c. 1998 Religion News Service

LONDON _ A leading English Reform rabbi has called on British Jewry to take an aggressive approach toward converting non-Jews to Judaism, replacing the faith’s more traditional attitude of, at best, reluctance, and, at worst, open hostility to Jewish proselytism.

But that does not mean”a mass conversion campaign”or”Jews marching up and down the street to persuade others of the benefits of Judaism,”Rabbi Jonathan Romain said in an interview.

Judaism, he added, is not by nature a missionary faith.

Romain first made his suggestion for a more active conversion campaign in the current issue of the Reform quarterly Manna, in which he took note of the increasing number of young Jews marrying outside the community. Jewish leaders in the United States have expressed similar concerns.”We now know that 44 percent of Jewish males currently getting married are choosing non-Jewish wives,”he said.”The rate for Jewish women is nearly as high. All the indications are that this trend will increase”_ to the point of more than half marrying outside the community, a point already reached in the United States. “At worst,”he wrote,”the community will have to face a massive drop-out of young child-producing, income-generating Jews _ or, at best, face a new reality of a substantial number of mixed-faith households in which the family has an indeterminate status and a dual religious loyalty.” However, there is yet a third option, Romain said.”A high proportion of those non-Jews marrying Jews are exactly that _ not Christians, not Muslims, but nothings, non-Jews.” Often, he said, many of these men and women with no faith of their own still have religious instincts, and, through marrying Jews many have found the Jewish way of life very appealing.”Having met Judaism accidentally, they have come genuinely to value it,”he said in the interview.”If we were to offer them the possibility of becoming Jewish, we could turn many mixed-faith households into Jewish ones, keep born-Jews Jewish, gain the dedication of Jews by choice, and ensure the continuity of Judaism in the next generation,”he added.”The best way to have Jewish grandchildren is as much by welcoming converts as it is by funding youth tours to Israel,”he said.

Thus, said Romain said, Reform Judaism needs to adopt a much more pro-active approach to possible conversions.”With only 120 adults converting through the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain … each year compared to an estimated outmarriage rate of 1,500 per annum, it is clear that we are failing to attract even a tenth of the numbers to which we could aspire,”he wrote.

And, given that not all non-Jews would want to convert, Reform Judaism should make more public”one of its greatest secrets _ that it will grant Jewish status to the child of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother provided certain conditions are met.” Those understandings include a written statement by both parents to provide the child with a Jewish upbringing.”It is a remarkably sensible way of allowing children to acquire Jewish status when their mother feels unable to convert to Judaism yet is willing to help the father bring them up as Jewish,”Romain said.”The alternative is to deprive the children of Jewish life _ and us of Jewish children _ or force the mother to fake an insincere conversion.” DEA END NOWELL