miami community, “There are strong mores against intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews – but Sephardic and Ashkenazi couplings are generally accepted.” (p. 128)

Jewtina y Co. released “Latin-Jewish Los Angeles,” a reanalysis of the federation’s 2021 Study of Jewish LA. It found that 94% of children in Latino/a Jewish households are being raised J; 19% of respondents have intermarried parents; 33% of married respondents are intermarried. (p. 8) The study includes a page on navigating interfaith relationships (p. 18) and recommendations for inclusive programming, mentioning 18Doors and Base LA. (p. 21)

In Other News:

  • An interesting podcast discussion between Yehuda Kurtzer and Christine Hayes, “Non-Jewish in the Shadow of the Synagogue.”
  • Chabad announced a “New Global Matchmaking Database to Combat Intermarriage.”
  • The Cleveland Jewish News had a nice article, “Experts help interfaith families connect during High Holy Day services,” featuring among others Rabbi Melinda Mersack and Rabbi Miriam Wajnberg.
  • The Jewish Chronicle reports on a summit for young Jewish professionals held by the UK’s Jewish Leadership Council that explored ways to avoid declining Jewish engagement post-college. Unfortunately the concern seemed to be all about marrying out and not about welcoming interfaith couples in. One participant said “There’s a lot of marrying out going on in the Jewish community. Maybe that’s due to a lack of suitable events taking place for young people…. People marrying out is a concern for me as I want to have a strong Jewish community around me. The more people who marry out, the less of a community there will be.”

August 2025 News: Choseness Without Exclusion, and More Conservative News

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The news this summer has felt unrelentingly bad. This comment caught my eye, by Mayor Jacob Frey, after the awful shootings in Minneapolis, talking about his Jewish engagement with the Forward: “There’s also not just a beautiful acceptance – but a kind of hospitality of inclusivity that is entrenched in the fabric of being a Jew, and that’s something I also believe in.” We surely need more hospitality of inclusivity these days.

Choseness Without Exclusion

Rabbi Noa Kushner wrote a wonderfully enlightened essay, “American Sinai,” for the Sapir journal. She very clearly expresses a radically inclusive approach. My favorite parts:

In our era (as well as others), spheres of Jewish commitment and Jewish ethnicity may overlap, but they are not the same. Rather than drawing our circle of chosenness solely around those who have converted or who were born Jewish, we might instead draw that circle wider, including all who participate in Jewish life, whose Jewish actions and faith speak repeatedly over time. It is possible that to be chosen is not only a designation at birth or conversion.

In my community, we ask for the action, the participation, first. Instead of asking a newcomer whether he or she is Jewish, we ask: “Are you coming for Shabbat on Friday?”

It is possible to display commitment to the covenant, even if that covenant is not sealed. If the barrier to entry is not primarily one’s pedigree but rather one’s participation, sustained over time, the commitment is undeniable. In this version of chosenness, any claim of ethnic bias or genetic superiority as it relates to “chosenness” is unfounded. Being chosen is now equal opportunity, a lesson gained from America itself.

Hopefully more rabbis will adopt similar views.

More Conservative News

Right after the July newsletter went out, the Hartman Institute’s Sources journal published an essay by Rabbi Aaron Brusso that I found very upsetting. As I explain in the Times of Israel blogs, he says not only that marriages of interfaith couples are not Jewish marriages so a rabbi cannot officiate in accord with halakhah, but worse, that Jewish traditions are only for Jews, and not their partners from different faith backgrounds, absent conversion.

Rabbi Brusso leads the Conservative movement’s “collective process” currently underway to respond to interfaith marriage. Given his views, it’s hard to be optimistic that that process will result in a more inclusive approach.

