Spirituality
Intermarriage Debate
Just how big a factor is it with Generation Y?
Sue Fishkoff
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
San Francisco
I
ntermarriage: Disaster for the Jews,
not great for the Jews or simply a fact
of Jewish life?
Ever since the 1990 National Jewish
Population Study showed more than half
of new Jewish marriages involve a non-
Jewish partner, many Jewish communal
leaders have latched onto the issue with
pitbull tenacity — and they haven't let go,
even after the 2000-2001 NJPS showed
intermarriage had leveled off.
Now a new round of studies is prompt-
ing more questions: Does intermarriage
necessarily mean the end of that family's
connection to Judaism? Or is the Jewish
community focusing on intermarriage to
the exclusion of other, perhaps more tell-
ing, factors?
Most studies report the data in simple
comparative fashion, which shows that
intermarried families are much less
Jewishly involved than inmarried families,
from their beliefs to their practices.
But a provocative new study out of
Brandeis University questions that
research method and its conclusions.
The study — Its Not Just Who Stands
Under the Chuppah: Jewish Identity and
Intermarriage, by Leonard Saxe, Fern
Chertok and Benjamin Phillips of the
Cohen Center for Jewish Studies and
Steinhardt Social Research Institute
— found that when one considers the
Jewish background of the Jewish partner
in an intermarriage, the difference in the
Jewish beliefs and practices of inmarried
and intermarried families becomes much
less glaring.
And in some measures, like attachment
to Israel, the gap almost disappears.
Education Factor
A second study casts further doubt on the
deterministic effect of intermarriage. Set
for release next month, the study by the
Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater
Boston will show that the children being
raised Jewishly in the city's intermarried
families look pretty much like any other
non-Orthodox Jewish children.
The Chuppah study only considered fac-
tors from before an intermarriage occurs,
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January 24 • 2008
R4
primarily the Jewish education and home
practice of the Jewish partner. But its
conclusions have profound policy implica-
tions:
Instead of writing off intermarried fami-
lies or pressing the non-Jewish partner
to convert, the Jewish
community would do
better to invest in qual-
ity Jewish education
— formal and informal
— to give the Jewish
partner in an intermar-
riage the background
and desire to create a
Jewish home and raise
Jewish children.
"The objective
doesn't have to be
conversion but the cre-
ation of positive, rich
Jewish experiences,"
Saxe explains. "Jewish
Ira Sheskin
education, Jewish home
experiences, Jewish
camp, Israeli experiences — that's what
leads to engagement in Jewish life whether
one is intermarried or not!'
Saxe presented the study's findings
with Chertok last month at the Union for
Reform Judaism biennial in San Diego.
"The usual model says you get inter-
married and you lose your Jewish identity.
That's not true," Chertok says. "A far more
powerful predicter of what you're going to
do in your home are
such things as did you
have a Jewish educa-
tion growing up? Were
you raised with Jewish
rituals in the home?
What was your high
school social network
like?"
Chertok and Saxe
drew the strongest audience reaction when
they displayed two charts, one showing
the Jewish involvement of intermarried vs.
inmarried families without any controls,
and one showing the results after they were
controlled for the Jewish partner's religious
background.
Without controls, the inmarried family
blew the intermarried family out of the
mikvah: 78 percent of inmarried couples
said they were raising their children
Jewishly vs. 39 percent of intermarried
couples. Those are the figures used by
most Jewish researchers, Chertok and Saxe second generation: According to the 2000-
noted.
2001 NJPS study, just 13 percent of the
But when controlling the other factors,
grandchildren of an intermarriage — that
including the Jewish partner's religious
is, people whose grandparents were inter-
upbringing, the gap closed, with 71 percent married — now identify as Jews.
of inmarried couples and 51 percent of
On those grounds alone, Cohen declared,
couples saying they are
the Jewish community should "not grow
raising Jewish children.
complacent" about intermarriage but
Similarly, the 53 percent should continue to combat it as a real
of inmarried vs. 12 percent threat to Jewish continuity.
of intermarried families
"In fact, intermarriage over two gen-
who reported being mem- erations is more powerful than any other
bers of Jewish organiza-
factor in predicting ritual observance and
tions became 45 percent
certainly in predicting whether the grand-
and 32 percent when the
children will be Jewish," he said.
controls were applied.
Cohen's conclusion is supported in part
The differences become
by a new report on the U.S. Jewish popula-
even more striking when
tion prepared for the 2007 American Jewish
controls are applied to the
Yearbook by Professors Ira Sheskin of the
data on the Jewish identity University of Miami and Arnold Dashefksy
of the adult children of
of the University of Connecticut.
intermarriage.
Comparing data from 49 U.S. Jewish
A simple comparison,
communities, Sheskin and Dashefsky note
one used in most stud-
that while some cities "have been more
ies, states that 89 percent
successful than others in convincing inter-
of adults who grew up with two Jewish
married families to raise their children
parents identify as Jewish vs. 24 percent of Jewish:' it is nevertheless "clear that inter-
adults who grew up in an interfaith home.
marriage has a negative effect on measures
When the background of those individu- of Jewishness, and therefore on Jewish
als was taken into account, the gap shrunk
continuity"
to 94 percent of the adults with two Jewish
Intermarriage has a snowball effect,
parents vs. 76 percent from intermarried
the Sheskin-Dashefsky study concludes,
homes.
but the ball can roll either way, with much
"Intermarriage is not deterministic,"
depending on the larger Jewish commu-
Saxe concluded. "If someone grows up
nity.
with positive
Jewish identity
Detroit Stats
and Jewish educa- Sheskin and Dashefsky just concluded
tional experiences a study in Portland, Maine, showing its
such as religious
intermarriage rate as the highest among
school, summer
the cities studied: 61 percent. But a very
camp, Israel trips, average 47 percent of its intermarried
one wants to raise families are choosing to raise Jewish chil-
Jewish children
dren. Yet in Detroit, with a low intermar-
regardless of who
riage rate of 17 percent, combines with a
one falls in love with."
relatively low number, 31 percent, choosing
to raise children as Jews.
Counter Arguements
A community like Detroit's, Sheskin
Among those who is not convinced by the
posits, may not feel outreach is a priority
Saxe-Chertok line of argument is Steven
given its low level of intermarriage. The
Cohen, a professor of Jewish social policy
result is that few intermarried families join
at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute
synagogues, and when other intermarried
of Religion in New York. Cohen has con-
families walk in, "They don't see anyone
ducted several studies that all show the
that looks like them and they don't feel
determinative effect of intermarriage.
comfortable!'
Cohen's first question is how the
That's where the Combined Jewish
researchers defined "being raised Jewish!'
But he also says they need to look at the
Intermarriage on page A29
Does inter marriage
mean the end of a
family's Ju daism?