An unusual twist to the intermarriage story, and it turned out quite Jewish-postive. I'm Jewish, but was brought up extremely loosely "Reform" and knowing almost nothing about Judaism. My late husband was not Jewish, brought up loosely Christian. After kids came along, we "celebrated" everything from Christmas to Hanukkah and all the major holidays in between --and that was fine (lots of parties all year 'round). After a few years of that, my non-Jewish husband sat me down and said he had read some books on Judaism and wanted to convert and raise the kids as Jewish. I was pretty stunned and replied, "Well, okay. But don't expect me to keep kosher." Over the years, I learned more about Judaism from my convert husband than I had ever learned from my upbringing. I know this isn't the way it usual goes with intermarriage, but there you have it.
"We should be able to hold two ideas at once: Jewish marriage should be encouraged, and intermarried families should not be treated as lost. The first expresses an aspiration. The second acknowledges the world as it actually exists." Thank you for saying that. At 41, I had dated so many Jews and non-Jews that I was ready to give up. And then, over a very early match.com (26 years ago) I met my beshert. He was not Jewish. I was in a real quandary about this. I went to my rabbi in Miami who basically said, "He can't be your beshert, and I won't marry you." Hmmmm, not very supportive. I was friendly with the new Chabad rabbi, and we used to walk together on a lot of mornings. I found that he really listened and realized that for me, this might be what G-d had sent, for whatever reason. I do believe the reason was not just for marriage but for creating our son who I call a miracle-- like Sarah. I had been unable to conceive. Until I did at 42. I have brought my son up with SHabbat, Bar Mitvah, holidays etc. and he knows his roots are Jewish, not just from a religious standpoint, but from a "people" standpoint. He disagrees with many traditions. He isn't sure G-d really exists. He questions. But isn't that so Jewish?? Our Jewish story is a Jewish-Greek one that continues to develop and morph all the time. It's definitely not easy, especially these days. But it continues.
Lovely story, Karen. Thank you for sharing it. Children should be able to feel and reason things out for themselves. It's a wide, complex and beautiful world out there and every individual is capable of good choice.
I will keep this simple. I am not a Jew. I married a Jew. My three children are Jewish. From a physical perspective, I consider myself the "great gene-scrambler." While my children and grandchildren hopefully will be spared some of the maladies inherent to Aschkenazi Jews, they will not be spared the malady of anti-semitism. From a religious perspective, they have been raised Jewish. Even though I was raised as a Christian (Lutheran), graduated from Christian elementary and high school, and consider myself a Christian to this day, the fact that the woman I love is a Jew never dissuaded me from marrying her and making ours a Jewish home. Our families were another matter but that is a discussion for another day. In fact, the more that I have learned of Judaism, the stronger my own beliefs. When the Christian Bible states that "Jesus lived without sin", I interpret that to mean that he followed all of the laws and mitzvot required in Judaism to the letter, all of the time. In summary, we made our decision, we lived our lives, our children and six grandchildren will continue with theirs as they see fit, and may the good Lord continue to bless us.
Are your children Messianic? Forgive me for prying, because if not, it seems very odd to me that you’re Christian but your children don’t believe, yet are Jewish. Now if you’re not a practicing Christian and your wife and children aren’t practicing Jews, then logically I think that’s easier to understand.
But I’m wondering how the mechanism of faith work in your household. No judgment at all ofc, but real curiosity.
No, they are not Messianic. The family here in the U.S. is Chabad Lubavich orthodox while the family in Israel is strongly observant but not connected with any particular group. In my last year of Christian high school, our religious class was called "Comparative Religions". My instructor, an open-minded pastor in his late 60s at the time, told us that there are many paths to G-d. He had studied various religions all of his life. While he judged our path to be the best, we should not be too quick to judge others who may be on a different path as long as they believed in the one true G-d and treated others as fellow human beings. I have taken that path and the "mechanism of faith" works just fine in our household. Of course, it helps that my wife is still the finest woman I have ever met in my life and I do have a good number of miles behind me.
