To Oat

In a time of ever-increasing instances
of intermarriage, some young Jews
still won't consider interdating.

That Is The Quest

W

hen Marni Aronson, 24, first
started dating, she didn't care if the
guys were Jewish or not. Now, she
does.
First, a trip to Israel at age 17 and be-
coming "in touch with my religion" in-
spired the Southfield resident to only
date within the fold.
Then, when her father passed away,
she realized that "it was really impor-
tant to me to have a Jewish family. I
wanted someone who could sit at the head
of the table during Passover and lead the
service."
Aronson is not alone. Many young Jews don't
give interdating a thought during the teen-age and
early college years. But when real life hits,
many reconsider.
Michael Weinraub, 30, started out only dat-
ing Jews. In high school, he was active with the
Conservative movement's United Synagogue
Youth (USY) — the last person, some would think,
to date gentile women.
But in college, at the largely non-Jewish University
of Toledo, it became more difficult not to date gentile
women, and subsequently less important.
`To be perfectly honest, when I first started going out
with [non-Jews], it didn't occur to me. I wasn't think-
ing as far into the future as a long-lasting rela-
tionship," says the Southfield resident. "But
as things progressed, I realized that I really
would be unhappy if I lost my heritage."
There are individuals who never considered dat-
ing a non-Jew, like Kevin Giles. For the 35-year-old
Farmington Hills resident, dating Jewish women
has always been a priority.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

,

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN STAFF WRITER

"It's a common bond, I guess," he says. "I always ea-
visioned non-Jews ... in church, and that's something!
can't see myself [doing]."
For Giles, dating "in" is a priority, to "keep the faith
going [and because it] makes things a lot easier in tons
of raising kids."
But it's not a priority for everyone. An ever-grow-
ing number of single Jews say it's more importantto
find the person with whom they want to spend their
life — regardless of that person's religious leaning.
Over the course of this century, Americans have
assimilated to the point that most are open tooth.
er cultures, ethnicities and religions. On the
upside — and downside, perhaps — it has
shown young Americans that there are few
true differences between individuals, de•
spite divergent races and religions.
In the U.S. in the 1930s, intermarriage
rates were less than 10 percent—until
the '60s. That changed, almost
overnight: the mid-1960s saw an in-
crease to 17 percent. In the early
`70s, that had nearly doubled
arried
s, Amer.
in term
wes 1960
ntiljeth
ican
"U

at rates that were
•
surprisingly low by historical standards. Virtually
every society in which Jews had valued integration
... had witnessed a high degree of interrnarriage ,'' BaYs
Steven Bayme in his essay, "Changing Perceptions
of Intermarriage," published in the Journal of Jew.
ish Communal Service (Spring 1990).
The stats vary based on locale. In New York NY,
where there is an extremely high population of Jews
and proportionately high number of Orthodox, in .
termarriage rates at about 11 percent, Bayme rePorts'