Then JTA ran a story about Rabbi Ari Yehuda Saks resigning from the Rabbinical Assembly after it opened an investigation into his officiating at weddings of interfaith couples. He is quoted as saying, “By continuing to equate rabbinic participation in intermarriage ceremonies with an ethical violation the RA is sending a message to Conservative rabbis and the Conservative Jewish community at large that marrying a non-Jew is ethically and morally wrong, which is a statement believed only by very few on the fringes of our community.” Rabbi Saks also explains his decision, and his thinking, in a very interesting podcast.

In the meantime, the Forward had a nice story about a young rabbi taking the pulpit of the Conservative synagogue in Charleston, West Virginia – he notes that many interfaith couples are in the congregation. And the Jewish Week reported that Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor who is Catholic, attended the bar mitzvahs of his two Jewish sons; “At the latest one, he opened the Torah ark and joined the procession carrying the Torah. He was so insistent on participating that Katz left her family’s longtime Conservative congregation for a Reform synagogue that allowed him to stand on the bimah as a non-Jew.”

Also in the News

A fascinating podcast from Project Ruth, an Orthodox conversion program, about the remarkable journey of our friend Eleanor Harrison Bregman, from Protestant minister, to working at a synagogue, to converting under Orthodox auspices. One of my favorite parts: the (presumably Orthodox) co-host of the podcast acknowledged that a parent who is not Jewish could raise Jewish children.

Two nice stories from Houston this month: “Jewish community embraces interfaith families with help from 18Doors,” a concrete example of the impact of 18Doors’ B’Yachad program that “aims to strengthen belonging and inclusion for interfaith couples and families across Jewish communal life”; and a sweet story about the impact of Honeymoon Israel, including on interfaith couples: “Spreading the love: Houston young adults celebrate Jewish holiday of Tu B’Av.”

A nice story about Congregation Ner Tamid in Atlanta: “We are proud to be a community where interfaith families feel not only welcomed, but fully embraced….  Many of our families include partners from different faith traditions, and we see that as a strength. Our services and programs are designed to be accessible, meaningful, and respectful of every individual’s path.”

July 2025 News: Turmoil in the Conservative Movement

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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.

April 2025 News: Steps Forward – Embark, Reinventing Hebrew School, What Belonging Requires; Obstacles – Bad Attitudes, Patrilineality, Officiation

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There’s a lot to report this month: promising feelings of inclusion from a new program for interfaith couples; a great discussion of what’s involved in feeling belonging; new Hebrew school research that reflects that feeling unwelcoming is an obstacle; a Conservative rabbi advocates for officiation; a patrilineal teen’s determination to be recognized; the UK progressive movements are now both “equilineal”; negativity about interfaith marriage in an advice column question; a play with “shiksa” in a title song; and commentary on new demographic data about Montreal.

I’m looking forward to participating in the Jewish Belonging Summit sponsored by the Center for Jewish Belonging and SRE Network May 7-8 in Baltimore – especially discussions about advancing “belonging for all Jews and our loved ones.” It will be interesting to see how including interfaith families fits in with the larger agenda of affirming and celebrating the social and cultural diversity of Jewish life.

Inclusion: New Program, Research, Discussions and Omissions

Embark is a relatively new program, now part of Mem Global, for young adult interfaith couples. Rabbi Ari Perten of Mem Global and Ezra Kopelowitz, describing their program evaluation, say that Embark addresses the many interfaith couples who often experience “a sense of not fully belonging;” “rather than feeling like guests at Jewish events, [couples] gained the knowledge and confidence to lead rituals, host Shabbat dinners and engage meaningfully with Jewish learning on their own terms.” But “while Embark made them more comfortable in Jewish spaces generally, they still feel like outsiders in synagogue settings or other institutional Jewish environments.” The essay discusses steps to “help ensure that Embark participants feel not just welcomed but truly at home in Jewish life.” Embark seeks to create “a foundation for a more inclusive Jewish future – one where interfaith couples actively choose how they want to participate in Jewish community, rather than simply observing from its margins.”

