This article is reprinted with permission of the Atlanta Jewish Times. Visit www.atljewishtimes.com.
Cindy Fuerst is a non-Jewish mother who is raising Jewish children.
Fuerst and her Jewish husband, Neal, have been married nine years, and the Powder Springs couple has two sons, ages 6 and 5. Two years ago, Fuerst attended a class called Building Blocks: The Alef-Bet of Creating a Jewish Home taught by Debbie Antonoff, an Atlanta educator whose work focuses on interfaith couples and families.
"The class really brought out my confidence level," said Cindy Fuerst. "It gave me a boost of energy to say that [raising our children Jewish] is the right path."
Antonoff is proud of successes like that because she believes that intermarriage is here to stay. In fact, the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Study shows a 47 percent intermarriage rate for Jews who wed between 1996 and 2001 versus 38 percent for Jews who married between 1980 and 1984. The study also shows lower Jewish involvement rates for intermarrieds.
"I'm not interested in debating the issues," said Antonoff, who recently received a grant from the Marcus Foundation through the New York-based Jewish Outreach Institute (JOI) to replicate her program for non-Jewish mothers who are raising their children Jewish. "We've spent a lot of time debating--let's move forward."
Antonoff tells people who are uncomfortable with the idea of intermarriage that interfaith families can actually contribute to Jewish continuity if they can be engaged in the community and encouraged to raise their children in Judaism.
A new book by Brandeis University Professor Sylvia Barak Fishman, which focuses on the impact intermarriage has had on Jewish continuity, furthers the discussion.
In Double or Nothing? Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage--a reference to a gambling term Fishman uses to imply "two Jews or none"--she argues that Jewish continuity can be sustained in intermarriages if families emphasize Jewish education and create a rich Jewish home in which parents are passionately involved in some aspect of Judaism.
In Atlanta, several programs offer interfaith couples--and their relatives--counseling and education opportunities. In addition to her program for mothers, which might be replicated nationally and will expand threefold thanks to the Marcus Foundation grant, Antonoff also facilitates a discussion group for married or engaged interfaith couples and another that helps interfaith families learn to participate in synagogue life. Her programs are funded by JOI.
Rabbi Scott Saulson, meanwhile, facilitates a class through the Atlanta Rabbinical Association for interfaith couples and people considering conversion, and the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta holds a course called Derech Torah for people new to Judaism through its Lisa Brill Institute of Jewish Learning.
The Temple, a Reform synagogue in midtown, conducts its own class--open to the community--called "Jewish Journeys," and other area synagogues also offer programming and counseling for intermarrieds.
Still, as more resources emerge, some interfaith couples and families say they still are experiencing varying degrees of success engaging in the Jewish community, often at lifecycle points such as marriages or births.
Granted, some interfaith families will never connect to Jewish life. In many cases, says Saulson, people's choice of intermarriage indicates "they have dropped out already."
Arlene Greenspan, a member of The Temple and herself in an interfaith marriage, observed: "My sense is that people in interfaith relationships don't always know how to fit in [the Jewish community.]"
Family programming
In Atlanta, one program aimed at attracting interfaith and unaffiliated families with young children is run by the JCC's Sophie Hirsch Srochi Jewish Discovery Museum and sponsored by JOI. About four times per year, the kid-friendly program takes place at the Toys R Us on North Point Parkway in Alpharetta, before Jewish holidays. The next program, focusing on Rosh Hashanah, is scheduled Sept. 12.
"It's really bringing information in a non-threatening way to people who may not be religious--who may just need exposure to the Jewish holidays for their children," said Tammi Wecksler, the JCC's senior marketing manager.
Some individual programs have attracted as many as 400 people, according to Wecksler.
That program is a good example, says Paul Golin, JOI's communications director, of some of the new ways of attempting to reach interfaith and even just unaffiliated families.
According to Golin, the essence of the new outreach model is "to take the Jewish community out to where people are--both physically and metaphysically--rather than waiting for them to come to us." These encounters are meant to be a start toward building greater Jewish involvement.
The Web has also become a resource for interfaith families. On InterfaithFamily.com, for example, people can share experiences and advice in a virtual roundtable and group session. There, those in mixed marriages discuss everything from how to handle relatives to what to do at holidays.
