Cassandra vs. Nero?

Jewcy is making a quite a name for itself with its readiness to wrestle sacred cows. It helps when the staff is made up of some of the most talented, eloquent, innovative young Jews around.

This week, Senior Editor Joey Kurtzman goes toe to toe with Jack Wertheimer, provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Conservative movement's rabbinical school. Wertheimer has written extensively about the unwelcome demise of ethnocentric Judaism, a Judaism that is focused on Israel, internal socialization and helping other Jews, while Kurtzman, the product of intermarriage, is a proud defender of a catholic perspective that sees the suffering of Africans in Darfur as no less a tragedy than the suffering of Jews. And the notion of socializing with, or dating, only Jews? Both impractical and nearly "laughable," he says.

Kurtzman launches the opening salvo by arguing that "American life has annihilated Jewish peoplehood.":

Modern American life is the most corrosive acid ever to hit the ghetto walls. Young American Jews are whoring after Moab so fervently that the boundaries between Israel and Moab are being washed away. We‘re not merely influenced by the non-Jewish world—we‘re inseparable from it. Judaism and Jewishness have never had so limited a claim on the identity of young Jews.

Given that plain truth, he says, "It seems to me that if Jewish-American leaders wish for Judaism to survive, they‘ll have to acknowledge that the era of peoplehood has ended, and help reinvent Judaism for modern life."

But, Wertheimer argues, this notion of "reinvention" is a farce, a code for the obliteration of Judaism through "religious syncretism." Of course, he can't argue this without taking a shot at what he calls the "outreach industry":

The extended outreach industry based in synagogues, JCCs, and federations has downplayed the damage, pretending that everything will turn out all right. Christmas trees are really not religious symbols; Easter dinner is really not about Christ. It’s all just a way to be respectful of the Gentile side of the family. What your letter demonstrates is that “Jewish-American mongrels,” as you call them, took these celebrations seriously and are trying desperately to reconcile the irreconcilable components within their own identity.

It seems to me that Wertheimer is misreading Kurtzman's message. Kurtzman doesn't argue that Judaism should be reinvented to incorporate Christianity or Buddhism, but that it should be reinvented to thrive in a pluralistic, secular American culture--and a larger world that is even more energetically pluralistic and secular. To pretend that Judaism hasn't done this before is absurd; American synagogue architecture has always taken its cues from church architecture, the Jewish revivalist movement in the late 1800s followed a Christian one, Zionism was an outgrowth of a larger international movement towards nationalist identities. The largest Jewish movements in the country, Reform and Conservative, both are the creations of Jews who felt Judaism needed "reinventing." But somehow, for Wertheimer, today's demands for reinvention are akin to worshipping a Golden Calf. Kurtzman says Wertheimer has been called a "Cassandra"--one who predicts the future but is not listened to--but he should more appropriately be considered an ostrich.

The dialogue includes many more salient points--on both sides, I may add--and should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the way modern American Jewish youth sees itself, and the way the previous generation sees Jewish youth.

Officiation as a Litmus Test?

The question of rabbinic officiation at intermarriages threatens a schism in the Reform movement, writes Steve Lipman's in today's The (New York) Jewish Week:

A decade after the movement’s rabbinical arm, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, examined the effects of intermarriage and outreach within its ranks, the largest Jewish denomination in the United States is again dealing with a question that may determine its immediate future: Is the marriage ceremony threatening to cause a divorce in Reform Judaism?

I wouldn't quite go that far, but Lipman does focus on a growing phenomenon: friction between rabbis who won't officiate at intermarriages and members of their synagogue who want them to officiate. According to the story, officiation has become a litmus test for hiring in many congregations, especially congregations in small Jewish communities. "Officiating has become a sine qua non for rabbinic placement," says Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, who is leaving The Temple in Atlanta partly due to his refusal to perform intermarriages and the tension that causes.

This kind of controversy shows the importance and relevance of our recent hiring of Rabbi Lev Baesh to run our Rabbinic Circle. Rabbis grappling over the issue need a safe space to talk about the issue. Those who do officiate need templates for ways to articulate their decision to their congregations, and those who don't need ideas for how to welcome and engage interfaith couples. And those on the fence need intelligent, reasoned arguments for and against.