New research about reinventing Hebrew school (the report, a summary of the report, and an eJP essay) notes the importance of inclusion. The research addresses the 70% of Jewish families who are underserved by Jewish education, “defined as those North American, non-orthodox, self-identifying Jewish and Jewish+ families who currently choose not to affiliate with traditional Jewish institutions or enroll in traditional supplemental Jewish education.” It doesn’t call out interfaith families, but does say “Often, Judaism is but one of multiple identities for these families,” and that some are “parents newly considering Judaism, but they don’t feel welcomed by Jewish institutions.” Traditional Jewish communities are perceived by some as “unwelcoming,” “judgmental,” “closed, insular,” “not always open to interfaith families.” The research makes an important call for an integrated family strategy, which I hope will include fostering feelings of belonging in interfaith families.

Rabbi Liz PG Hirsch, executive director of Women of Reform Judaism, talked about interfaith inclusion on her podcast with Rabbi Miriam Farber Wajnberg, director of professional development at 18Doors. It’s a very interesting discussion of what belonging means and requires, alluding to maintaining parameters as well as obstacles to inclusion.

Steven Windmueller missed an opportunity in “The third stage: An American Jewish revolution is upon us once more.” The first reason he gives for the need to “reinvent the Jewish brand” is that “we are not ‘growing Jews’; that is to say we need to increase our numbers, levels of engagement and our financial base. To do that requires a Jewish awakening that excites and energizes Jews to become involved.” I wish he had explicitly nodded to perhaps the greatest opportunity to increase our numbers: to excite, energize and engage more interfaith families – which requires including their partners from different faith backgrounds.

Obstacles to Inclusion: Attitudes, Patrilineality, and Officiation

Negative attitudes about interfaith marriage are still with us. Hey Alma’s advice columnist responded to a question from Jewish woman marrying a Jewish man who was worried that his two brothers would intermarry and forget Jewish traditions so that her own future children wouldn’t be able to celebrate Jewish holidays with future cousins. I loved Vanessa Pamela Friedman’s advice:

“I’m sure you didn’t mean to invalidate all interfaith families with your question, but it is really concerning to me that you’re making assumptions about how these Jewish men will continue to celebrate and honor their Judaism if they end up marrying non-Jewish women. You are experiencing anxiety over a hypothetical issue that may or may not come to fruition, but a lot of people in our community experience real anxiety over the very material judgements and marginalization they experience as patrilineal Jews. So I do find it very, very important to state upfront: Interfaith families who celebrate Judaism in meaningful ways are real, their Judaism is valid and it’s not up to you or anyone else to judge them.”

Related: there’s a song, “Shiksa Goddess,” in a 2001 musical The Last Five Years now playing on Broadway. I’ve always hated the word “shiksa” and agree completely that the song should be removed. I especially agree with the the Forward’s Rukhl Shaechter that “shiksa, even when used with positive intent, comes with demeaning cultural baggage.”

The Canadian Jewish News had an interesting discussion about Montreal’s relatively low but growing rate of interfaith marriage. In 2021 the rate was 22% compared to the Canadian average of 31%, but the number of Jews living in intermarried families grew by 29% in the preceding ten years. Comments by McGill sociologist Morton Weinfeld seem not particularly hospitable to interfaith families: he says research should look into “the quality of the life of those individuals where there’s been no conversion to Judaism, Chrismukkah families. The question often on the table now is to what extent is there space in modern Jewish life in Montreal for these mixed marriages… there are people clearly who will identify as Jewish, but their framework will be different from what it has been in the past. So how will other Jews in the community respond?”

In “I’m Half-Jewish But My Jewish Life Is As Full As It Gets” a patrilineal and very Jewishly-engaged teen gets told by a close family friend “you’re not actually Jewish” but concludes “while I may not fit others’ ideas of a Jewish teen born to Jewish parents, I will not let their comments affect my journey.” She quotes an essay from nine years ago by another patrilineal Jew who’s now a rabbi: “Being Jewish but not having a Jewish mother can be a symbol of a Judaism that is more desirable than a Jewish identity that insists on matrilineal Jewish inheritance or halachic conversion…. The Judaism I favor is a Judaism that is not built on being born into an ethnicity, but instead on choosing to live up to the Jewish covenant and choosing to belong to the Jewish people.”

