Interfaith Family Inclusion at the Jewish Belonging Summit, Boston Globe, Canadian Podcast and eJP

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Jewish Belonging Summit

Amid the horrible news this month, I was glad to participate in the first Jewish Belonging Summit sponsored by the JFNA’s Center for Jewish Belonging and the SRE Network.  The Center’s Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein and SRE’s Rachel Gildiner were interviewed by eJP before the summit and afterwards wrote “Belonging cannot wait” for eJP.

I met many very interesting people and there were many interesting discussions. The summit captured how plenary participants’ defined “belonging.” I wondered how Rabbi Sandra Lawson’s definition – that “we are called to create community where no one has to leave out parts of themselves” – would apply to interfaith couples and partners from different faith backgrounds.

At a workshop that discussed survey data about the “surge” of Jewish engagement post-October 23, I heard a phrase that was new to me: “historically disadvantaged” groups, referring to LGBTQ+ Jews, Jews of color, and “mixed heritage” Jews. The overall point made was that while “belonging is critical to building flourishing communities,” historically disadvantaged groups find meaning in Jewish life personally but not in their larger communities.

I didn’t feel enough was said about inclusion of interfaith families and partners from different faith backgrounds. At the opening plenary, 18Doors’ Adam Pollack told a personal story about how he was told fifteen years ago that having such a partner was not a good model for a Jewish professional, and how 18Doors now helps people in interfaith relationships. That was the only mention of interfaith family inclusion I heard at the plenaries.

There were some passing references. Rabbi Rothstein usually referred to “Jews and their loved ones.” Schusterman’s Lisa Eisen said, “You’re welcome and belong here, whether you’re Jewish or not.” But most of the discussion was about inclusion of LGBTQ+ Jews and Jews of Color.

I am totally in favor of LGBTQ+ and Jews of Color inclusion, which is extremely important. But Jews who are in interfaith relationships vastly outnumber those who are LGBTQ+ or of Color.

There is also tremendous intersectionality between these groups. Just before the summit, Bruce Phillips provided me with information he had drawn from the 2020 Pew report data: 77% of gay or lesbian Jews and 80% of Jews of Color have a spouse or partner who is not Jewish (compared to 43% of straight Jews and 43% of white Jews). By comparison, only 5% of gay or lesbian Jews are Jews of Color (another 3.5% are Hispanic), and only 4.7% of Jews of Color (and 4.9% of Hispanic Jews) are gay or lesbian.

In his comments at the opening plenary, Adam Pollack mentioned that he saw “so many partners” at the summit. But over many years, despite the very high proportion of interfaith relationships, I haven’t heard advocates for LGBTQ+ inclusion or Jews of Color inclusion say much about interfaith family inclusion. I didn’t hear that at the summit either.

Keshet recently released “Threads of Identity,” a report on “the unique experiences, challenges, and resilience of LGBTQ+ Jews of Color in Jewish spaces.” They find that “a lack of support, representation, and biases from fellow Jewish community members often lead to feelings of isolation, exclusion, and the need to compartmentalize aspects of their identity” and call for Jewish spaces to be more inclusive of their unique needs. I would love to see reports on LGBTQ+ Jews and Jews of Color in interfaith relationships.

I hope that there will be future summits, where there will be more airtime for interfaith family inclusion, in deep collaboration with all other historically disadvantaged groups.

Wrong Ideas About Interfaith Marriage and Demographic Loss

The Boston Globe published a story about a Massachusetts synagogue in which a gratuitous comment seemed to partly blame intermarriage for its closing. I wrote the following letter to the editor (it’s behind a paywall):

In his moving essay about the closing of the synagogue where generations of his family had gone, Larry Tye writes, “Intermarriage rates are climbing, but more slowly, and rates of conversion are rising.”

The Pew Research Center’s report, “Jewish Americans in 2020,” found that “the offspring of intermarriages have become increasingly likely to identify as Jewish in adulthood.” Len Saxe, who leads the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis, has suggested that that is one of the most important reasons that the Jewish population in the United States is increasing.

A Jewish Telegraphic Agency story in 2021 concluded, “Intermarriage, rather than acting as a net negative for Jewish population, actually has resulted in more Jews.”

Globe readers should understand that welcoming and including interfaith families is key to the ongoing growth and thriving of American Jewish communities.

The false idea of demographic loss also came up in a short podcast, “1 in 3 Canadian Jews have a non-Jewish spouse. What does that mean for the country’s Jewish future?” A new study of Canadian Jews found that “intermarriage is no longer as rare as it used to be in Canada, with 30 percent of Canadian Jews marrying outside their faith.” The podcast introduction reads:

So what do we make of this? Doomsayers have called intermarriage a “second Holocaust”, but the unavoidable reality of young people moving away from religion can’t be fought. Should Jewish institutions and community leaders expand their outreach, or do they tighten their grip on what it means to be a Jew?

