On the issue of synagogue attendance, the CJP study indicates that intermarried families who have joined a synagogue do attend services a little more often than inmarried Reform families (who are likewise members, comparing apples to apples) and a little less often than inmarried Conservative families. (They don’t break down interfaith Jewish families into Reform, Conservative, Orthodox or any other movement identification.) There are many caveats about this–across all groups of Jews surveyed, everyone joins synagogues at a higher rate when their children are school-aged and preparing for bar mitzvah, and the interfaith families tend to be affiliated in the highest percentages when their children are in Jewish education, and then to drop out of congregational life.

In any case, it’s worth reading the report for yourself so you can see the mix of what the researchers found.

The Jews marrying Catholics statistic was from another recent survey, this one by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life–if you want to read that one, you have to click the box on the main page that says U.S. Religious Landscape Survey–you can download that as a .pdf document, too.

We’ll never be able to capture everyone’s individual experience in these studies, but it’s worth looking at what they really say and evaluating the information for yourself, instead of just relying on anecdotal information alone.

At the same time at another part of your website you point out that Jews proportionally intermarry more with Catholics than with Protestants.

Those candle-lighters are merely carrying on their candlelighting Catholic traditions as best they can.

Are they going to Shabbat services more then the Reform or Conservatives? Doesn’t seem so.