My not very observant Jewish husband & his orthodox converted wife raised 3 very jewish children who are now raising 6 very jewish children (our grandchildren). We observed shabbat & major holidays in a conservative manner, kids went to jewish camp & even to Israel with the camp (one through birthright), 2 kids were part of the beginning of a new jewish day school in our community. I went to shul every saturday as the kids went to Saturday school & made gefelte fish from scratch every year for pesach All of our friends were jewish. All of our kids' friends were jewish. All of the kids & grandkids have been bar or bat mitzvah'd. One daughter reads torah at shul. Not every marriage lasted but now at this time in our life, we are proud to say that we brought 10 new jews (including me) into this world through an intermarriage. I will be buried next to my jewish husband & all of his family. I think that is a win for what I believe is our side-the side of jewish viability & continuous pride!
Excellent essay. Judaism has never been a proselytizing faith but nonetheless the Torah is full of major Jewish figures marrying outside the faith. Moses married Zipporah, who was from Midian and not Jewish. Joseph married Asenath who was not Jewish. They had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, who were blessed by their grandfather Jacob. Boaz married Ruth, who was a Moabite and not Jewish but followed her mother in law Naomi back to Israel after Boaz died, ignoring Naomi's advice to remain with her own people. In response Ruth uttered those famous words, "Your people shall become my people, your god my god." Ruth 1:16
The Torah doesn't describe Zipporah or Asenath going through conversion, but Rabbis have told me they converted. I have always thought this notion was a construct to justify the rabbinic concept that the status of the mother determines whether the child is Jewish.
Which raises the question, what makes a person a Jew? In Orthodoxy if the mother is Jewish, the children are considered Jewish regardless of the father. In Reform, the children are considered Jewish if they have a Jewish parent. All sects of Judaism accept Orthodox converts as Jews. Orthodoxy doesn't accept Reform converts as Jews.
We are often our own worst enemies, despite the best of intentions.
Although you've canvassed far and wide with your discussion here, Joshua, one element that is missing is the mysterious, perhaps miraculous, capacity of the individual to be inspired to learn and earn being Jewish, to feel at one with their Jewish identity wherever they might be and in whatever circumstances they have grown up in and to make true and good choices for themselves. We must be brave enough, I think, to know that Jews will never die out as a people and not put too many 'shoulds' in place.
I take exception to the person who wrote below, "If we did not inter-marry, can you imagine how inbred we'd be!?" An aplogist??? With some small exception, generally, intermarriage has largely been responsible for assimilation & Jewish Zero Population Growth, actually Jewish decline. When I think of the disillusion which has occured in woke segmants of the Jewish community post October 7th, this compounds the tragedy. I am not an Orthodox or Shabbat observant woman writing this, just one who grew up in a Conservative Jewish atmosphere, with parents who were culturally very involved in all sectors of the Jewish community. I attended Jewish overnight Summer camps, was Bat Mitzvahd, confirmed, taught Hebrew school for many years in addition to teaching public school, lived on a Kibbutz for a year back in 1976, and of my own desire, only considered marrying a fellow Jew. We sent our sons to a Jewish Day School, & I administrate a global group on social media in combat of Anti-Semitism. I will sadly, but quietly be extremely sad if my adult sons marry out of the faith. I do all in my personal power, but I feel sometimes dwindeling Jewish identification & involvement in the non-Orthodox Jewish community signal a losing battle. Still, I refuse to give up. The spirit and influence of my late parents, grandparents, & Sephardic & Ashkenazic ancesters is forever branded on my soul.
Thank you for this encouraging reflection, Joshua. I was raised by two Jewish parents who were deeply, culturally Jewish, and was educated at a well known, conservative Hebrew Day School, in whose attached shul I attended Shabbat services for 13 years and was Bar Mitzvah'ed. I was inculcated in Jewish history, the Tanach, Talmud and Shulchan Aruch, as well as both Hebrew and the ancient Aramaic we needed to study Gemara. I also attended a Yiddish summer camp for three wonderful summers.