The fact that there is a gap between the desires of the lay membership and the consciences of their rabbis further demonstrates the need for the service Rabbi Baesh will be providing. People who are Jewishly engaged, as demonstrated by their membership in Reform synagogues, want authentic, credible rabbis to officiate at their interfaith weddings and don't want to wade through the hazardous seas of the web, where it is difficult to determine who's "legit" and who's not.

We've Hired a Rabbi

The story broke today. We have hired our first rabbi. Rabbi Lev Baesh, who led a congregation in Dover, N.H., for 12 years and has taught classes for the Reform movement's Northeast region, will start July 9 as director of our Rabbinic Circle.

His role will have two goals:

1. To help couples find rabbis to officiate at their interfaith weddings and help them connect with synagogues in their local communities. This will entail responding to requests, developing our referral list, establishing standards for the inclusion of rabbis on the list and following up with couples.


2. To provide a safe space for rabbis to discuss and consider the question of officiation, without pressuring them to officiate. The enhanced Rabbinic Circle section of our site will include arguments for and against officiation, sermons from rabbis who have decided to officiate and other resources for rabbis interested in the question.

We are well aware that rabbinic officiation is one of the most controversial issues among rabbis today--even the Reform movement's rabbis are divided on the issue. We're not looking to tell rabbis to officiate, but we are looking to provide greater reliability, efficiency and integrity to the process of looking for a rabbi to officiate.

Let My People Convert!

Russian Jewish immigrants to Israel face an absurd situation. In Russia, their identity cards marked them as Jewish, and they experienced anti-Semitism in their professional and personal lives. They were reminded of their Jewishness on a regular basis, whether they liked it or not.

But once they get to Israel, if they can't confirm that their mother was Jewish, they are viewed as non-Jews--and must face a laborious conversion process to be considered as Jews. The conversion process is controlled by the Orthodox religious monopoly, which demands these "non-Jews" adopt a traditional Orthodox lifestyle. Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist conversions are not officially recognized. The rationale for such a restrictive, demanding system is that "Non-religious converts, even if their conversions were performed by Jewish organizations, will not adapt, will not become acclimatized, and will lead to a future trail of separations and tragedies," says Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, a rabbi for the conversion courts. But Rosen, like most arbiters of Jewishness in Israel, ignores the fact that half of Israelis consider themselves secular, and even the majority of those who consider themselves "traditional" are flexible about the rules of Shabbat.

Rabbi Gregory Ketler, coordinator of the (Reform) Progressive Rabbis' Council in Israel, and Rabbi Jerome Epstein, head of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, each recently wrote about urging Israel to open up the conversion process. And Avirama Golden makes the point in Ha'aretz that if Ruth, the best-known convert in the Bible, wanted to join the Jews today, she would probably be denied:

But if Ruth were to decide today to link her life with Israel and the Jewish people, her chances would be negligible. The Orthodox establishment - which is cut off from the majority of the Jewish people in the Diaspora, with its various denominations, as well as from many Israelis - has over the last few years fortified the walls that prevent hundreds of thousands of people from joining the State of Israel and its society as citizens with equal rights. Full citizenship in Israel is possible only for those who convert.

Anti-Semites Who Loved the Jew, But Hated the Race

Mandy Katz of Moment magazine has written a fascinating, occasionally repulsive, story about anti-Semites who fell in love with Jews.

The big names are Hitler and Mussolini, although Hitler gets off on a technicality. The flirtatious girl he fantasized about marrying, as well as killing, was not Jewish, as he thought. Mussolini, however, was a notorious philanderer, and one of his most passionate conquests was Margherita Sarfatti, a wealthy Jew who wrote for the Socialist party paper Mussolini edited in 1911. She was part of his inner circle for nearly two decades, ghostwriting articles for him, helping him write his political diary, until the early 1930s, when Mussolini wanted to project the image of a decisive strongman.

The Jew-loving Nazi stories get even more bizarre, with Leni Riefenstahl (the filmmaker behind the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will) being romanced by an Austrian Jewish currency trader, and an Aryan Nazi officer marrying and sheltering a Jewish former law student who escaped from a slave labor camp. Their child was the only Jew known to have been born in a German hospital during the war.