In the UK, where the two progressive movements, Reform and Liberal, are creating a single Progressive Jewish movement, they call it “equilineality”: “Both movements now have an established route to equilineality, enabling children of one Jewish parent, irrespective of gender, to have recognised Jewish status. Both movements today are built by people of any sexuality. Both are fully egalitarian. Both have become fully able to integrate and build the Jewish lives of mixed faith couples and families.”

“Eight Years Later and We Are Still Lost” is an important contribution by Conservative Rabbi Steven Abraham. “We need to acknowledge openly that the current model – rejecting rabbinic officiation while encouraging outreach – is sending mixed signals that confuse and alienate more than they reassure.”

Also in the news:

A recent 18Doors email newsletter featured “See Me For Who I Am” by Stephanie Zulkoski who describes herself as “one half of an interfaith couple” who has “embraced Jewish traditions and culture.” She describes “small, negative experiences” that cause sadness and frustration and hopes people will become more open-minded and non-judgmental. Her advice: “please do not call me a shiksa”; “I am of a different faith background but would prefer not to be called a ‘non-Jew’”; and please don’t ask me “if I plan to convert.”

“Welcoming Baby” is beautiful advice from Rabbi Jen Gubitz for all Jewishly-engaged or potentially Jewishly-engaged couples.

The Cleveland Jewish News had a nice article with advice from Rabbi Melinda Mersack of jHub about seders for interfaith families (unfortunately termed “interfaith seder” by the reporter).

“My Husband and I Want To Host Passover But His Parents Won’t Let Us” has more good advice from Hey Alma’s Vanessa Pamela Friedman who questions whether part of the husband’s parents’ opposition is because his wife is not Jewish.

Ha’aretz has a story about a bad decision by an Israel ministry denying recognition of Reform and Conservative conversions done in Israel, disregarding a Supreme Court ruling.

We Open the Door for Elijah. Can We Open It for Seekers Too? is about fostering inclusion among those who are drawn to Judaism, but the descriptions are apt for interfaith couples too: “Sometimes the barrier … [is] [l]ingering doubts about who belongs.” “More people are seeking meaning—and many are finding their way toward Judaism. But they’re not always sure the door will open.” “I know what it feels like to be embraced – and what it feels like to be quietly be held at arm’s length.”

February 2025 News: New 18Doors CEO, One Rabbi’s Radically Inclusive Approach, Conservative Movement, Judaism Is About Love, New Research and more

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A New CEO for 18Doors!

I was excited to see 18Doors’ announcement, picked up in the Atlanta Jewish Times, that Mike Wise, a very experienced Jewish professional, most recently co-founder of Honeymoon Israel, is their new CEO. I loved what Mike is quoted as saying:

With more than a 75 percent interfaith marriage rate among non-Orthodox Jews, it is critical for the Jewish community to welcome these couples who are Jewish and support them in building a Jewish home in whatever ways work for them. My work as founder and co-CEO of Honeymoon Israel is but one great example of the potential of deep engagement with couples coming from multiple faith backgrounds. Our deep commitment to working with and training rabbis is another critical piece of our work on behalf of the Jewish community.

I hope the organization will go from strength to strength under Mike’s leadership.

A Radically Inclusive Approach to Ritual Participation

Rabbi Fred Greene, who serves a Reform congregation in Boulder CO, wrote one of the best essays we’ve read in a long time – Everything Has Changed – In Synagogues, Too!

Rabbi Greene addresses one of the Center’s key advocacy positions, that partners from different faith backgrounds should be allowed – even encouraged – to fully participate in Jewish ritual:

I have shifted my positions to become much more expansive in how we officiate our life cycle events. In addition to officiating weddings where one partner might not be Jewish, we also include numerous opportunities for loving family members of bet mitzvah students to be included in aliyot.

