Conversion Shifts

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It feels like an inexplicable coincidence. On July 8 I wrote an appreciation of Gary Tobin, a leading Jewish thinker and supporter of outreach to interfaith families who just passed away. I remembered his support for us and our tactical disagreement about how much to promote conversion to non-Jewish partners in interfaith marriages. On the same day, the New York Jewish Week wrote about a major shift in the Conservative Movement about … how much to promote conversion as part of interfaith outreach.

Since InterfaithFamily.com got started, we have been interested in trying to help Conservative Jews respond positively to intermarriage. I grew up in a Conservative synagogue. At the Hornstein Program at Brandeis, I wrote a paper on the Movement’s response to intermarriage, analyzing responsa literature from the Committee On Law and Standards. In IFF’s early years we had eminent Conservative rabbis like Bradley Shavit Artson (dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University), Myron Geller (a long-time member of the Committee on Law and Standards) and Carl Perkins (author of the revised edition of Embracing Judaism published by the Rabbinical Assembly) write for us.

We were very supportive when the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs started its keruv initiative. Rabbi Charles Simon participated in the conference we held for outreach professionals in May 2007, and we reviewed the FJMC’s pamphlets The Role of the Supportive Non-Jewish Spouse in the Conservative/Masorti Movement and Let’s Talk About It: A Book of Support and Guidance for Families Experiencing Intermarriage and Synagogue Leadership.

Since we started listing Jewish organizations that welcome interfaith families back in 2001 and 2002, we have tried to recruit Conservative synagogues. When I spoke with Conservative rabbis in those days, pretty much the first question they would ask is, “what’s your position on conversion?” When I would say “conversion is a wonderful personal choice and we are delighted if any of our resources help people along that path, but we think that conversion should not be promoted too aggressively because it will turn away people who might otherwise come in and raise Jewish children,” many times the rabbi’s response would be “that’s not good enough.”

It appears that attitudes are adapting to the times. Slowly over the years, we have been able to recruit more than 70 Conservative synagogues and institutions to list on our organization directory. It has been widely reported that the growth in the Reform Movement and the decline in the Conservative Movement between 1990 and 2000 was due to the Reform Movement’s greater acceptance of interfaith families.

Now the Jewish Week article reports that all of the arms of the Conservative Movement have now signed off on a forthcoming pamphlet that will shift the movement away from an aggressive push for conversion. Rabbi Simon is quoted as saying that although “there is nothing wrong with saying conversion is important to us, we should be honest about it. There is not a realistic expectation in today’s life to set a goal of conversion. Couples set their own goals; that is not where I would start the game.”

Today I submitted this letter to the Jewish Week:

I write to applaud news of an important shift in the Conservative Movement’s approach to interfaith families (Conservatives End Push to Convert Intermarrieds, July 8, 2009) and the leadership of Rabbi Charles Simon and the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs on this critical issue. While conversion is a wonderful personal choice, all of the Movement’s arms apparently now recognize that engaging people in Jewish family life is the most important end result, and that promoting conversion too aggressively risks alienating couples who might otherwise get involved. The Jewish Outreach Institute’s Rabbi Kerry Olitzky is clearly right that conversion is not an outreach strategy, or, as Rabbi Simon says, the place to “start the game.” The fact that over 70 Conservative synagogues and institutions currently list on the InterfaithFamily.com Network of organizations that welcome interfaith families indicates that many Conservative congregational rabbis and lay leaders are already acting consistently with this positive new attitude.

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

Gary Tobin, An Appreciation

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I was very sad to learn that Gary Tobin died on Monday. He was a brilliant and provocative thinker, and a passionate advocate for opening Jewish communities to include interfaith families and Jews of color.

When I stopped being a lawyer and started working in the Jewish non-profit world in 1999, the first gathering I ever attended was an event around the publication of Tobin’s Opening the Gates: How Proactive Conversion Can Revitalize the Jewish Community. I still have that book on my shelf, with many post-it notes interspersed among its pages.

We asked Gary to write for InterfaithFamily.com and he contributed Proactive Conversion as Outreach. We were in our infancy at that point and it was a real boost to have such a distinguished thought leader write for us. Later we reprinted an essay Gary contributed to Sh’ma, Do We Want to Be Who We Really Are?

I didn’t always agree with Gary. In Opening the Gates: How Proactive Conversion Can Revitalize the Jewish Community — A Review, I agreed with a lot of his argument. He didn’t advocate for proselytizing, but defined “proactive conversion” simply as welcoming non-Jews to become Jews. He wanted the Jewish community to have a positive attitude about conversion and converts. But I thought then, and still do, that we would be better off promoting “proactive inclusion” than “proactive conversion” — we should include non-Jewish partners and encourage them to make Jewish choices, with conversion one possible wonderful outcome among others.

I visited Gary twice at the offices of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research in San Francisco. He was gracious with his time, interest and advice. I knew he had been ill in the past. But as recently as March, he was participating in an extended discussion I blogged about on the JOI JOPLIN listserv about whether programs specifically for interfaith families were still necessary.

