Does Love Conquer Faith?
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Intermarriage survey has ominous news for
Jewish continuity, AJCommittee says.
JULIE WIENER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
New York
ewish women who are intermarried create
much more Jewishly identified households
than do Jewish men married to non-Jews.
But regardless of whether the mother is
Jewish, most interfaith families — even those rais-
ing their children as Jews — incorporate substan-
tial Christian celebrations into their lives, often
including more Christian aspects as the couple and
their children age.
And despite the conventional wisdom that inter-
marriage is inevitable in an open society, Jews whose
parents encourage them to marry within the faith
are more likely to do so than those whose parents
did not express an opinion on intermarriage.
These are some of the assertions of a new American
Jewish Committee study on intermarried families in
which the non-Jewish spouse has not converted.
Based on extensive interviews with 254 people
from 127 households, the study offers a glimpse
into how intermarried families — particularly ones
that are raising their children exclusively as Jews —
balance Jewishness with the competing pull of the
non-Jewish spouse's background and family. The _
participants lived in New England, New Jersey,
Denver and Atlanta.
But because it relies on information from a relative-
ly small sample, and because it supplies ammunition
to those strongly opposed to intermarriage — includ-
ing a national "in-marriage" coalition formed by the
AJCommittee — the study likely will be greeted with
skepticism from advocates of intermarried outreach.
Responses to the study could not be obtained
early this week because :, was provided to the media
on condition that the findings not be disclosed
until the study was released at the AJCommittee's
board meeting Thursday.
The AJCommittee says the study proves "the
dynamics of Jewish identity within mixed marriage
are particularly ominous for Jewish continuity," and
that the Jewish community needs to be more
aggressive in promoting in-marriage.
Months before the study V, as completed, the
AJCommittee formed its coalition promoting in-
marriage, and one of its members — Jack
Wertheimer, the provost of the Conservative move-
ment's Jewish Theological Seminary of America —
j
5/4
2001
22
It is one of the
first "qualitative"
studies on inter-
married families,
based not on
survey data but on focus
groups and interviews.
— Sylvia Barack Fishman, author of
the American Jewish Committee study
EMS OF
INTERMARRBIAGE
STAY JEWISH
Lights in Action — a Jewish student organiza-
tion — and the Jewish Outreach Institute recent-
ly surveyed college students whose parents are
intermarried.
While participation was voluntary — and
therefore some participants may have been more
likely to respond positively to a Jewish survey —
the survey found that all but 10 of the 205
respondents identified unambiguously as Jews.
About half the students said they were reared in
both their Jewish and non-Jewish heritages, and
more than 75 percent said personal family rela-
tionships with parents, grandparents and siblings
were not adversely affected by growing up in an
interfaith family.
Between a quarter to a third of the students
said their family relationships were actually
enriched by growing up interfaith.
The Jewish Outreach Institute/Lights in
Action survey also found that more than half the
students were currently participating in syna-
gogue life and planned to take, or had taken,
Jewish studies classes.
— Julie Wiener
published an essay critiquing outreach to the inter-
married in the March issue of Commentary magazine.
For years, Jewish leaders have divided into
"inreach" and "outreach" camps on intermarriage —
those who say scarce resources should be used to
strengthen the Jewish commitments of people
already engaged in Jewish life as opposed to those
who support efforts welcoming intermarried fami-
lies and encouraging their involvement in the
Jewish community.
Backers of inreach often argue that welcoming the
intermarried actually encourages intermarriage by
reducing the stigma of marrying outside the faith.
While the leaders have debated such issues, most
American Jews have quietly grown to accept inter-
marriage.
Ten years ago, the National Jewish Population
Survey reported approximately half of American
Jews were marrying non-Jews.
This fall, an AJCommittee survey found that half
of American Jews believe opposition to intermarriage
is "racist," while 78 percent think rabbis should offi-
ciate at weddings between Jews and non-Jews.
The majority of rabbis do not officiate at such
weddings: Orthodox and Conservative rabbis are
forbidden to do so, and — according to a 1999 sur-
vey by the Rabbinic Center for Research and
Counseling — 57 percent of Reform and
Reconstructionist rabbis refuse to do so.
The new study is written by Sylvia Barack
Fishman, co-director of the Hadassah International
Research Institute on Jewish Women, a professor in
Brandeis University's Near Eastern and Judaic stud-
ies department and a member of the AJCommittee
coalition promoting in-marriage.
It is one of the first "qualitative" studies on inter-
married families, based not on survey data but on
focus groups and interviews.
While it covers a range of families — including
ones where both the husband and wife are Jewish
— the study focuses on interfaith families that are
raising their children as Jews.
According to the study, those families often send
more diluted messages about Jewishness as the chil-
dren age. For example, many Jewish parents initial'
refuse to celebrate Christmas or Easter in the home
but eventually compromise out of a desire to be fai
to their spouses or because aging in-laws are no
longer able to host Christian holiday celebrations.
Saying she does not want to be - rigid," one Jewish