News from the Network: It's a Challenge That Must Be Made into an Opportunity

This article is reprinted with permission of the (Boston) Jewish Advocate. Visit www.thejewishadvocate.com.

The future of the Jewish people--across the nation and around the globe--was the strong undercurrent for the presentation on "Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage" held Tuesday, March 23, at Temple Emanuel in Newton. The catalyst, however, was something with local roots: The publication of Brandeis University Professor Sylvia Barack Fishman's new book, Double or Nothing? Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage.

In its pages, Fishman reports on the results of her study of the dynamics of 254 men and women in a variety of Jewish households and explores the phenomenon in diverse cultural, communal and historical contexts. Reflecting on these issues from the perspective of their own synagogues, movements and experiences were four area rabbis: William Hamilton of Congregation Kehillath Israel in Brookline; Michelle Robinson of host congregation Temple Emanuel in Newton; Benjamin Samuels of Congregation Shaarei Tefillah in Newton; and Barbara Symons of Temple Etz Chaim in Franklin.

The evening's sponsors were the adult learning collaborative of Combined Jewish Philanthropies and Hebrew College, and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University (where Fishman is co-director). "This is a sensitive and important subject for the Jewish people," said Combined Jewish Philanthropies President Barry Shrage as he welcomed the crowd of more that 150. "There's no subject in the Jewish world so filled with hope and despair at the same time."

Fishman spoke of "the transformation of the landscape of the American Jewish family."
• More than 40 percent of Jews ages 25-49 are married to non-Jews.
• Three-quarters of those growing up in interfaith families marry non-Jews (versus 28 percent of those from wholly Jewish homes).
• More than half of those in mixed marriages say they're not raising their children as Jews, although those where the mother is Jewish have a higher rate of raising children who identify as Jewish.

Despite these sobering statistics, Fishman maintains we live in a blessed time and place.

It's because of our good fortune--of the opportunities and acceptance we have found in America--that we are struggling with this issue," she said. Frequently the birth of a child or death of a parent has profound impact on bringing a Jewish spouse back to his or her Jewish roots, Fishman reports. This often affects the dynamics between the couple and, by extension, the religious timbre of the home.

Many couples believe romantic love can neutralize all conflicts around religion, she added, and often agree to raising children with both traditions, "until they discover that religious rituals around life-cycle events such as birth rituals are important to them," Fishman said. Rabbi Robinson, whose congregational board of directors recently voted to list interfaith marriages in their newsletter with other wedding announcements, reported on the many interfaith families who come to Temple Emanuel "deeply committed to raising their children as Jews even when one spouse is not Jewish."

She illustrated the complexity of the situation with the tale of the man who wished to become Jewish and approached Rabbi Shammai and Rabbi Hillel with the request to teach him the entire Torah while (the potential convert) stands on one foot. Rabbi Shammai chased him away, whereas Rabbi Hillel told him that which is hateful to you do not do unto others.

Though her sympathies are with the more welcoming Rabbi Hillel, Rabbi Robinson also cautioned not to dismiss Rabbi Shammai's position. "We believe that it's incredibly important to be open and everybody benefits. But sometimes, like Rabbi Shammai, we have to reserve the right to maintain our community standards. To do otherwise, would lead to less Judaism, not more."

Rabbi Samuels made the point that "the most important contribution we can make to the Jewish future is to lead vibrant and committed Jewish lives ourselves." He stressed the transformative power of Torah study. Samuels defined interfaith marriage as outside the parameters of Jewish law. At the same time, he added, "As an educator, I am not prepared to write off the large number of Jews who do intermarry."

Using the four children in the seder to illustrate the last four generations of the Jewish people, Rabbi Samuels said: "If we have gone from the wise to the rebellious to the simple to the one who does not even know how to ask the question, we need to be a generation that's committed and engaged in Jewish life."

Rabbi Symons, at whose congregation half the membership is comprised of interfaith families, argued that "mixed marriage is not another name for assimilation."

She challenged the community to rise to the challenge of interfaith marriage with specific and far-reaching outreach.

Let's take Dr. Fishman's conclusions and figure out how to implement them and create those opportunities," she said. "I urge us to value the simple child who asks 'What is this?'" she said. "Especially for an issue as important to the Jewish community as this one, let us see that we are all in this together. Even if we have differing approaches, every single one of us--lay or professional--works hard to ensure a rich, vibrant, populated Jewish future."

Her suggestion: "For each of us to go home, contact someone we know who is peripherally involved in Judaism and invite them to our seders--to open the door, not only with cautious hope that Elijah stands there, but with full knowledge that our invited guests have arrived."

Hamilton responded: "As a Conservative rabbi, I suspect simplicity." He said it is critical that one faith be primary in a household. Each family, he continued, requires its own unique approach. "We need to understand, too, that communities that build high walls reveal their weakness, and those who don't need walls at all reveal their strength."

Fishman said that her research showed three factors appear to be crucial in transmitting Judaism to the Jewish children, including those in an interfaith family:
• Jewish education, formal and informal (such as camps, Israel trips and youth groups), especially in the post-Bar/Bat Mitzvah age.
• Jewishly active homes, where parents have vital connections to the Jewish community.
• Jewish peer groups, especially during the teen years.

With a subject matter of such sensitivity and intense importance to the future of the Jewish community, there was no dearth of after-program conversations.

Ed Case, the publisher of InterfaithFamily.com and a longtime member of CJP's intermarriage task force, said that he prefers to see mixed marriage as a "challenge that must be made into an opportunity."

"And I want to second what Rabbi Symons said--on our Web site we deal with hundreds and hundreds of interfaith couples who are raising their children as Jews. What we need now is more programming that deals with the subject of intermarriage and the kinds of success outreach programs can have."

CJP's Shrage spoke on the work of the intermarriage task force as one expression of the need to "create a community for interfaith couples that has no barriers to entry but that also has a vision of Jewish life as high as Sinai." There's no question, he continued, "that we need to reach out with love to whomever wants to be part of our Jewish community." It's a challenge that must be made into an opportunity.