And yet...I emerged without religious feeling or inclination, proud of, and fulfilled by my ~3,500-year heritage, yet not inclined to attend services beyond a cultural nod to the High Holidays. Nevertheless, I always thought I would marry a Jewish woman. Imagine my surprise when, at the age of 35, I met my soulmate, who was raised as a desultory, areligious Protestant, celebrating Christmas and Easter as family events, without religious feeling, icons, or references.
She intended to convert, then discovered that she could not internalize the religious requirements and be true to her areligious world view, nor to consider herself a member of a lineage in which she was not raised. But she valued the roots that Judaism provides, and actively wanted to raise our children as Jews. They were converted in a Mikvah ceremony by three Rabbis, raised in the Jewish traditions, studied at Hebrew school, and traveled with us multiple times to Israel, where toured the country and met, and love, their family there.
Sadly, they would not be accepted as Jews by the Orthodox Rabbinate of Israel. Yet they are proud of their Jewish heritage, celebrate the holidays and, best of all from my wife's and my perspective, now that they're in their 20s and living outside our home, they make time virtually every Erev Shabbat to light the candles and recite the brachot with us over Zoom. With the understanding that Zoom could be problematic for those who are strictly Shomer Shabbat, we find that more than any other single tradition, this reinforces our roots and identities as a Jewish family.
To this day, the number of Jews in the world is less than it was prior to 1940. It seems to me that we should be allowing for a bigger tent more than we sometimes do.
P.S. by acclamation, our extended family considers that my wife makes the best latkes any of us has ever had—even better than those of our beloved mom and maternal savta! : )
The negative, neo-Marxist derived connotation of particularism is revealed in the association of shame with particularism and thus the feeling of the need to be apologetic.
How about something more accurate, something not just allowed but recognized and respected in all other national peoples: how about Jews valorizing our own Distinctiveness? our own Uniqueness?
"They should ask: . . . "
And they should answer that Jewishness comes with a thousands of years old ethnicity other peoples wish they had. That it has the power to endow their life with meaningfulness, values, purpose, direction, insight-wisdom and a rich lore. That it has the ability to see them through the inevitable in hard times and sustain and guide them through all the stages of their life cycle.
"We cannot ask others to see greatness in a tradition that we present with embarrassment. We cannot invite someone into a people we seem eager to escape."
This is the best summation of everything about intermarriage that I have seen . I married out of the faith and my wife to be converted Reform as the orthodoxy would not do it because I am a Kohein . Many of the aspects mentioned are the things that we addressed and continue to do so . It's normal life for us and we are at 45 years and going strong .
if we’d never married out, can you imagine how inbred we would now be? Wouldn’t be so clever after all. I think because we’re an ethno-religion, we can just simply choose. In my family, children are all born to women who are Jewish. So we’ve literally never come across this. which is actually quite strange when I think about it. Generation up, the only man who married out, they never had children. They couldn’t.
If there is intermarriage, and the mother is not Jewish, she should convert or let the children convert. In my family, a grandchild decided at right before he was thirteen that he wanted to convert, and pursued it all the way, ending in his Bar Mitzvah. We also have an intermarriage where the mother is Jewish and father is not, so they celebrate both sets of holidays, albeit not religiously for the Christian ones. They go to the synagogue where they have an after school, Jewish school, and do not attend church or Sunday school. This is in Canada however where we are much more traditional than the US, as is the rest of the Diaspora. Reform is negligible outside the US and it shows up in many ways, including less intermarriage, less secularism, much more connections to Jewish institutions and Jewish education, and much more personal and community connections to Israel. Reform demonized Israel and religious Jews for decades and it ramped up considerably in the last two decades. Teaching hate of other Jews has ended in whole generations being self-hating for being Jewish , despising Israel, supporting Hamas supporting Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7. , and supporting the destruction of Israel. What did Reform think would happen when you teach hate to children and young adults?