Phoebe Maltz Bovy asked how much of the negativity about interfaith marriage was because of concerns over continuity, and how much about religion. She said the demographic concern, that interfaith marriage means fewer Jews, “might not be the thing.” Matthew Leibl, a rabbi in Winnipeg who officiates at weddings of interfaith couples, agreed. He said he uses the term “dual faith” because “interfaith” and “intermarriage” have such negative connotations. Leibl also offered what he called an “easy fix” for the religious concern – to recognize patrilineal descent – an important idea, but not so easy to implement.

Ignoring the Partners 

Finally, in time for Shavuot, Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin and Sandra Lilienthal offer “The Jewish People stood together at Sinai. Can we today?” It’s a nice emphasis on pluralism and plea for unity, but a missed opportunity to explicitly acknowledge and embrace interfaith families and partners from different faith backgrounds.

The authors surely know that a “mixed multitude” (Exodus 12:38) left Egypt with the Israelites and was present at Mount Sinai when the Torah was received. But their essay only says, “Every Jew past, present and future and everyone who would someday become a Jew was present at Sinai” and “the entire Jewish people was present for the same revelation.”

If they meant to include, in “the entire Jewish people,” Jews and their loved ones, that would have been a very welcome Shavuot message.

December 2023 News from the Center

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Most of the Jewish world’s attention is still focused – appropriately I would say – on what’s happening in Israel. But it feels right to start reporting and commenting on interfaith inclusion news again. Especially since December is always a big month for interfaith families.

December Holidays

The UK Institute for Jewish Policy Research issued a new study that found that 28% of Jews in the UK have a Christmas tree at least some years. For interfaith couples, it’s 45% every year, compared to 36% who light Hanukkah candles. I appreciated that the JPR referred to Christmas trees as a “cultural manifestation.”

Most important, the JPR, which is a pretty traditional organization, did not criticize or bemoan the presence of Christmas trees, but instead calmly concluded that the findings “capture both the tenacity of Jewishness today and the realities of Jewish life in the modern multicultural age… Maintaining a Jewish identity in a non-Jewish society has long been a challenge; the ways in which we adopt non-Jewish customs and practices says a great deal about who we are and how we manage those dynamics.” (The Jewish News article on the report had a catchy title – “Oy to the World” – and refers to “ChristmasTreeGate” – but ultimately quotes the same conclusion.)

I read a few stories in Jewish and secular media about how interfaith families were celebrating the December holidays, but didn’t really notice anything new. The Reform movement’s website had some nice and very accepting advice in Five Ways to Approach Family Conversations Around Hanukkah and Christmas.

There was one story I didn’t care for, “I packed away Christmas 35 years ago, but I still bring holiday joy to others.” Janet Silver Ghent grew up in a Jewish family that celebrated Christmas, then married and divorced a man who was not Jewish, then married a Jewish man who had been in an interfaith marriage; at that point she gave up Christmas because she “reclaimed [her] Jewish identity after decades of assimilation.” She told a step-daughter, who asked why they couldn’t have a little tree, “a little tree is like a little pregnant.”

Ghent’s story stood out to me for a tone that is critical of Jewish families that celebrate Christmas, something I did not see much of elsewhere this December. Assimilation means losing Jewish identity and practice; it seems that more and more people in the Jewish world understand that having a Christmas tree does not mean that an interfaith family has assimilated.

Attitudes about Interfaith Marriage

The Shalom Hartman Institute and its co-president Donniel Hartman, an Orthodox rabbi, are deservedly among the most highly-regarded Jewish educational institutions and leaders in the world. When someone of Rabbi Hartman’s stature speaks about engaging interfaith families positively, it’s amazing, a cause for celebration.

In his new book, Who Are The Jews – And Who Can We Become, Hartman refers to “non-assimilationist exogamy;” says “most North American Jews who marry non-Jews do not see selves as rejecting Jewishness;” says interfaith marriage “can no longer be a boundary that defines Jewishness – it is now the norm of Jewish life;” talks about expanding “the parameters of Jewish identity” and “the inclusion of intermarried Jews and their spouses who chose to join us;” and recommends, “rather than digging our heels into a self-defeating discourse of denial, we marshal our collective creativity to ensure a vital next chapter in the Jewish people’s story.” This was all music to my ears.

