c. 2006 Religion News Service
NEWARK, N.J. _ For decades, Jews marrying outside the faith have been sermon fodder for Conservative rabbis, who have lambasted intermarriage as the bane of the American Jewish existence.
The rabbis have feared that with intermarriage rates nearing 50 percent _ and, more critically, with only one-third of intermarried couples raising their children to be Jewish _ the American Jewish population, estimated at 5.2 million, will dwindle to insignificance in a few generations.
But that attitude toward intermarriage has come with a price that increasing numbers of Conservative rabbis across the country are acknowledging: the alienation of intermarried couples from Judaism, at least from its Conservative movement.
Now, a document circulating through Conservative temples _ the religious middle ground for American Jewry _ is calling for a warmer embrace of interfaith couples, both to encourage conversions and to improve the odds the couples will raise Jewish children.
The document does not propose changing the Conservative ban on synagogue membership for non-Jewish spouses. But it encourages better treatment for them at services and in synagogue communities _ suggesting, among other things, that temples stop excluding the name of the non-Jewish spouse from mailings to the home.
The changing attitudes toward intermarriage can be seen here in New Jersey, with its sizable Jewish population, where rabbis in several Conservative temples have embraced the document and hosted events designed to show hospitality to interfaith families.
Local rabbis say current attitudes have estranged too many interfaith couples from Conservative shuls and hurt the cause of “Jewish continuity.” If New Jersey is any indication, Conservative Jews in mixed marriages appreciate the outreach.
“We have to some rethinking so we don’t lose these families, and so we don’t lose the children of these families,” Rabbi Moshe Edelman, who wrote the document, titled “On the Path,” said at a recent event at Temple Beth Ahm in Springfield.
“It’s a change in attitude we’re looking for _ to say, `We have people (interfaith couples) in our congregation, men and women who have fallen in love. They are married. And that reality is there,”’ said Edelman, who is director of the committee on congregational standards for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, a national body.
The outreach comes at a difficult time for Conservative Judaism, which was the dominant Jewish movement in America until the last decade, when the liberal Reform movement surpassed it in the number of synagogue members. Reform Judaism accepts non-Jewish spouses as temple members.
In 2000, some 38 percent of American Jews affiliated with synagogues belonged to Reform temples. Conservative temples claimed 33 percent. Orthodox temples claimed 22 percent.
At the Temple Beth Ahm event, the synagogue’s rabbi acknowledged that Conservative rabbis have alienated interfaith couples despite trying to improve outreach in the last 15 years.
“For 30 years our rabbis have spoken out against intermarriage. And over those 30 years, the intermarriage rate has only gone up,” Rabbi Mark Mallach said.
He added: “For 30 years we have shut the door to those interfaith relationships by not welcoming and making them feel like they could be a part of the movement. And for 30 years, many of these individuals involved in interfaith relationships, when they’ve had an inkling of wanting to connect to the Jewish community, had only one choice. Thank God the Reform movement opened the doors, or we would have lost an entire generation.”
The approximately half-dozen interfaith couples at the Springfield event said they appreciate the effort, which they called overdue.
“What we’ve always said is, it’s always pointless to reject a non-Jewish partner, because then you’re going to lose the Jewish partner as well,” said Brian McNamara of Maplewood, who was raised a Christian and married a Jewish woman, Sarah Zuckerman, 16 years ago.
McNamara converted to Judaism eight years ago after attending two Conservative temples. If rabbis there had not been hospitable, he said, he might not have converted.
Susan Blanco, who was born Jewish and married a Catholic man, said she was glad her synagogue in Springfield is part of the effort. “It’s a start,” said Blanco, whose children are being raised Jewish.
“I’d like to hear more specifics. They went up there and said, `We realize we’ve turned people away.’ They didn’t say how they’re going to bring them back in.”
The irony is that nothing would increase the Jewish population faster than if all Jewish people intermarried and then raised their children as Jews. But surveys say only about a third of intermarried families do that.
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Edelman’s document, published in November, restates the movement’s strong preference for Jews to marry Jews and for their non-Jewish spouses to convert.
But it mentions several ways Conservative synagogues can attract non-Jewish spouses to temple life, even if the spouses can’t be official synagogue members. For example, it suggests rabbis make themselves available to counsel interfaith families. It says temples that exclude non-Jewish spouses’ names from mailings should stop the practice.
Yet the document makes it clear that a non-Jew may not be a voting member of a synagogue, serve on a temple’s board of trustees or directors, or chair a synagogue committee, project or program.
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There is no simple path, said Jonathan Sarna, a Jewish studies professor at Brandeis University and author of “American Judaism.”
Giving non-Jews too many rights can reduce the incentive to convert, while strictly observing rules can alienate, he said. Middle ground can be hard to find.
“It’s not that easy,” he said. “The Reform movement, too, is deeply worried that, having made it so good for non-Jews belonging to the congregation, they now have congregations that are filled with unconverted non-Jews. And that poses enormous challenges to a Jewish temple or synagogue.”
_ Jeff Diamant covers religion for The Star-Ledger of Newark.
KRE/PH END DIAMANT