In recent years, Gary’s inclusivity work focused on Jews of  color and helping Be’chol Lashon: In Every Tongue, a non-profit founded by his wife Diane. I talked with Diane only a month ago about ways our organizations could work together.

There aren’t many high-profile intellectual leaders who argue in favor of making Jewish communities more inclusive. That makes it all the more tragic that Gary Tobin died at the very young age of 59 — sadly, the same age at which we lost Egon Mayer, of blessed memory. Our sympathies go out to Diane and the Tobin children.

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

Two Friends

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We had a pretty big week at InterfaithFamily.com last week. As we’ve already mentioned, it’s our fifth anniversary as an independent organization, and the 200th issue of our Web Magazine, and we had great coverage in the New York Jewish Week and the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. We launched our new User Survey and have already had a big response (you can win an iPod if you take it!), and we revamped our Discussion Boards so that registration isn’t required, and they’re already busier. I was in Los Angeles Monday through Wednesday, speaking at a conference for RAVSAK (the association of Jewish community day schools) and having a series of meetings that are going to result in significant new funding for us. And we had a meeting of InterfaithFamily.com’s Board of Directors on Thursday, with a presentation by Harvard sociologist Chris Winship, the co-chair of CJP’s community survey committee, on the results of the 2005 Boston Jewish Community Survey.

But something happened Friday night that topped it all.

On Friday night I went to services at a local Reform synagogue. The husband of someone very involved with IFF went to the mikvah at Mayyim Hayyim on Friday and completed his formal conversion to Judaism; his conversion was recognized at the service, and he spoke about his journey.

This wonderful, accomplished man met his wife in college. She made it clear that having a Jewish family was very important to her, and he was willing to go along. He didn’t know what it would all mean at the start, and he was supportive, but on the periphery. Then they came to Boston, and his wife started getting involved in the Jewish community here. He said that he experienced an incredible welcome from CJP, the Boston federation, being invited to participate in programs and just warmly included by CJP’s leaders. And he said he felt invited and welcomed by what he found on InterfaithFamily.com. He got more involved himself, studied, and — sixteen years after his wedding — he decided to “make it official.”

To think that the work we do at InterfaithFamily.com had even a small part in this man’s journey was deeply moving to me. It made the impact of a welcoming approach to interfaith couples very concrete and inspired me to move ahead to the next five years.

*****

In other news, there is a story in the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle about our friend Sherry Israel, who spoke at Beth Shalom, a local Conservative synagogue. Sherry is a highly regarded social scientest (and my teacher at the Hornstein Program at Brandeis). Among other quotes:

On day schools admitting the children of non-Jewish mothers: “Here’s a family that wants to give a child a Jewish upbringing, and that includes a deep Jewish education. We should say no? Let’s find a way to say yes.”

On permitting non-Jewish family members to participate in life-cycle events, including taking part in the symbolic passing of the Toard during a Bar or Bat Mitzvah: “People who study these matters say the bimah isn’t sacred space… There is no prohibition against non-Jews touching a Torah. Take the situation of the non-Jewish mother who has done all this work raising the child. Hasn’t that mother been helping pass the tradition?”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

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

Michael Richards, Yossi Beilin and Who’s Jewish?

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There’s been an interesting confluence of events over the past several weeks that raise the question, “Who’s Jewish?”

First there was the media firestorm about comedian Michael Richards, the beloved Kramer from the TV show Seinfeld, having made racist comments at an LA comedy club. Other than being horrified as I assume most others were, I didn’t pay much attention to that news blitz, until reports started coming out that Richards’ publicist was saying that Richards considered himself to be Jewish. As reported in the Houston Chronicle, for example, Richards, though not born of Jewish parents and not having converted to Judaism, “believes in the tenets of Judaism and considers himself Jewish.” Other than a first reaction questioning whether it would be a good thing if Richards were Jewish, I didn’t pay much attention to that issue either, until a bloggers’ blitz started up arguing that Richards could not be Jewish if his parents weren’t and he hadn’t converted.

That reminded me that at InterfaithFamily.com we hear many comments, usually from non-Jewish parents who are raising their children as Jews, along the lines of “I feel a little bit Jewish” or “I feel more and more Jewish as time goes by” or “I’m sort-of Jewish, aren’t I?” Rabbi Kerry Olitzky wrote a wonderful article for our Web Magazine, Doing the Conversion “Two-Step”, also included in our book, explaining how many people experience a “conversion of the heart” long before they formally convert, if indeed they ever do.

It doesn’t serve the Jewish community’s interests, in my opinion, to jump to a conclusion that a person can’t be Jewish if his parents weren’t and he or she hasn’t converted. In fact I wrote an essay, Redefine Jewish Peoplehood, for the Spring 2000 issue of Reform Judaism Magazine, arguing that “we should adopt a policy of ‘total inclusion’ of the intermarried by broadening the definition of Jewish peoplehood to include both Jews and their non-Jewish partners.”

