Friday, January 17, 1986 15
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Robin Margolis: Her family's in an uproar.
_ about going to Hebrew school when they
were kids." As an archival assistant at
Berkeley's Judah L. Magnes Memorial
Museum, Goodman-Malamuth worked in
"an extremely Jewish environment"
transcribing oral histories of elderly' Jews.
She temporarily suppressed her Jewish
identity during a first marriage to a
Catholic, but is now married to a Jew and
is preparing for conversion.
Margolis, a paralegal and free-lance
writer/lecturer, met Goodman-NIalarnuth,
an editor, when their work brought them
together on' a legal publication in
Washington, 'D .C. The two discussed the
problems of being offspring of Jewish-
'Gentile Mai:lieges K and sought organize.-
- tions or books to help them. Finding a
dearth of support in any form, Margolis
decided to form her own organization,
called Pareveh:
The name is intended to be humorous,
corning frorn the Yiddish word "pareve,"
meaning food that can be eaten with either
animal or dairy products under kosher
• laws. By analogy, parevehs should be
acceptable to both Jewish and gentile
family' members. ,
• But the feelings of estrangement and the
identity conflicts' that many offspring of
Jewish-Gentile niarriages (or as Margolis
prefers, "parevehs") suffer are not in the
least humorous. With more than a hint of
bitterness, Goodman-Malamuth described
how unwelcome she had felt in the Jewish
community. A --rabbi; who lumped all'
'children of Jewish fathers under the
heading of 'converts, made her feel like
a fraud.
"Robin is a Jew (having
.
mother)," she said sardonicallkertioo
.
an embarrassment."Goodman -Mat,mnth
•
From a position of Halacha (Orthodox
Jewish law), Margolis' national group
"opens a whole can of worms," notes an
expert on intermarriage. He was referring
to the fact that according to tradition,
there is no such thing as a half-Jew -- the
children of a Jewish mother are Jewish,
and children of a non-Jewish mother are
not. Period. The Reform movement in re-
cent years has changed that ancient stan-
dard, stating that children born of a
Jewish father may be considered Jewish.
"Margolis has good instincts in that
there is an enormous hunger out there for
children of Jewish-Gentile marriages who
would like to link up with similar people,"
said the intermarriage expert. "It's a con-
cept that is timely and appropriate. But
I'm not sure she's the right person to do
it ;because she is totally naive , of the
ideological ramifications here."
Among the problem areas he cited are
the fact that Margolia is totally non-
judgemental in accepting members so that
halachic non-Jews who identify as non-
Jews are just as welcome as those who
consider themselves Jevvish. Her response
is that Pareveh is not a Jewish organiza-
tion (' and that members should decide for
themselves how, or if, they want to relate
to the Jewish. community. She is taking
the issues of patrilineal descent and 'who
•is a Jew' out of the realm of the theoretical
and presenting us with real people," noted
the expert.
"The Jewish community' has area!- op-
portunity here to attract these people
away from their self-imposed exile. But it's
a-real risk." ,
Intentionally, Pareveh is not affiliated
with a Jewish institution because its
,
•
.
•
. , . :, ,, .•'.
.. •
.•••••■ ea
.
".."""
'"."""...'"
.
.
' '
,
Continued on next page
.r.-,
.
.
1 .•
.
.
.
insists that parevehs "have to manifest
higher levels of interest (in Judaism than
born Jews) and they're still not considered
100 percent."
The Jewish community, adds Margolis,
usually deals with parevehs by trying to
get them to convert as soon as possible.
"That invalidates your past experiences
and gives no help on how to handle the
gentile relatives you love," she explains.
The support groups that do eiist are
aimed at the partners of interfaith mar
riages. Theirs and their children's needs,
may overlap, but they don't coincide. The
parents, she says, often see themselves as
"liberated" or "non-identified," but the
children are cut adrift, rootless. ,
There are now more than 400,000 child-
ren of Jewish-Gentile-marriages in the U.S.
The ones who are lost to Judaism, claims
Margolis, do not necessarily become gains
for Christianity and other mitres, even
though, as Goodman-Maltunuth puts it,
"the Christians consider it a mitzvah to
convert us." She adds , that "parevehs
haven't been discovered, by traditional
- (Jewish) groups because they're too busy
sitting shivah." She thinks "the Jewish
community is obsessed with survival," but
she considers many of its coping devices
ridiculous.
"Jewish' single groups , are just locking ,
the barn door," she says. "The horse left
in the 1970s." .
Margolis' Jewishfamily, who forbade an
unmarried cousinto date Gentiles, reacted
in a similarly short-sighted way.
"They're , saying," , laughs Margolis,
"look what , happened to poor Robin, we
don't want-that, •do we?" But, she adds
soberly, .9 they're completely missing the
positive rewards of intermarriage."
.
,
''''''
.
, '' ''.... .." .
_...._._......
•
.
''''''''
' ,.
.
.
-
'-.''''.".'
. • . : .
...
•laraw...alli• ■ •
.
•
•V
.
.
. ., .
•
.r......na 11•1.......Aser...
.
.
,
.
•
.
.
,
-• ',
. .
-. ,
•
• NILAMotadol.11A.11.4.•••••agerieen.:110.1;11.1.11.....4i.OP ■ 110•4411.1111.C.e
. • ..
.
.
.
.
.
.
•
.
,,--
.
.
00 1.111.1....4116•11•11. OL....,
•
,
•