A Jew by any Other Name Is Always a Jew
Story: All It Takes Is One Word
A friend of a friend works hard for the Jewish people. My friend has been on the board of directors of her small synagogue for years. She has organized the High Holiday services, made sure there were Torah readers each week, created holiday services and celebrations and has studied to be a spiritual director. Perhaps you have a friend like this. Or perhaps your friend is active in communal organizations, or takes every adult education class.
Or maybe your friend helped start a soup kitchen, or has raised thousands of dollars for her synagogue and like my friend sends her children to a Reform Jewish day school and keeps a committed Jewish home.
This friend has received honors and recognition from her rabbi, but she feels more than proud, she feels stigmatized. Why? Because her family is still referred to as an "interfaith family." "Yes, my husband is Protestant" she says, "But we are a Jewish family!"
According to the Jewish Outreach Institute, there are three kinds of interfaith families: one quarter who raise their children to be Jews; another quarter who raise them in another religion; and the rest who sit on the fence doing some version of both or none.
Couples with one identified Jew and one identified Christian most often try to bring both religions into their family. Although they believe that "if one religion is good, then two religions are better," we all know this plan most often produces superficial education in both religions and identification with neither. Trying to avoid conflict in their marriage and conflict with their extended families, they pass on the conflict to their children by asking them to make the choice.
Unfortunately, there may ask us to make a choice, too. Namely, will we educate the Jewish side for their children when the children are also going to a Christian program? We know that most of these families will not be able to sustain two schedules of religious education for their children and will drop one somewhere along the way. The religion they keep could be Judaism.
Interfaith Families Are Not All the Same.
Using the same word "interfaith" for all, paints those who are raising their children as Jews with the same brush as those who are not. Do we really mean to tell people like my friend that in spite of everything she has done, we see her as one of those people who threatens the future of the Jewish world by marrying a non-Jew? That we see her as one of those people who doesn't care about Judaism?
And worse, the expectations associated with this label communicate to those intermarried couples who cannot decide whether or not to join the Jewish world that no matter what they do or say, they will never be accepted as a full member of the Jewish community, so why try?
Think about what this label is like for my friend's children! The term "interfaith" signals that their family is somehow deficient, GRINGOS forever!
We in the Reform movement have declared that children of only one Jewish parent are Jewish no matter if that parent is father or mother, but the family and others like it are forever "interfaith!"
The family's status continues to be based on the religious identity of the non-Jewish parent. But why that parent and not the other! If we are accepting patrilineal as well as matrilineal descent, if we are working to be welcoming of families like this, why do we preserve this hierarchy?
We want these children to know that they are Jews and that their family is a Jewish family, just with a non-Jewish member. This doesn't mean we pretend that the non-Jewish partner does not exist. As a matter of fact, I would even go further. We need to reward the non-Jewish parents...publicly.
A Long Overdue Thank You
Rabbi Janet Marder: Blessing of the Non-Jews
Let me tell you what Rabbi Janet Marder did just this Yom Kippur. She singled out the non-Jewish partners of Jews for honor and gratitude and called them up to the bimah with these words.
"What I want is to tell you how much you matter to our congregation, and how very grateful we are for what you have done."
"You are a very diverse group of people. Some of you are living a Jewish life in virtually all respects. Some of you are devoutly committed to another faith. Some of you do not define yourselves as religious at all. You fall at all points along this spectrum, and we acknowledge and respect your diversity.
What we want to thank you for today is your decision to cast your lot with the Jewish people by becoming part of this congregation, and the love and support you give to your Jewish partner. Most of all, we want to offer our deepest thanks to those of you who are parents, and who are raising your sons and daughters as Jews."
"In our generation, which saw one-third of the world's Jewish population destroyed, every Jewish child is especially precious. We are a very small people, and history has made us smaller. Our children mean hope, and they mean life. So every Jewish boy and girl is a gift to the Jewish future. With all our hearts, we want to thank you for your generosity and strength of spirit in making the ultimate gift to the Jewish people."
Notice that Rabbi Marder recognizes that they have given an ultimate gift. If you can imagine just for a moment what it would be like to allow your children to be raised in another religion, another culture, another lifestyle, you will get a tiny glimpse of just how large and important this gift is that they give us. They deserve recognition of that gift; they deserve our appreciation of their loss and what it may have cost them personally to give it to us.
We must open our eyes. Some of the next generation of Jewish leaders will have been raised by at least one parent who was not born Jewish.
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