Saving Your Date From Hell

I'm always fascinated by the approach of other religions and cultures to interfaith and intercultural marriage. A few have similar concerns to the Jewish community; Zoroastrians, for example, share the same sense of anxiety over dwindling numbers. Others, however, have radically different perspectives on interdating.

Take Evangelicals, for example. Unlike Jews, a shrinking or static population is not a concern. Also unlike Jews, culture has nothing to do with their connection to each other. Belief--in God, in Jesus, in the need to embrace Jesus to go to heaven--is everything.

But like Jews, the evangelical community has its own Hindu widows:

For evangelicals who want to pair up with others of the same faith but don't manage to do so in their early 20s, trouble lies ahead, particularly for women. Evangelical churches now typically have a 60-40 split between women and men, which means that there are many more single evangelical women out there than their male counterparts. As Ms. Cockrel explains, "I have friends who wanted to marry a Christian guy, are still single, and are more and more open to dating non-Christians as they get older. They're tired of waiting."

In a near reversal of typical Jewish behavior, however, it is not parents who disapprove of such relationships as often as it is Evangelical friends:

Camerin Courtney, a columnist at ChristianSinglesToday.com, tells me that most Christian parents are just concerned that "their children find someone they love and who loves them back."

Interfaith dating among Evangelicals has another twist totally foreign to Jews: the concept of "missionary dating." If an Evangelical loves another person, then their faith obligates them to proselytize to the person. If you don't save your closest relations from eternal damnation in Hell, who will you save?

But there is little sociological evidence that "conjugal evangelism" works. Says Brad Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, "Evangelicals who marry nonevangelicals are typically less likely to remain as or become as devout as those who marry within the fold."

The Jewish Cardinal

Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger died on Sunday.

Cardinal Lustiger was a key figure in the Catholic-Jewish dialogue that Pope John Paul II so valued. He was the Pope's representative at the commemoration ceremonies for the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 2005 and served as a middle man between Jews and the Church on sensitive issues like Catholic anti-Semitism. He was uniquely fitted for these responsibilities because he was actually born a Jew--a fact that made many Jewish figures who worked with him uncomfortable.

He was born in Paris to secular Polish-Jewish emigres in 1926. Following the German invasion of France in 1940, he and his sister were sent for their own protection to live with a Catholic woman. At 13, he was baptized. Despite his conversion, he considered himself Jewish: "I was born Jewish, and so I remain, even if that is unacceptable for many," he once said. And, in a way, he had the most unassailable Jewish credentials: his mother died as a Jew in Auschwitz.

Further complicating matters, he considered himself "a fulfilled Jew," implying that Christianity was a higher step on the path to religious enlightment than Judaism.

His life raises all sorts of interesting questions: Can a devout Catholic still be Jewish? How should the Jewish community consider such a person? Are converted Jews actually a good thing for the Jewish community (because of their connection between two faiths)? Is it OK to convert out of Judaism, but not to consider your new religion superior to your old one? Did Cardinal Lustiger betray his born religion by converting--or was he actually a righteous gentile for the work he did in the Church?

The complexities of his life are fascinating, and difficult to resolve, even for the late Cardinal. In the 1970s, 30+ years after converted, he considered making aliyah.

Critical Mass?

A week and a half ago, the Pope issued a decree authorizing Catholic clergy to conduct the old Latin Mass without permission of the Church. This bit of liturgical news wouldn't seem to be of much interest to anyone other than Catholics, but nothing involving the Catholic Church is ever just about Catholics. The Good Friday edition of the old Latin Mass includes a prayer for Jews to convert to Christianity. The potential revival of this prayer was not received very positively in the Jewish world; Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League and self-appointed spokesman for the Jewish community, called the news "disturbing."

I have a variety of responses to this news: as a Jew, as a secular observer of the Catholic Church and as someone interested in the cause of inclusiveness for those in interfaith relationships.

As a Jew, I find the news disappointing but not disturbing. It's not clear that the Pope's decree will lead to a widespread revival of the conversion prayer. Even if it does come into more common use, it doesn't turn back the clock on years of reforms in the Church since Vatican II; this is not going to lead to a restoration of the charge of deicide against the Jews. In the U.S., it will have little to no impact on American Catholics. I highly doubt many priests will decide the way to restore their dwindling congregations is by conducting a Mass with their backs turned to their congregation and speaking in a language that none of his congregants understand. It's certainly possible that the Latin Mass may be adopted in those parts of the world where Orthodox Catholicism has a strong hold--specifically South America--but there are latent anti-Semitic attitudes there that the introduction of a prayer once a year will not change for good or bad. And, it's not like calling for the conversion of non-believers is an uncommon practice in Christian churches; one of the most Zionist groups in the world, evangelical churches, make it a point of both calling for the conversion of non-believers and actively missionizing to them. The only difference is that the Southern Baptist Convention never led an Inquisition.