That brings me to Yossi Beilin. Years ago we reprinted his Thoughts on Secular Conversion: An Important Alternative to Religious Conversion. A few days ago, Ha’aretz reported that Beilin, a member of Israel’s Knesset, has introduced a bill to recognize as Jewish those in Israel with a Jewish father (traditionally, only children of a Jewish mother are recognized as Jews) and to establish a process of secular conversion. As reported in Ha’aretz, someone would be considered Jewish who “has joined the Jewish people in a non-religious process and has linked his or her fate with the Jewish people, and is not a member of another religion.” Beilin is quoted as saying, “If people see themselves as Jewish… why should the state define them as not Jewish.” The article continues,

Beilin’s idea of secular conversion, which he first raised in 1999, involves joining the Jewish people by means of activities in the Jewish community and maintaining a Jewish lifestyle. Committees would be established to determine what demands would be made of those who wished to join the Jewish people, Beilin proposes, “such as elementary knowledge of Hebrew and checking there are no extraneous interests.”

Beilin said the central consideration in accepting people to Judaism by means of secular conversion would be a family tie to Jews.

So while I can’t comment on the sincerity of Michael Richards’ feelings, maybe his publicist’s argument isn’t so far-fetched. Maybe he should be considered Jewish, after all.

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

Conversion Again

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As the Jewish New Year starts, the issue of promoting conversion is prominent once again. As we noted in last Friday’s post, Rachel Zoll, an excellent AP religion writer, wrote a problematic article about Jews encouraging conversion.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last two days writing letters to the editor of every newspaper that I think published Rachel’s article. It’s an eclectic list, ranging from major papers in major media markets like the Washington Times, the Miami Herald, the New York Post, and the Chicago Sun-Times, to much smaller cities, like Jackson Hole WY, Lincoln NE, Daytona Beach, El Paso, Portsmouth NH, and many in between.

Why bother? Because I’m very concerned about the reactions interfaith couples will have to the story.

Late last year, when the secular press publicized new efforts by the Reform and Conservative movements to encourage conversion, we heard about several couples that were very upset to think they would be pressured to convert. In one instance, the non-Jewish spouse was approached at work by her non-Jewish boss, who said to her, “I hear the the synagogues want people like you to convert.” The instances we heard about involved couples that had thoughtfully and carefully worked out that they would raise their future children as Jews. Anticipating pressure to convert was a setback to their plans. What are they going to think when they see another article — right before Rosh Hashanah, to boot — with a title like “Jews embrace conversion”?

So my letters to the editor are part of InterfaithFamily.com’s advocacy efforts to move the Jewish community to be more welcoming to interfaith families. I know that letters to the editor aren’t nearly as effective as the original articles, but they are the least we can do to try to get a message to those interfaith couples we’re concerned about that there are significant parts of the Jewish community that are much more interested in welcoming them as they are, and much less interested in pushing conversion.

I don’t know yet whether the letters have been published, except this one, which appeared in the Washington Times:

Rachel Zoll’s article (“Jews encourage conversion,” September 23) overstates Jewish leaders’ advocacy for conversion. At the same time that Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Reform movement, said that Reform synagogues should not shy away for inviting non-Jewish spouses to convert, he launched an initiative to express gratitude for non-Jewish parents who raise their children as Jews, calling them “heroes of Jewish life.”

Encouraging more interfaith couples to raise their children as Jews is critically important to ensuring Jewish continuity. Rabbi Yoffie’s balanced approach recognizes that that that will happen far more often if the non-Jewish partner is genuinely welcomed and accepted, than if conversion is promoted too aggressively.

Zoll cites a “major” new study by the American Jewish Committee finding that “advocating for conversion works.” But that study, which included interviews of only 37 converts, cited research that focused on young interfaith couples – the most important demographic – and found that they “would be ‘turned off to Judaism’ if they were approached about conversion by clergy or even family friends.”

Conversion to Judaism is a wonderful personal choice. But the Jewish community will shoot itself in the foot if it takes anything other than an unpressured approach toward conversion.

I need to say one other thing about conversion. A few months ago I was at a conference and ran into an excellent reporter for the New York Jewish Week. She greeted me with, “Why are you so against conversion?” She was referring to our most recent essay on the subject, Enough is Enough. I asked her, “didn’t you see in that article where we said that conversion was a wonderful personal choice?” She said “yes, but … why are you so against conversion?”

The issue of how the Jewish community should approach conversion of non-Jewish spouses and partners is a very nuanced one. Unfortunately it is very hard to convey a nuanced message in sound bites. We have always, consistently said, and say again: we are not against conversion. Conversion is a wonderful personal choice. We are delighted is any of the resources provided by InterfaithFamily.com help anyone along the path to conversion. But our number 1 goal is to maximize the number of children who are raised as Jews in interfaith families. We are convinced that that will happen more if interfaith couples and families are welcomed as they are, than if conversion is promoted too aggressively.

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