"We think our Web site is unique and incredibly helpful," said Edmund Case, creator of InterfaithFamily.com, which is based in Newton, Mass. "A lot of interfaith families who are thinking about getting involved are afraid to go to a synagogue. But they can go to our Web site in the middle of the night."
Though officials in the outreach community say their methods work, they also complain that they are also greatly underfunded. Last year, JOI gave grants totaling $400,000--most of which came from family foundations, according to Golin. In some years, however, the group, has distributed as much as $700,000.
"A lot more could be done" to involve interfaith families, said Case, who says he raises some of his own money to run his Web site, and who speaks nationally on the interfaith issue. "There are some very effective outreach programs--it's not rocket science what could be done."
Changing attitudes
In practice, although many Jewish organizations and institutions recognize the need to welcome and involve interfaith families, interviews suggest that some attitudes remain resistant to change.
Tracy Levine, who was born a Methodist, said that when she married her husband, Michael, his entire family cut them off. While they would have preferred to marry in a synagogue, the couple ended up marrying in a Methodist church.
For years, whenever they would have any contact with Michael's family at all, his father invariably called Tracy by the wrong name. And once, when the family went to a synagogue in Florida for a Rosh Hashanah service, Tracy says someone yelled at her to give up her seat to a Jew.
"To say that in the beginning that I wasn't comfortable or welcome is an understatement," said Levine.
For all of that, Levine began to take an active role in synagogue life, and four years ago she completed her conversion. Today Michael and Tracy and their three children belong to Reform Temple Emanu-El in Dunwoody, where she has taught religious school and where she says she "feels very comfortable." The Levines' youngest son attends the Davis Academy.
Speaking for the Reform movement, which attracts the majority of affiliated intermarried Jews, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism told the Jewish Times: "You don't write off Jews, you don't write off anybody. If a member of the Jewish community marries a non-Jew, we welcome them. We encourage the non-Jewish partner to convert [or if they are] unwilling, then we urge them to raise their children as Jews."
For other Jewish denominations, there is a desire to welcome interfaith families, but their involvement is necessarily limited.
Chabad, an Orthodox organization that seeks to involve all Jews, for example, allows children of a Jewish mother to attend its religious school--but not the children of a Jewish man who has married a non-Jewish woman.
Still, whenever possible, the group welcomes some participation by Jews who have married out of their faith, says Chabad Intown's rabbi, Eliyahu Schusterman. "Part of the reality [of the real world] is that if you have a Jewish person, regardless of marriage, we want to reach out to them. If you alienate the spouse, you won't have them."
At Conservative synagogues such as Ahavath Achim, non-Jewish family members are permitted to attend services and programming, but they may not be members of the congregation and, according to AA's senior rabbi, Neal Sandler, "their ability to participate in lifecycle events is rather minimal."
But Sandler, who has been on the job at AA just since July 6, says that while the number of interfaith families at AA is "relatively small," the issue of "welcome and how you extend welcome" is a concern for the congregation.
Intown Reconstructionist Congregation Bet Haverim, "is a fairly open congregation," where there are many interfaith families and few restrictions on non-Jewish participation, according to the synagogue's administrator Jeannie Mangham. Its rabbi, Josh Lesser, performs interfaith marriages as well as same-sex commitment ceremonies for congregation members and non-members.
Finding a rabbi
With more Jews marrying non-Jewish partners, the issue of officiating at interfaith marriages has become a hot-button issue.
In Atlanta, only a handful of Jewish clergy are willing to officiate at interfaith weddings, and some of them will perform such marriages only for their congregants.
Such is the case at The Temple, for example, where interfaith marriages are performed by some clergy (though not by Senior Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin), and only for those who are already members of the congregation and committed to living a Jewish life.
Associate Rabbi Jim Egolf of The Temple, who does officiate at interfaith marriages, said, "We don't want to be treated like a Jewish Wal-mart where you walk in and pay money for the service. Philosophically, our answer to interfaith marriage is that we want to be part of that, but we want you to be part of the Jewish community from that point forward."
Some synagogues--including Temple Emanu-El--forbid their clergy to perform interfaith marriages.