I was equally amazed when the institute’s US-based co-president, Yehuda Kurtzer, another top Jewish public intellectual, in an opinion about the reshaping of the American Zionist left after October 7, said,  “[T]he big tent should be inclusive of anyone seeking to belong. One fascinating outcome of this could mean that we stop the decadeslong obsession with intermarriage as the marker of Jewish peoplehood. After Oct. 7, identification with the Jewish people at a time of suffering is a much healthier, and maybe more accurate, indicator of belonging.”

Speaking of top intellectual leaders, I was very saddened by the death of Rabbi David Ellenson, the much beloved past president of Hebrew Union College. As explained in my remembrance, he had the most remarkable generosity of spirit of anyone I ever met. Although I publicly criticized his decision to maintain HUC’s policy not to admit rabbinic students in interfaith relationships, he became a supporter and a friend,  publicly endorsing InterfaithFamily’s work several times, speaking at the afternoon of learning when I retired from InterfaithFamily, and providing the cover endorsement for my book. He never said this to me, but I can only imagine that he felt our policy differences were disputes for the sake of heaven.

Research

The Cohen Center at Brandeis released the 2022 San Diego Jewish Community Study. In San Diego, 49% of married Jewish individuals are intermarried, and 67% of couples that include a Jewish person are intermarried; in intermarried households, 55% of children are considered by their parents to be Jewish, and another 20% are considered to be Jewish and another religion. During 2024 I hope to complete my analysis of the Cohen Center’s recent local community studies.

I am excited about the prospects of a new study, funded by the Crown Family, Harold Grinspoon and Jim Joseph foundations. The study by Rosov Consulting and led by Alex Pomson will explore “the interests, needs, hopes, and challenges of a wide diversity of Jewish families, including those with more than one religious or cultural tradition…” They will examine which elements of the parents’ heritages they wish to continue, which they have chosen not to, and why.

The first part of the study is a just-released review of research which clearly notes that welcoming Jewish attitudes and institutions make a difference. I appreciated the review’s statement that the last decade’s research “dispels the still-common tropes in communal discourse about the ‘dangers’ [interfaith families] pose to Jewish continuity.” I appreciated the recognition that structural factors, including institutional policies and ideologies, impact on couples’ decision. For interfaith families, that means experiencing pressure to convert, encountering attitudes and policies that privilege matrilineal descent, and hearing interfaith marriage characterized as a problem. I appreciated the review’s noting that for LGBTQ+ couples who are also interfaith, “many of the Christian partners were more favorably inclined toward Judaism because they viewed the Jewish community as more welcoming of LGBTQ+ people.”

I liked what the review said about terminology:

[W]e use the term “interfaith” to refer to all couples and their families in which one partner is Jewish (in some way) and the other is from a different religious, cultural or ethnic background, including those in which one partner has converted to Judaism, those in which each partner adheres to a different faith tradition, and those who do not consider themselves to be religious. All such families face similar challenges in negotiating which elements of the parents’ childhood heritage to perpetuate or discard.

Finally, coming full circle back to December, the review also notes the negative influence of Jews choosing to “code” Christmas traditions as “religious” and not “cultural,” and “therefore incompatible with a Jewish home, even though … arguably devoid of strictly religious meaning for many who engage in them.”

I find all of this very promising, and look forward to further reports as the study takes shape.

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At this difficult time, I hope your December holidays were as good as they could be, and I send sincere wishes for a good and better new year.

Embrace Gay Married Jews But Not Intermarried Jews? I Don’t Think So

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There is a pretty offensive article on the Forward today, Why Intermarriage Poses Threat to Jewish Life – But Gay Marriage Doesn’t. It’s by Yoel Finkelman, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and like most Israeli commentators, he doesn’t understand liberal Jewish life and community in the US.

Finkelman says that liberal American Jewry has a lot to gain from embracing LGBT married Jews, but that embracing intermarried Jews is an “uphill climb” that will “depend on a huge investment” that he clearly thinks is not worth making.

This analysis is misguided on many levels, but what immediately comes to mind is the very small numbers of people who would be impacted by embracing LGBT married Jews. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of including LGBT Jews – and their partners – in Jewish life and community. But it is well known (perhaps not to Finkelman) that the rate of interfaith relationships is much higher among LGBT Jews than among straight Jews. The 2011 New York community study, for example, found (at 249) that while 22% of married Jews there were intermarried, 44% of LGBT married Jews were intermarried.

These wedge-driving arguments are really troublesome; many lay Jews are already upset with rabbis who will not officiate for interfaith couples but will officiate for LGBT couples if both partners are Jewish. I can’t imagine that advocates of Jewish LGBT inclusion would agree with Finkelman’s analysis and encourage more attention to the LGBT community at the expense of efforts to engage the intermarried. There has to be room in our communal efforts to do both.