Thank you for this. It's more than just having a Jewish spouse. I am married to a non Jew. It will be 42 years in two days. I realize if I were a young man dating today with what is going on now, I would have been afraid to date a non Jew. If I didn't get a Jewish spouse, I would have just thought it wasn't meant to be and moved on. We now have to ask another question. What is the point of marriage? Do we need to return to arranged marriages? Do we need to live in specific neighborhoods? Then again, I have had Israelis tell me our only hope is to all live in Israel. Thank you for pointing out that Jewish intermarriage is a lot more complicated than people would like to think.
Among non-Orthodox Jews who married since 2010, 72% married a non-Jew — and only 28% of intermarried parents are raising their kids Jewish by religion. Thirty percent aren't raising them Jewish in any form. This isn't new: NJPS found the same thing in 1990 and 2000, both times below the replacement line. For thirty years the math hasn't closed.
Said another way: The intermarried, mostly, don't intend to raise children as religious Jews — if they instill any Judaism at all. We are on track to become a shrinking remnant within two or three generations — not because we couldn't have more Jews, but because too many of us are declining to raise the ones we have as Jews at all
But sit with the other half of it. Every one of those intermarriages puts a Jewish son-in-law, a Jewish grandmother, a Jewish face at the table of a gentile family that never had one. The antisemitism metastasizing right now feeds on distance and caricature — the Jew as concept, never the Jew you carve the turkey with. You can sell a country the old poison when Jews are an abstraction. It's a lot harder to aim it at your own daughter's husband.
Very interesting article. In the Old Testament the Jewish people were punished for taking wives and husbands from outside the Jewish faith. In the New Testament, it is written “do not be unequally yoked”.
Personally I believe that whether Orthodox or Secular, a Jew by birth and definition should marry another Jew. A peculiar people, a blessed nation and the light to the world.
There was and is a reason why G-d loves the Jews and Israel, no matter how many times they fail Him or reject His laws. He chose Abraham and chose the land where Abraham was to create a new nation.
When He returns He will be ruling from Jerusalem. The 12 Tribes will be serving Him.
An unusual twist to the intermarriage story, and it turned out quite Jewish-postive. I'm Jewish, but was brought up extremely loosely "Reform" and knowing almost nothing about Judaism. My late husband was not Jewish, brought up loosely Christian. After kids came along, we "celebrated" everything from Christmas to Hanukkah and all the major holidays in between --and that was fine (lots of parties all year 'round). After a few years of that, my non-Jewish husband sat me down and said he had read some books on Judaism and wanted to convert and raise the kids as Jewish. I was pretty stunned and replied, "Well, okay. But don't expect me to keep kosher." Over the years, I learned more about Judaism from my convert husband than I had ever learned from my upbringing. I know this isn't the way it usual goes with intermarriage, but there you have it.
"We should be able to hold two ideas at once: Jewish marriage should be encouraged, and intermarried families should not be treated as lost. The first expresses an aspiration. The second acknowledges the world as it actually exists." Thank you for saying that. At 41, I had dated so many Jews and non-Jews that I was ready to give up. And then, over a very early match.com (26 years ago) I met my beshert. He was not Jewish. I was in a real quandary about this. I went to my rabbi in Miami who basically said, "He can't be your beshert, and I won't marry you." Hmmmm, not very supportive. I was friendly with the new Chabad rabbi, and we used to walk together on a lot of mornings. I found that he really listened and realized that for me, this might be what G-d had sent, for whatever reason. I do believe the reason was not just for marriage but for creating our son who I call a miracle-- like Sarah. I had been unable to conceive. Until I did at 42. I have brought my son up with SHabbat, Bar Mitvah, holidays etc. and he knows his roots are Jewish, not just from a religious standpoint, but from a "people" standpoint. He disagrees with many traditions. He isn't sure G-d really exists. He questions. But isn't that so Jewish?? Our Jewish story is a Jewish-Greek one that continues to develop and morph all the time. It's definitely not easy, especially these days. But it continues.
Lovely story, Karen. Thank you for sharing it. Children should be able to feel and reason things out for themselves. It's a wide, complex and beautiful world out there and every individual is capable of good choice.
No thank you for commenting.
