Posted in Jews of color, The Rest of the World, Intermarriage on Jun 23rd, 2009
We have a constant editorial dilemma chosing articles for InterfaithFamily.com. Converts to Judaism are part of our natural constituency–conversion creates an instant interfaith family, after all–and yet if we feature too many articles by or about conversion, we could make people in interfaith marriages feel pressured to convert. We want to be welcoming to people […]
Posted in Death and Mourning, Israel, Intermarriage on Jun 9th, 2009
This morning, I read a news story about a new cemetery in Kfar Saba, in Israel. The Jerusalem Post article about the cemetery notes that this cemetery will provide options for interfaith couples who want to be buried together. Civil burials have been legal in Israel since 1996, when the Knesset passed an […]
Posted in Jews of color, The Rest of the World, Popular Culture, Statistics, Intermarriage on Jun 4th, 2009
Why didn’t I take statistics in graduate school? Who knew that instead of teaching history I’d be working for a non-profit where statistics are vitally important and constantly contested. Take the recent flurry of posts from major bloggers about Jewish and African-American attitudes toward intermarriage.
The bloggers’ exchange kicked off with a light post by Atlantic […]
Posted in Interdating, Popular Culture, Intermarriage on May 18th, 2009
This isn’t the first time that I’ve heard that non-Jews sign up for JDate, the internet’s oldest and most prominent Jewish dating service. In an article that ran in last week’s Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, we learn that 2 percent of the people signing up for JDate aren’t Jewish.
At least, they aren’t yet. […]
Posted in Synagogues, Intermarriage on May 5th, 2009
Last week Ruth Abrams blogged about an important article by Jeremy Gillick in New Voices, The Coming of the Intermarried Rabbi, about men and women seeking to attend and be ordained by rabbinical schools that will not accept them because they are intermarried. Shortly before the New Voices article came out, we published Why I’m […]
Posted in Friends of IFF, Intermarriage, Uncategorized on Apr 28th, 2009
New Voices, the National Jewish Student Magazine published a well-reported story on The Coming of the Intermarried Rabbi, mainly about David Curiel, a friend of ours. Curiel forwarded us the URL to the article. Here’s an excerpt:
His path to rabbinical school was roundabout indeed. It started in 2003, when he met Amberly Polidor, who […]
Posted in Intermarriage on Apr 6th, 2009
We got a Google alert about an April 3 “God Squad” column that appeared in the Edmond Oklahoma Sun. In the column, Rabbi Marc Gellman responds to a young Jewish woman who wrote to him in pain, seeking advice because of her parents’ rejection of her Catholic boyfriend, even though she says she intends and […]
Posted in The Rest of the World, Weddings, Marriage and Relationships, Outreach, Interdating, Other religions, Musings, Intermarriage on Mar 23rd, 2009
Nearly three years ago I moved to St. Louis. A friend of ours insisted that we join a local synagogue with a rabbi he described as the most thoughtful and knowledgeable he had ever met. It sounded like a plan–the synagogue was a quick walk from our home. The next day was Shavuot, when we […]
Posted in Intermarriage on Mar 13th, 2009
Can you be for inmarriage without being against intermarriage? My gut says yes. But explaining it is the tricky part.
When people of different religious backgrounds ask what I do, I tell them I work for a Jewish non-profit that provides resources for interfaith couples with a Jewish partner. “So you encourage Jews to marry Christians?” they inevitably ask. Well, […]
Posted in Outreach, Intermarriage on Feb 12th, 2009
 Last week, Micah Sachs posted about Jonathan Tobin’s first article as editor of Commentary magazine. In a time of limited resources and funding difficulties facing Jewish non-profits, Tobin is arguing for a “circle the wagons” approach against reaching out to interfaith families. I wanted to share the letter to the editor that I’ve submitted:
Dear Editor,
I […]