"I work very closely with interfaith couples and families trying to help them make decisions about religious identity in the home," said Julie Schwartz, Temple Emanu-El's senior rabbi. "And I am very committed to supporting them and finding ways to see that they feel included and welcome."
For some rabbis, it is a matter of personal choice.
Saulson, for example, says he gets asked about a half-dozen times per year, but always declines. "It's not my role to perform non-Jewish weddings," he explained
Rather, he makes referrals to colleagues such as Rabbi Harvey Winokur, spiritual leader of Kehillat Chaim, a Reform congregation in Roswell. Winokur says he stays busy nearly every weekend performing interfaith marriages for couples, most of whom are not members of his congregation.
Winokur says he performed his first mixed marriage 20 years ago when he was approached by a member of his congregation who told him she and her husband would raise their children Jewish.
Now Winokur, who does interfaith weddings in Atlanta and even out of state, is approached "so often that I am unable to accommodate all the requests."
Still, Winokur--who has taken special training in pre-marital counseling--requires all couples to meet with him a minimum number of times and go through counseling before he will marry them.
By working with interfaith couples in this way, Winokur believes he is not only helping them find a Jewish resource, but doing "Jewish continuity a service in the sense of keeping the Jewish partner linked very strongly to the Jewish community."
He feels his efforts have paid off. Ten years after that first interfaith marriage in 1984, the couple called to tell Winokur they were ready to enroll their children in temple religious school.
Raising the kids
For many families--in any situation--it often isn't until the arrival of children that they begin to consider religious life.
For some couples, such as Arlene Greenspan and Mike Crutcher, there was an understanding from the start that their children would be raised Jewish. Greenspan was raised Jewish. Crutcher was raised Catholic, but says he rejected organized religion by the time he was a teenager.
"We had many discussions before marriage," said Greenspan. "I insisted he take an active role in raising the kids Jewish."
Said Crutcher: "I knew this was an important issue we needed to resolve. And I agreed to raise the children Jewish and that I would be part of the process."
And when their boys--Kenny, 15, and Jason, 10--were small, the family dipped their toes in the Jewish community by joining an interfaith chavurah they found through friends. The group, which was not affiliated with any synagogue, started its own religious instruction for the children.
Eventually, the group's teacher encouraged Crutcher and Greenspan to make a commitment to a synagogue. After some "shul-shopping," they made their way to The Temple, because they liked its "social action orientation and the intellectual aspect." Once again they connected with an interfaith chavarah. The couple has since taken a Judaism class together and two years ago celebrated Kenny's Bar Mitzvah.
"It was a wonderful experience for me, Arlene, the family and Kenny," said Crutcher. "I was really proud of Kenny--the fact that he learned to chant so beautifully--I was quite impressed."
As for his participation, Crutcher said that when he first heard--erroneously--that he wouldn't be able to stand on the bimah because he wasn't Jewish, he was disappointed. But after all was said and done, he said, "I was as participatory as I wanted to be."
For others, like the Fuersts, the issue of how to raise their children did not arise until Cindy became pregnant for the first time. At that point, the Powder Springs couple decided if their first-born was a boy, the children would be raised Jewish. If the child were a girl, they would be raised Catholic.
"We didn't want the kids to have both [religions]," Cindy said. "We saw other couples who did that and thought it was too much and too confusing. It's better to have an identity. Our plan was to go strong either way."
Cindy said she attended her first Jewish outreach program when a sonogram revealed the couple was going to have a boy.
The couple moved to Atlanta in 1999, and Fuerst connected with Antonoff's program two years ago after seeing it publicized in local parenting magazines and talking to friends. Although her children were enrolled in preschool at their synagogue, Temple Kol Emeth, Fuerst says she wanted to do more to support their Jewish learning.
The Fuersts are an example of another positive outcome that Antonoff says she sees with interfaith families who take her classes: The involvement of the non-Jewish partner often encourages the Jewish spouse to become more religiously involved. According to Fuerst, before their children were born and before her own involvement in the family's religious life, her husband was not religious. Now he goes to Torah study on Saturdays and has gotten more involved with synagogue activities. "He says [Torah study is] the highlight of his week," said Fuerst.
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Fran Nachman Putney is a staff writer for the Atlanta Jewish Times. Previously, she worked for CNN in Atlanta and has been a freelance writer and photographer for various local and national publications.
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