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

Happy and Proud

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People who know me know that I am rarely satisfied. When something really positive happens, I am usually immediately thinking of what more could be done.

But I want to pause and say that I am as happy and proud as I could be that InterfaithFamily.com is playing a role in what is being described as the first, legal, gay marriage in New York. I have a lot of personal feelings about this that I want to share.

There was controversy when we started our Resource Center for Jewish Clergy and our Jewish Clergy Officiation Referral Service. People said we would badger rabbis to officiate for interfaith couples – something we have never done. I felt to a certainty that helping interfaith couples have a positive experience finding a rabbi to officiate or co-officiate at their weddings – something we have consistently done, at a current rate of 175 couples a month – would be a positive factor towards future Jewish engagement of those couples. I’m convinced it was the smartest move our organization ever made.

Ten years ago when IFF was founded I confess that I wasn’t sure how I felt about gay marriage. Then I got to know Sue Edelman and I got to know Rabbi Lev Baesh and thankfully it became a no-brainer to me that same-sex couples deserve marriage equality. I also learned that most people say that even more LGBT than straight relationships involving Jews are also interfaith relationships, and we have always published content aimed at supporting gay interfaith relationships (check out our new LGBT Resource Page), and that was clearly the right thing to do too.

A year ago I made a presentation to the Jewish Federation of North America’s planners group with my friend Idit Klein, the executive director of the leading Jewish LGBT advocacy organization, Keshet. Idit and I had a friendly debate about whether LGBT Jews or Jews in interfaith relationships were more marginalized in the Jewish community. You could say that IFF’s over-arching goal is to not have interfaith couples marginalized in the Jewish community. If IFF can help gay interfaith couples overcome the extra hurdles they face, so much the better.

Last Wednesday when I saw Dee Smith’s officiation referral request and read that they were going to be the first gay couple married in New York I went running out of my office with excitement. We quickly put Lev, who directs our Resource Center for Jewish Clergy, in touch with the couple. We thought he would be the perfect rabbi for the couple and that they would love him, they apparently did, and I am thrilled for Lev that he will be having a role in making history on July 24.

The big deal here is that there is going to be legal gay marriage in New York. I was proud to live in Massachusetts when our state legalized gay marriage, I was proud when my childhood friend Richard Palmer wrote the Connecticut Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage in that state, and I was disappointed when the electorate in Maine where I spend a lot of time voted against it. I hope that New York has turned the tide in favor of marriage equality.

But it is also a big deal for the Jewish community that the first legal gay marriage in New York involves an interfaith couple who sought to have a rabbi officiate at their wedding. And I am very happy and proud that our organization was available and able to make that happen.

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

Do Not Stand Idly By

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For the past several years I have tried to keep my family out of my professional work in order to respect their privacy. Today I’m going to deviate a little from that rule.

Two weeks ago one of the happiest occasions in my life took place in my home: the bris of my first grandchild. A grandchild is a wondrous creature — I keep saying that he is like an entire universe of possibilities, and we have no idea how they will play out.

While I was making a few remarks at the bris, I noticed a young adult guest starting to cry. She came up to me afterwards and said that as a lesbian she had been overcome by my choice of pronouns in my remarks. All I had said was the following to my son-in-law and daughter: “We just said a prayer that we hoped that Jonah had huppah, a loving partner, in his life. I hope that 25 or 30 years from now the two of you are talking to each other about who Jonah is going out with, do you like the person, is the person good for him, is the person ‘the one.’”

It would have been easy for me to have said “is she the one,” and I did chose my words carefully, but I was quite taken aback that what I said had such an impact. It left me wondering how many times the young woman had experienced expressed assumptions of sexual preference that left her feeling different and disfavored.

I tell you this because I wonder whether casual expressions of assumed heterosexuality lead directly to the homophobia playing out in the news. You may have heard that a Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Standard, printed an announcement of a same sex wedding, then apologized after members of the Orthodox community objected, then kind of retracted the apology when others objected to it. Our friend David Levy has been blogging about that at Jewschool, which also has a follow up story.

Much more tragic is the recent spate of teen suicides due to homophobic bullying. I am very proud that InterfaithFamily.com is a co-sponsor of Do Not Stand Idly By: A Jewish Community Pledge to Save Lives originated by our friends at Keshet. The pledge states a commitment to end homophobic bullying or harassment, to speak out when anyone is being demeaned due to sexual orientation or gender identity, and to treat every person with dignity and respect. You can sign the pledge on Keshet’s website. I hope that you will. if the commitment becomes more of a reality, my little grandson’s world will be that much of a repaired place.

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