On Integrating My Love and Commitment to Judaism and Jewish Community with My Love and Commitment to a Man Who Is Not Jewish

In our last issue, we reprinted an article from The Forward by Ami Eden that reported that "The top legal committee of Reform Judaism has ruled that intermarried Jews can be allowed to serve as Hebrew-school teachers. Candidates' 'Jewish depth and family life,' not their marital status, is the key question in hiring teachers, according to the recently published opinion."

In this issue, Sarah Tauber responds to the Forward article.

Twelve years ago I made a momentous decision: I decided to try to integrate my love and commitment to Judaism and Jewish community with my love and commitment to a man who is not Jewish. Together, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly, my husband and I learn how to create a home where Judaism is alive, how to raise our two school-age children in the tradition, and how to be a part of a Jewish community. It is not a simple path, but it is our path.

In the European city where we have been living for one year, there is a Reform congregation that was founded thirty years ago by the rabbi who is still its leader. This rabbi chooses to adopt a position of openness to those families who have a member who is not Jewish. He does this not by proclamations and speeches but simply by welcoming those Jews, along with their spouses and their children, who seek community, belonging, learning and the continuity of the Jewish tradition. Were it not for the presence of this rabbi, it is certain that many of these Jews and their children who now are involved and committed to Jewish life would be estranged from Jewish community life.

Recently this rabbi asked me to assume a position of leadership in the congregation's Talmud Torah (religious school), and I accepted his offer. His request gave me the momentary optimism to believe that it is perhaps possible for Jews who are married to men and women who are not Jewish and who seek to be a part of Jewish community life, to find acceptance and even to represent their communities. Although I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish community, attended an Orthodox day school, was very involved in Orthodox youth, I find myself quite comfortable in this welcoming Reform community.

It might be assumed that I would have been pleased, therefore, to read the article reprinted in this magazine from the Forward entitled, "Reform allows Hebrew Schools to Hire Intermarried Teachers." On the contrary. I was saddened and troubled by comments cited in this article. In spite of what the rabbinical leadership may have intended, their words and tone seemed to betray the continuing suspicion held by Jewish establishment leaders towards Jews married to individuals who are not Jewish, even though these Jews demonstrate commitment to Judaism and Jewish life. They describe us in terms akin to criminals on trial: "Mixed marriage may be evidence that an individual is not the sort of Jew we want as a religious school teacher, and then again it may not. Each case must be judged on its own merits."

As I read those words I asked myself, as a Jew and as a trained and experienced teacher, the following questions: "Has the Central Conference of American Rabbis ever clarified what 'sort of Jew' they seek as a religious school teacher? Or is it only in the case of a Jew married to an individual who isn't Jewish that suddenly the criteria become urgent? Is it possible that the CCAR views other Jews--for example, untrained college students, inexperienced young singles, homosexuals and lesbians, housewives, older divorced men--as not posing any serious concern to the rabbinical leadership, while Jews who are married to individuals who are not Jewish are put on trial? Has any document ever been written, published and distributed nationwide that clarifies the Jewish background, the pedagogical skills, the affiliation with Jewish community, or the conduct in private life that is demanded of potential religious school teachers? Or is it simply that when a Jew marries someone who isn't Jewish, standards becomes an issue? Would the honest answer to these questions reveal that the Jewish leadership continues to look upon Jews such as myself with fear rather than comprehension, with suspicion rather than welcome?

According to the Forward article, the legal committee determined that "Jewish depth and family life" should be the deciding factor in hiring. I wonder what exactly is meant by this phrase. Does it pertain to advanced degrees in Judaism or to whether these Jews conform to what Judaism says about relationships with spouses, children, parents, neighbors, the poor and the socially ostracized?

How are the terms "Jewish depth and family life" to be evaluated? Would it be necessary to spend time in the home, to conduct interviews with friends and relatives? Or is an evaluation simply to be based on the attitude of individual rabbis? Is "Jewish depth and family life" only relevant in the case of Jews such as myself who intermarry, or is it a standard to be expected of all Jews who teach in religious schools? I suspect that if there were any guidelines in the making they would only apply to Jews married to men and women who are not Jewish.

Can't Jewish leaders accept in their hearts that there are Jews who work day in and day out to balance their love and commitment to Judaism and Jewish life with their love and commitment to a human being who is not a Jew? Perhaps the concern about hiring these Jews hints at an insidious fear: the fear that the familiar models for community vibrancy are insufficient to draw modern, non-Orthodox Jews into the process of constructing community, but that developing new models might involve relinquishing deeply entrenched beliefs about Jewish separateness.