The article delves into the Jewish (or at least Hebraic) loves of the Roman emporer Nero, the mentally unbalanced horror writer H.P. Lovecraft and even Wilhelm Marr, the creator of the term "anti-Semitism."

The tales aren't pretty, but they illustrate how prejudice against groups always breaks down when confronted with the messy reality of interpersonal relationships.

Half-Jewish SF Seeks Ortho Jewish SM

A. Pinsker of the New York Press has written a moving, funny story about her relationship with a self-described "post-modern Orthodox Jew" and the way his spirituality ignited her--and his dogma made him reject her.

Pinsker's father is Jewish and her mother is not, but both share a distrust of religion. She'd never dated Jewish before--"it'd just be too close to home," she says--instead opting for a rainbow of races, religions and nationalities. Meanwhile, she says, "my mother married my New York Jewish dad most likely to spite her very old-school, anti-Semitic parents."

Despite of--or perhaps because of--the lack of religion in her home, she says, "secretly, there was nothing I liked more than celebrating the Sabbath at my Orthodox neighbor's home."

Dating this hip-hop-loving guy who lived in rabbinical students' quarters helped re-awaken that fondness for Orthodox practice, but eventually she runs into the brick wall facing all Jews with non-Jewish mothers: the traditional community's denial of their Jewishness.

I'd say more, but it's worth reading. The title alone should be enough to grab you: "A semi-shiksa lusts for her ultimate fetish: A cute Jew-boy."

Intermarriage in Less Religious Countries

It's widely known that the United States is the most religious of the major industrialized countries. Weekly church attendance may be as high as 40% and the great majority of people believe in God. Even the most liberal of politicians feel obligated to affirm their faith on the campaign trail.

I'm not quite sure what the connection between intermarriage and our high level of religiosity is, but it's interesting to notice the contrasts between the U.S. and other industrialized countries. Great Britain and Canada have significantly lower levels of church attendance and yet in both, the Jewish community is much more cohesive and insular--leading to much lower rates of intermarriage than in the U.S.

Diane Flacks, author of Bear With Me, writes in the (Toronto) Globe and Mail about raising children in her intermarriage. She's Jewish, her partner is not. "Is there a more polarizing issue than the place of religion in parenting?" she asks. I would bet no American writer would ask that question. In the U.S., it's a given that religion will take a significant role in parenting.

As she goes on to discuss how she and her partner navigate between her Judaism and her partner's Christianity, she comes to a somewhat conflicting conclusion. She says letting her children "choose" their religion "doesn't sit well with me." She says, "when they're young--when they're looking to us for security--I want to give them something to feel proud of, to feel clear about." And what is that something? "Love," she says. Nothing wrong with that, but it seems a rather vague cop-out when you suggest that parents should dictate a religion for their children. I wonder if it has something to do with a particularly Canadian discomfort with openly declaring your loyalty to one faith.

Meanwhile, the European Jewish Press has a a story on a recent study on Jews in Britain with data taken from the 2001 Census. While intermarriage is quite low in Britain, there are suggestions that it may be inching up soon:

Although the Census did not report an intermarriage rate, the analysis did reveal that 72% of married or cohabiting Jews had a Jewish partner; 19% had a non-Jewish partner.

However, for those who were cohabiting, 68% of all Jewish individuals had a partner who was either not Jewish or had no religion. (Those cohabiting were a tenth of those who were married.)

David Graham, one of the authors and research consultant to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, commented: “Overall, intermarriage, more accurately Jew-to-non-Jew partnerships, is still relatively uncommon. But certain groups, especially cohabitees, show clear signs that strongly suggest change is on the way.”

This may be a function of another piece of information that comes from the report. According to the Census, Jews are more geographically spread-out in Britain than previously thought. Perhaps, as in America, geographical dilution of the community is a cause of higher rates of interfaith relationships. If there are fewer Jews around to potentially partner with, then it's more likely you'll fall in love with somebody who's not Jewish.

