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Jews::Intermarriage as Babies::Bathwater |
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 by Tamar Fox, August 6, 2007 |
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For the third week running the Shabbat lunch I attended ended up focusing on Noah Feldman’s Orthodox Paradox article from the Times magazine. Besides the fact that this is getting old, I’m pretty frustrated that no one really seems to be engaging with the issue at hand, i.e. that the Jewish community treats people who are intermarried like crap, no matter their interest in staying in the community.
Let’s just skip over the part where people actually get intermarried, okay? They’re going to do it, you’re going to be mad, blah blah blah, move on. I’m not saying it’s okay or good, I’m just saying, it’s going to happen. At that point, once those people have made the choice, ignoring, insulting or generally treating them poorly is a really bad idea. It merely propagates the assimilation problem. If we tell people that one choice is enough to excommunicate them, then can we blame them for not sending their kids to Hebrew school, having regular Shabbat dinners, or even joining a JCC?
Out Ya Go Little Christopher: no bar mitzvah for you!
I’m not a fan of intermarriage, but I don’t see it as the end of the world, perhaps because I know so many people who are the products of intermarriages, and who subsequently decided they were interested and invested in Judaism, and wanted to be involved in the community. Sadly, many of them faced conflict in their families because their parents didn’t want them going back to a community that had rejected the interfaith marriage. And can you blame the parents for being so angry? Would you want your kids embracing a community that had made it well known they wanted you to scram?
This is especially frustrating because I can’t leave the house these days without hearing someone else bemoaning the assimilation of the Jewish community, or whining about how young Jews aren’t affiliating and how can we reel them back in? I think the reason synagogues and federations aren’t seeing lots of young Jews who want to be involved is because children of interfaith couples feel out of place at lots of synagogues, and they’re more comfortable being irreverent and ironic. That sentiment is much better served by the places like Jewcy and Heeb, and I think it’s because we engage with everyone, not just the middle class families from solidly eastern European backgrounds.
I don’t know how to solve the intermarriage problem, and I would concede that it’s pretty problematic. But I just can’t sit around and say, “Well, intermarriage is a boundary our community has set, and we just can’t condone that kind of behavior so these people can’t be offended when we don’t include them.” You can’t tell people when they can’t be offended. It doesn’t work that way, and it never has. We can set boundaries all we want, but at some point we have to recognize that we’re pushing people away. And in these times of serious discussion about what the future of Judaism will look like, do we want to exclude thousands of couple who have shown by the nature of their decision to be together, that they’re willing to make compromises? I don’t, and I won’t.
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Tamar Fox has an MFA from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, but she still doesn't like sweet tea. Born and raised in Chicago, she's also lived in Iowa City, Dublin, Oxford, and Jerusalem. When she's not rocking out at honky tonks she teaches More... |
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Anonymous
All good points.
The problem is that orthodox Judaism is non prostelizing. Christian churches can be more attractive to intermarried couples because they are very welcoming to the Jewish spouse. I know intermarried Jews who have joined churches because of this.
The problem for Judaism is that there is a consequence to prostelizing and converting someone who has no intention to become observant of the motzvos. A christian who is a good person but who eats treif and works on Shabbos is still a good person. A Jewish convert who does that is committing numerous sins.
Anonymous
Perhaps this is asking for trouble, but isn't this also a question of denomination... it might be easier (not that it has been) to figure out ways of making interfaith families feel more comfortable in a Reform shul...
Tamar Fox
I think it is denominational, Anonymous, but reform shuls are generally less perplexed by intermarried couples to begin with. I think COnservative and Ortho shuls are the places that need the real work. because some of these people might be interested in a more ritual driven spiritual practice, which isn't the norm in reform shuls. But yeah, you make a good point.
SaraBenincasa
Go on, girl! You said it. Good points. I know this wasn't your thesis, but I'm a big fan of people marrying whoever they want and settling on a faith tradition (if they choose to do so) that helps them make a good life, as long as their version of "a good life" doesn't translate to "a life in which it is okay to randomly beat up strangers and kidnap people's pets" or something similarly evil.
I think that one reason Evangelicals are growing by leaps and bounds in Christianity is that they offer the solace of a giant tent under which everyone can fit (so long as you agree to abide by their rules, like denying your innate homosexuality and living a lie--you know, fun stuff like that). The reason there are so, so many of them in megachurches across these United States is that they don't say, "You can't hang with us because you married a Catholic/Jew/whoever." Sure, they'll tell you that you must try your hardest to save your partner's soul or some such gobbledygook, but as long as you subscribe to their ideology, you're golden. And there's none of this bait-and-switch technique of, "We're a religion! C'mon in! No, we're a 'race'! Get away from us! No, wait, we're a religion! It's okay!" They're all ABOUT new people joining their team. And because Evangelical Christianity 2.0 has whipped out the marketing savvy, they don't lack for members and won't for some time.
People go where they're welcome If I sense that I'm not wanted at the party, or that I'm just tacitly accepted in spite of the fact that the fellow partygoers were taught (implicitly or explicitly by their parents/community) and firmly believe that I'm not really wanted among them, then I'm not gonna go there, even if my man is invited to the party. And if he loves me and respects me, we're probably not gonna hang out at that particular soiree.
Anonymous
Tamar, Thanks for considering the denominational angle. I happen to be a former Christian, now Reform Jew, so the entire issue of who is accepted in a given Jewish (ritual, spiritual, political, and so on) community is of great importance to me.
Benjamin E.
I think your analogy is flipped...I suspect the Jews are the "babies" you want to keep and the intermarriage is the "bathwater"... ;)
Tamar Fox
Adjusted accordingly
Anonymous
The issue is much more difficult for an orthodox community due to restrictions of Halachah. Prostelizing is prohibited, as are certain other activities with non Jews. That is the law. Within those rules, there is room to treat an intermarried family with courtesey. But "outreach" is extremely challenging.
One Blogger
Hi there, and thanks for this piece. I am the Christian half of an interfaith marriage, and my wife and I have definitely run into the situation you describe above. I am by no means a practicing Catholic (which I was until my late 20s), but at the same time I am not interested in converting to Judaism or any other faith. It's complicated. Anyhow, I do want our children to have a connection with their Jewish heritage, and I also want them to have a connection to the other parts of their heritage. My thinking is that as modern human beings continue to evolve, as our once-isolated communities continue to overlap, maybe it is time to reexamine what it means to "be" Jewish, or Irish, or whatever it is that you happen to be. Is being a fully bar or bat mitzvahed young adult the only way to "be" Jewish? Do I have to become confirmed in a Christian church to "be" a follower of Jesus and his teachings?
I am in full agreement with Tamar's point, that the all-or-nothing approach will only turn people away who are otherwise trying to maintain some connection to Judaism, even if the connection is not fully and entirely traditional. The same goes for the Christian faith. Am I nuts to be thinking this way? I'm sure that there are loads of folks who would strongly disagree. I'm still hopeful that there are others who see true value in human beings from different communities and traditions growing closer together and sharing. That's what I'm driving at.
Not to steal any biz from Jewcy.com, but I invite readers to check out my interfaith blog, OneBlog. The following posts might be a good place to start, topically-speaking: http://unifaith.blogspot.com/2007/09/intermarriage-charting-new-directio...,
http://unifaith.blogspot.com/2007/09/i-did-it-my-way.html
Thanks, shalom to one and all!