I'd let them do whatever they want. Marriage is a matter of privacy and shouldn't be interfered with by the state. This is an issue the community and the parents should deal with. The negative consequences of intermarriage will play itself out without the need of nanny state interference. But if I was head of the community I would probably ban it (although a ban is nothing more than a request which can be ignored at will).

And Laurel, I would argue that you're wrong based on the anecdotal evidence I've seen. Almost all, in fact, now that I think of it, ALL of the interfaith marriage couples I have met had parents that cared little about it and certainly didn't do much to stop it from happening. Think about it, how many interfaith couples do you know that no longer have any contact with their family strictly because they intermarried? I bet you the answer is nill. This proves that for the most part, the Jewish community as parents did not put their foot down. Their kid screamed for candy and they caved. Furthermore, even if they did put their foot down and it didn't work, that isn't the reason why we have intermarriage now like you state. We have intermarriage today because parents spoiled their kids and gave their kids anything they wanted without ever putting their foot down or setting rules which need to be followed. So yeah, maybe some rabbi 25 years ago gave a speech at a Y somewhere. But parents as a whole did little to stop it because thats what their babby wants and whatever their baby wants is what their baby gets no questions asked.

Admit it, our community fucked up. We were so happy to have some money and be accepted into a society that we gave our kids everything without questions and without ever putting our foot down. And you can complain all you want about me personally, but we have seen what inter-faith marriage does 1-3 generations down the line. It produces people who, if they are technically Jewish, have absolutey no desire or knowledge in Judaism. So you can say all you want but I guarantee you, in 50 years there will be at best a pocket of a couple of million Jews left that care. The rest will either be technically not Jewish (and most end up not), or so distantly Jewish so as not even matter. Of course a few here and there meet a chabadnik and return, but its never equal to those that dont. You guys keep complaining about me personally, but no one has ever even uttered a word about the above paragraph not happening or why it wont happen. Until then, Ill take the personal insults as testament that I'm right, since if I was wrong, you'd be able to disprove it or come even close to disproving it.

Jewish Destrudo