Thank God for Non-Jewish Moms

Recent research has shown that children are more frequently raised in the mother's religion than the father's religion, so when a non-Jewish mom raises a Jewish child, their family is bucking the odds. What's more, these women are often the ones driving their children to Hebrew school, reading their children Jewish children's books and buying their children dreidels. What a noble sacrifice they make to their husband's religion.

A beautiful example of such a mom is Amy Cummingham of New York, who writes about preparing for her son's bar mitzvah in The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg, S.C. Cunningham is a committed Christian who attends church on a weekly basis, but agreed to raise her children Jewish because she "felt that the world could not, should not, lose any more of its radiant Jewish people." She did indeed drive her children to Hebrew school twice a week and even went so far as to work events at the synagogue. She has some goals for the bar mitzvah ceremony:

I want the bar mitzvah ceremony to be memorable, meaningful, imbued with gratitude and love. I want the whole day to be authentically ours, as well as in keeping with what millions of Jews have done before us. I want to bring myself, as a supportive non-Jewish parent, to the table ... or to the Torah, proud of my son and his Jewish heritage. I want to show that Jewish-Christian intermarriage won't complete what Hitler started and that, at our house at least, faith breeds faith, and love is all that matters.

Like most moms, she worries about whether the party is going to be too ostentatious--"too much Martha Stewart... and not enough shtetl," she says. But it's her husband who pushes her to involve her heritage more in the planning. And she does so in a lovely way, which I won't reveal.

You could argue that Susan Ivers of Montgomery, Ohio, has maken an even greater sacrifice. When she and her Jewish husband Joel got married, they decided to raise the children in her Lutheran faith, mainly because she was more religious than Joel. Their first child was baptized but their second child was not as Joel started to have second thoughts. Then their second child attended a bat mitzvah "and was mesmerized." He pleaded to go to temple services with his dad, and they relented. When they were pregnant with their third child, they decided to raise all their children as Jews. So not only did Susan make a huge compromise for the sake of her husband, she also felt the rejection of her faith from her children. She says the healing process took years.

In the Jewish community, the simple "solution" to intermarriage--and the one we promote--is for couples to decide to raise their children Jewish. But we should never forget the enormous sacrifices that non-Jewish parents, especially mothers, have to make for this to happen.

We're All Intermarried

At our conference a few weeks ago, Rabbi Sam Gordon, of Congregation Sukkat Shalom in Wilmette, Ill., led a fascinating session on what he called "sociograms." He had everyone at the session--who were mostly Jewish--break up into different groups based on how they're different from their husband, wife or significant other. His point was to show that all marriages are intermarriages in some way, whether it be across religious, cultural, educational, political, class or personality lines.

In a column for The (New York) Jewish Week, "The Other Kind of Mixed Marriage," Abby Wisee Schachter eloquently demonstrates this point. She says:

I thought that when I fell in love and got married to a Jewish man, I was home free. After all, there’s been a ton of hand wringing across the Jewish community about intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews. But I wasn’t going to have any of that kind of trouble. My husband and I are both Jewish, so we weren’t facing the complications of combining two very different traditions into our new home, right?

Wrong. It turns out that building a new Jewish life together — even between two Jews — creates a whole series of challenges, some of which aren’t so unlike intermarriage.

The fact is that Jewish life in America is so varied, and each person’s Jewish experience is so different, that it almost seems as if every Jewish marriage is an intermarriage.

Abby was raised in an Orthodox-affiliated, but not particularly observant, home, while her husband Ben was raised in a Reform-affiliated home. When they were planning the wedding ceremony, her family wanted an Orthodox rabbi to preside and his family wanted their congregation's cantor to participate. She wanted him to walk seven circles around her, and he protested.

Abby also shares stories of a couple where one partner was from a Conservative home and the other is from a Reform home, but became more observant as he got older. Another couple includes one partner from a secular Jewish family and one partner from an Orthodox family. And marrying within the same movement doesn't guarantee a smooth ride either--she speaks with another couple where each partner hails from a different extreme of the Conservative movement.

Recognizing that every marriage is an intermarriage allows us to see Jewish/non-Jewish intermarriage as one gradation on a scale, and not a point of no Jewish return. If intra-Jewish intermarried couples can overcome their sometimes significant differences in religious observance, so can interreligious intermarried couples.