When people can make informed and authentic choices, when those making Jewish choices in their households feel they can participate fully in ritual life without necessarily being Jewish (celebrating the ger toshav, the Biblical “sojourner” with the Israelites), they are not just thankful for the opportunity, they feel seen and needed. They, then, become more deeply grounded in our synagogue.

Amen!

Conservative Movement

The Conservative movement’s Intermarriage Working Group, that I’ve previously written about, send an email on February 10 seeking feedback. It’s an important message that’s worth reading.

The co-chairs of the Working Group, Shirley Davidoff and Rabbi Aaron Brusso, reiterate that past disapproval of interfaith marriage did not discourage it, but instead discouraged affiliation with Conservative synagogues. (All of the Working Group’s members are listed in the message.) They intend to “gather best practices, collect meaningful data, and commission innovative ideas to adapt halakhah, ritual, and ceremonies across the continuum of dating, engagement, marriage, and family life. Our goal is to shift from binary perspectives (“what is permitted vs. what is forbidden”) to a more holistic, nuanced, and pastoral approach to intermarrying couples.”

In furtherance of that effort, the email linked to a survey. Results should be interesting!

Judaism Is About Love – But What About Interfaith Love?

Rabbi Shai Held’s book, Judaism Is About Love, is a magisterial work of moral theology. I learned a great deal from it. When I first heard about the book, I was excited to see what it had to say about love between Jews and partners from different faith backgrounds. But there are only ten pages or so about romantic love between partners or spouses, and nothing directly about love between interfaith partners.

There are several interesting observations related to interfaith love, described in my review. Rabbi Held says “the assumption that we cannot control our emotions is a mistake”; people who disapprove of interfaith marriage, or who don’t support making any accommodations that might engage interfaith couples, sometimes justify their position by saying that the Jewish partner made a choice. Rabbis who officiate for gay and lesbian couples but not for interfaith couples, for example, sometimes justify the distinction by saying that being gay is not a choice.

Rabbi Held recognizes that how we view people can maim them: “A person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves.” I couldn’t help thinking how this is applicable to partners from different faith backgrounds who are viewed as undesirable marriage partners for Jews.

Rabbi Held says that “any covenant theology will necessarily have both insiders and outsiders.  We can soften the edges around that fact but can’t sidestep it altogether. Covenants, like religions in general, like identities in general, are inherently particular; what matters from a moral perspective is not whether or not they have outsiders but how they imagine and interact with those outsiders.” I’m not sure what he means by “soften the edges,” but, as I have argued elsewhere, we could define the covenant as between God and not only people who are Jewish, but also people who do Jewish, who are Jewishly-engaged.

All in all, it’s a very important book, deserving of all the acclaim it is receiving, but I do wish more had been said about interfaith relationships. Perhaps that will be a future subject.

New Research

The Bay Area JCRC released a survey that is mostly about how safe Bay Area Jews feel after October 7. The J’s David Wilensky made an interesting comment in his weekly email newsletter:

47% of respondents are part of an interfaith family — almost half. 7% identify as people of color, and 19% live in a household that includes at least one person of color. I hear some congregations around here patting themselves on the back for being welcoming of interfaith families and people of color. Yet I also recently spoke with a Jewish friend whose spouse — a non-Jewish person of color who is helping to raise a Jewish kid — has been treated poorly at more than one large Bay Area synagogue. Again: If this survey is correct, almost half of Bay Area Jews are part of an interfaith family. Synagogues and other Jewish spaces simply cannot afford to dismiss them — or worse.