I will keep this simple. I am not a Jew. I married a Jew. My three children are Jewish. From a physical perspective, I consider myself the "great gene-scrambler." While my children and grandchildren hopefully will be spared some of the maladies inherent to Aschkenazi Jews, they will not be spared the malady of anti-semitism. From a religious perspective, they have been raised Jewish. Even though I was raised as a Christian (Lutheran), graduated from Christian elementary and high school, and consider myself a Christian to this day, the fact that the woman I love is a Jew never dissuaded me from marrying her and making ours a Jewish home. Our families were another matter but that is a discussion for another day. In fact, the more that I have learned of Judaism, the stronger my own beliefs. When the Christian Bible states that "Jesus lived without sin", I interpret that to mean that he followed all of the laws and mitzvot required in Judaism to the letter, all of the time. In summary, we made our decision, we lived our lives, our children and six grandchildren will continue with theirs as they see fit, and may the good Lord continue to bless us.
Are your children Messianic? Forgive me for prying, because if not, it seems very odd to me that you’re Christian but your children don’t believe, yet are Jewish. Now if you’re not a practicing Christian and your wife and children aren’t practicing Jews, then logically I think that’s easier to understand.
But I’m wondering how the mechanism of faith work in your household. No judgment at all ofc, but real curiosity.
No, they are not Messianic. The family here in the U.S. is Chabad Lubavich orthodox while the family in Israel is strongly observant but not connected with any particular group. In my last year of Christian high school, our religious class was called "Comparative Religions". My instructor, an open-minded pastor in his late 60s at the time, told us that there are many paths to G-d. He had studied various religions all of his life. While he judged our path to be the best, we should not be too quick to judge others who may be on a different path as long as they believed in the one true G-d and treated others as fellow human beings. I have taken that path and the "mechanism of faith" works just fine in our household. Of course, it helps that my wife is still the finest woman I have ever met in my life and I do have a good number of miles behind me.
The is the best insight on the subject of intermarriage and Jewish engagement I've ever read. Perfectly, articulately said, Josh.
My not very observant Jewish husband & his orthodox converted wife raised 3 very jewish children who are now raising 6 very jewish children (our grandchildren). We observed shabbat & major holidays in a conservative manner, kids went to jewish camp & even to Israel with the camp (one through birthright), 2 kids were part of the beginning of a new jewish day school in our community. I went to shul every saturday as the kids went to Saturday school & made gefelte fish from scratch every year for pesach All of our friends were jewish. All of our kids' friends were jewish. All of the kids & grandkids have been bar or bat mitzvah'd. One daughter reads torah at shul. Not every marriage lasted but now at this time in our life, we are proud to say that we brought 10 new jews (including me) into this world through an intermarriage. I will be buried next to my jewish husband & all of his family. I think that is a win for what I believe is our side-the side of jewish viability & continuous pride!
Excellent essay. Judaism has never been a proselytizing faith but nonetheless the Torah is full of major Jewish figures marrying outside the faith. Moses married Zipporah, who was from Midian and not Jewish. Joseph married Asenath who was not Jewish. They had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, who were blessed by their grandfather Jacob. Boaz married Ruth, who was a Moabite and not Jewish but followed her mother in law Naomi back to Israel after Boaz died, ignoring Naomi's advice to remain with her own people. In response Ruth uttered those famous words, "Your people shall become my people, your god my god." Ruth 1:16
The Torah doesn't describe Zipporah or Asenath going through conversion, but Rabbis have told me they converted. I have always thought this notion was a construct to justify the rabbinic concept that the status of the mother determines whether the child is Jewish.
Which raises the question, what makes a person a Jew? In Orthodoxy if the mother is Jewish, the children are considered Jewish regardless of the father. In Reform, the children are considered Jewish if they have a Jewish parent. All sects of Judaism accept Orthodox converts as Jews. Orthodoxy doesn't accept Reform converts as Jews.
We are often our own worst enemies, despite the best of intentions.
Although you've canvassed far and wide with your discussion here, Joshua, one element that is missing is the mysterious, perhaps miraculous, capacity of the individual to be inspired to learn and earn being Jewish, to feel at one with their Jewish identity wherever they might be and in whatever circumstances they have grown up in and to make true and good choices for themselves. We must be brave enough, I think, to know that Jews will never die out as a people and not put too many 'shoulds' in place.
I take exception to the person who wrote below, "If we did not inter-marry, can you imagine how inbred we'd be!?" An aplogist??? With some small exception, generally, intermarriage has largely been responsible for assimilation & Jewish Zero Population Growth, actually Jewish decline. When I think of the disillusion which has occured in woke segmants of the Jewish community post October 7th, this compounds the tragedy. I am not an Orthodox or Shabbat observant woman writing this, just one who grew up in a Conservative Jewish atmosphere, with parents who were culturally very involved in all sectors of the Jewish community. I attended Jewish overnight Summer camps, was Bat Mitzvahd, confirmed, taught Hebrew school for many years in addition to teaching public school, lived on a Kibbutz for a year back in 1976, and of my own desire, only considered marrying a fellow Jew. We sent our sons to a Jewish Day School, & I administrate a global group on social media in combat of Anti-Semitism. I will sadly, but quietly be extremely sad if my adult sons marry out of the faith. I do all in my personal power, but I feel sometimes dwindeling Jewish identification & involvement in the non-Orthodox Jewish community signal a losing battle. Still, I refuse to give up. The spirit and influence of my late parents, grandparents, & Sephardic & Ashkenazic ancesters is forever branded on my soul.
Thank you for this encouraging reflection, Joshua. I was raised by two Jewish parents who were deeply, culturally Jewish, and was educated at a well known, conservative Hebrew Day School, in whose attached shul I attended Shabbat services for 13 years and was Bar Mitzvah'ed. I was inculcated in Jewish history, the Tanach, Talmud and Shulchan Aruch, as well as both Hebrew and the ancient Aramaic we needed to study Gemara. I also attended a Yiddish summer camp for three wonderful summers.
And yet...I emerged without religious feeling or inclination, proud of, and fulfilled by my ~3,500-year heritage, yet not inclined to attend services beyond a cultural nod to the High Holidays. Nevertheless, I always thought I would marry a Jewish woman. Imagine my surprise when, at the age of 35, I met my soulmate, who was raised as a desultory, areligious Protestant, celebrating Christmas and Easter as family events, without religious feeling, icons, or references.
She intended to convert, then discovered that she could not internalize the religious requirements and be true to her areligious world view, nor to consider herself a member of a lineage in which she was not raised. But she valued the roots that Judaism provides, and actively wanted to raise our children as Jews. They were converted in a Mikvah ceremony by three Rabbis, raised in the Jewish traditions, studied at Hebrew school, and traveled with us multiple times to Israel, where toured the country and met, and love, their family there.
Sadly, they would not be accepted as Jews by the Orthodox Rabbinate of Israel. Yet they are proud of their Jewish heritage, celebrate the holidays and, best of all from my wife's and my perspective, now that they're in their 20s and living outside our home, they make time virtually every Erev Shabbat to light the candles and recite the brachot with us over Zoom. With the understanding that Zoom could be problematic for those who are strictly Shomer Shabbat, we find that more than any other single tradition, this reinforces our roots and identities as a Jewish family.
To this day, the number of Jews in the world is less than it was prior to 1940. It seems to me that we should be allowing for a bigger tent more than we sometimes do.
P.S. by acclamation, our extended family considers that my wife makes the best latkes any of us has ever had—even better than those of our beloved mom and maternal savta! : )
"feel apologetic about Jewish particularism"
The negative, neo-Marxist derived connotation of particularism is revealed in the association of shame with particularism and thus the feeling of the need to be apologetic.
How about something more accurate, something not just allowed but recognized and respected in all other national peoples: how about Jews valorizing our own Distinctiveness? our own Uniqueness?