The Pew Research Center just released its Religious Landscape Survey – all 375+ pages of it. There’s a very good story about the survey by Judy Maltz in Ha’aretz. Her key takeaways include that Jews are more likely than members of other religious groups to say that religion is not too important or not at all important in their lives; that only one in three Jews reported that religion was very important to their family when they were growing up; and that among married Jews, 35 percent reported having non-Jewish spouses (compared to 25% of Catholics having non-Catholic spouses and 19% of Protestants having non-Protestant spouses). A separate section of the report, devoted to Religious Intermarriage, says that intermarried adults tend to be less religious than in-married adults.

The Jerusalem Post reported “exclusively” on February 9 about a new study of the impact of Birthright Israel. The Post’s story had a good headline: “Birthright Israel works: Alumni are more Jewishly active than their peers, study finds – exclusive.” Coverage of the Cohen Center’s past studies often touted that the trip led fewer participants to intermarry, which we always said contributed to negative attitudes about interfaith marriage and would deter children of interfaith families from participating. We always said that the goal of the trip should be to increase participants connections to Jewish life – regardless of who they marry. This story’s lead is that the trip instilled “long-term connections to Judaism and Jewish life for participants and their families, including for those who” intermarry.

The study does find that “Birthright participants were substantially more likely to have a Jewish spouse” – whether their first spouse (55% of participants compared to 37% of non-participants) or current spouse (63% compared to 46%). There’s nothing wrong with measuring or reporting on the rates in which trip participants in-marry. Suggesting that the goal of the trip is to reduce interfaith marriage is a bad strategy, that neither the study nor the JPost story do.

The study does not claim that Birthright participants and non-participants (those who applied for the trip but did not go on it) are representative of all Jews of the same age; the fact that the rates of in-marriage for both participants and non-participants are higher than the 2020 Pew report’s 28% of non-Orthodox Jews suggests that that is the case.

I thought two findings were especially interesting, because they address how couples are raising their children Jewishly, and differences between interfaith and in-married couples in that regard. 76% of trip participants with Jewish partners enrolled their children in early childhood programs, compared to 67% of participants with non-Jewish partners (I’m using the study’s “non-Jewish” terminology here); 47% of non-trip participants with Jewish partners did so, compared to 37% of non-trip participants with non-Jewish partners. 51% of trip participants with Jewish partners had a b’mitzvah ceremony for their children, compared to 26% of participants with non-Jewish partners; 33% of non-trip participants with Jewish partners did so, compared to 14% of non-trip participants with non-Jewish partners.

This data supports different conclusions. With respect to early childhood programs, there’s a difference, but not a big one (10% or less), between those with Jewish partners and those with non-Jewish partners. There’s a much bigger difference (25% and 19%) with respect to having a b’mitzvah, and one could say that almost half of trip participants with Jewish partners not having b’mitzvah ceremonies for their children is not a very satisfactory result. But to me the most important thing is to understand the reasons why interfaith couples choose not to raise their children Jewishly, and to address those reasons.

In Other News:

  • The Interfaithing podcast has a two part review of Nobody Wants This.
  • A JTA story about “swanky secular Shabbat parties” in New York City includes this:

Another aim of the new-school Shabbat dinners is to embrace the diversity of New York City’s Jewish community — and to welcome non-Jews to the table as well. “The main thing is to create the kehillah, the community,” Elad Zvit, the co-founder of Bar Lab, a hospitality company that operates the restaurant, previously said about Mesiba’s Shabbat dinner series. “We have a lot of diversity between our friends — some of them are Jewish, some of them are not. But the one thing we all have in common: We like to break bread together. We like to eat, we like to drink, we like to party together.”

  • You Should Know Rabbi Lizz Goldstein is a nice story in the Washington Jewish Week about a rabbi who grew up in an interfaith family.
  • A review in the Forward of a book about Finnish Jews in WWII is a good example of a casual comment that equates interfaith marriage and assimilation: “Assimilation and inter-marriage rates in Finland raise doubt about the community’s long term survival prospects. Author John Simon includes a sobering statistic in Strangers In A Strange Land: nearly every Jewish family in the country has a member who married outside the faith.”