"They should ask: . . . "
And they should answer that Jewishness comes with a thousands of years old ethnicity other peoples wish they had. That it has the power to endow their life with meaningfulness, values, purpose, direction, insight-wisdom and a rich lore. That it has the ability to see them through the inevitable in hard times and sustain and guide them through all the stages of their life cycle.
"We cannot ask others to see greatness in a tradition that we present with embarrassment. We cannot invite someone into a people we seem eager to escape."
Ain't dat de Trut!
This is the best summation of everything about intermarriage that I have seen . I married out of the faith and my wife to be converted Reform as the orthodoxy would not do it because I am a Kohein . Many of the aspects mentioned are the things that we addressed and continue to do so . It's normal life for us and we are at 45 years and going strong .
if we’d never married out, can you imagine how inbred we would now be? Wouldn’t be so clever after all. I think because we’re an ethno-religion, we can just simply choose. In my family, children are all born to women who are Jewish. So we’ve literally never come across this. which is actually quite strange when I think about it. Generation up, the only man who married out, they never had children. They couldn’t.
If there is intermarriage, and the mother is not Jewish, she should convert or let the children convert. In my family, a grandchild decided at right before he was thirteen that he wanted to convert, and pursued it all the way, ending in his Bar Mitzvah. We also have an intermarriage where the mother is Jewish and father is not, so they celebrate both sets of holidays, albeit not religiously for the Christian ones. They go to the synagogue where they have an after school, Jewish school, and do not attend church or Sunday school. This is in Canada however where we are much more traditional than the US, as is the rest of the Diaspora. Reform is negligible outside the US and it shows up in many ways, including less intermarriage, less secularism, much more connections to Jewish institutions and Jewish education, and much more personal and community connections to Israel. Reform demonized Israel and religious Jews for decades and it ramped up considerably in the last two decades. Teaching hate of other Jews has ended in whole generations being self-hating for being Jewish , despising Israel, supporting Hamas supporting Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7. , and supporting the destruction of Israel. What did Reform think would happen when you teach hate to children and young adults?
Thank you for this. It's more than just having a Jewish spouse. I am married to a non Jew. It will be 42 years in two days. I realize if I were a young man dating today with what is going on now, I would have been afraid to date a non Jew. If I didn't get a Jewish spouse, I would have just thought it wasn't meant to be and moved on. We now have to ask another question. What is the point of marriage? Do we need to return to arranged marriages? Do we need to live in specific neighborhoods? Then again, I have had Israelis tell me our only hope is to all live in Israel. Thank you for pointing out that Jewish intermarriage is a lot more complicated than people would like to think.
Among non-Orthodox Jews who married since 2010, 72% married a non-Jew — and only 28% of intermarried parents are raising their kids Jewish by religion. Thirty percent aren't raising them Jewish in any form. This isn't new: NJPS found the same thing in 1990 and 2000, both times below the replacement line. For thirty years the math hasn't closed.
Said another way: The intermarried, mostly, don't intend to raise children as religious Jews — if they instill any Judaism at all. We are on track to become a shrinking remnant within two or three generations — not because we couldn't have more Jews, but because too many of us are declining to raise the ones we have as Jews at all
But sit with the other half of it. Every one of those intermarriages puts a Jewish son-in-law, a Jewish grandmother, a Jewish face at the table of a gentile family that never had one. The antisemitism metastasizing right now feeds on distance and caricature — the Jew as concept, never the Jew you carve the turkey with. You can sell a country the old poison when Jews are an abstraction. It's a lot harder to aim it at your own daughter's husband.
Very interesting article. In the Old Testament the Jewish people were punished for taking wives and husbands from outside the Jewish faith. In the New Testament, it is written “do not be unequally yoked”.
Personally I believe that whether Orthodox or Secular, a Jew by birth and definition should marry another Jew. A peculiar people, a blessed nation and the light to the world.
There was and is a reason why G-d loves the Jews and Israel, no matter how many times they fail Him or reject His laws. He chose Abraham and chose the land where Abraham was to create a new nation.
When He returns He will be ruling from Jerusalem. The 12 Tribes will be serving Him.
God Bless Israel 🇮🇱