As a secular observer of the Church, the news is a bit more discouraging. The authorization of the old Mass appears to be part of a general conservative retrenchment on the part of the new Pope. Pope John Paul II was no liberal, but he had a particular knack for combining commitment to Orthodoxy with eloquent gestures of inclusiveness. This Pope, who was known as the conservative watchdog of the Church prior to his ascension to the top of the Church, does not show a similar sense of tact. Sort of like the difference between Bill and Hillary Clinton.

As someone interested in the welcoming of interfaith couples, I have a mixed reaction. On the one hand, I feel that Jews should be very careful about criticizing other religions. What appears to us to be innocent and well-meaning criticisms can be taken in a much different way by the sensitive followers of another faith. After all, how tolerant are Jews of outside criticisms of Judaism?

On the other hand, at IFF we're very sensitive to making the Jewish worship service as inclusive as possible, arguing for the increased use of English, explanations of unfamiliar rituals and the inclusion of non-Jewish partners and parents in life cycle ceremonies. If a Christian is made to feel welcome in a synagogue, shouldn't a Jew be made to feel welcome in a Church? Hearing Latin will make things uncomfortable enough for a Jewish partner of a Catholic person; hearing a prayer calling for his conversion will only make things worse.

The reality of course is that most synagogues have a long way to go in making non-Jewish partners feel fully included. The same could be said for Catholic churches.

Judaism Your Way, and "Seventh Heaven"

The Intermountain Jewish News has a great article on Rabbi Brian Field, who leads Judaism Your Way, an innovative "synagogue without walls" based in Denver, Colo.

Judaism Your Way targets unaffiliated Jews, but it's clear that Field's passion is engaging the intermarried. He officiates at interfaith weddings without making any demands that the non-Jewish partner convert. It's not a radical stance, but it is in opposition to the position of the local rabbinical association. Judaism Your Way's services include wedding ceremonies between Jews and non-Jews, baby namings, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs or “alternative coming of age celebrations,” Shabbat services, regular holiday observances, and High Holiday services.

Judaism Your Way functions as an entryway toward Jewish practice, learning and community — if that’s what participants desire.

“One of the things we like to say is that wherever you are along your Jewish journey, we’ll meet you there and help you figure out the next step,” Rabbi Field says.

It’s an accommodating philosophy that sounds eerily similar to the approach used by Chabad.

But Rabbi Field stresses that unlike Chabad or other Jewish outreach groups, Judaism Your Way does not have a Jewish agenda that pulls participants toward more traditional forms of Judaism.

“We have a mutually referring relationship with other synagogues and organizations,” he says. “Congregations refer people to us if the programming members want is unavailable. Similarly, if someone in our group is looking for a deeper sense of community, I refer them to different synagogues, rabbis and Jewish organizations. I’m happy to do that.

“But we’re also aware that there’s a lot more that needs to be done Jewishly to engage all the folks out there. Is there another way of teaching Judaism, studying Torah, praying, and celebrating the holidays and Shabbat that can engage those people whose needs are not being met in existing models?”

I like Rabbi Field's approach a lot. He knows that synagogues aren't reaching some Jews but also recognizes that they offer a sense of community that no alternative community or outreach organization can provide on its own. Contrary to the opinions of some critics, synagogues are not hopeless, but they just need a little help from bridge organizations, like Judaism Your Way and InterfaithFamily.com.

On a random note: in the article, Rabbi Field talks about why he doesn't push the non-Jewish partner to convert. His opinion is that it's a major personal decision and no one should be pressured into it. His explanation echoed a rerun episode of "Seventh Heaven" I happened to catch while I was at the gym last night (which is really my snobby way of pointing out that I don't watch the show regularly).

In this episode, the son of Eric Camden (Stephen Collins), a Christian pastor and the star of the show, is set to marry a Jewish woman who is the daughter of a rabbi played by Richard Lewis. Apparently, the son has been attending synagogue with his Jewish fiance for several months and has been taking a conversion class. In an attempt to sabotage the wedding, Lewis' rabbi suggests that the boy convert immediately prior to the wedding--knowing full well that he'll be scared and Pastor Camden will be pissed. When his son tells him that he plans to convert, Camden gets so upset that he cancels the wedding, arguing that conversion should be a matter of "personal conviction" not parental pressure. The episode is actually a pretty interesting dissection of the whole issue of conversion before intermarriage. It points out one of the pitfalls of pushing conversion. While for Jews, being Jewish often has much more to do with cultural identity than religious belief, for people raised in Christian households, religion is solely a matter of belief. Asking someone to convert who doesn't truly believe--or fully understand--the faith they're adopting is hypocritical at best. Conversion is a powerful, life-changing choice and should never be undertaken lightly, or with a conflicted heart.

The Threat of Messianic Judaism

Our new issue on The Threat of Messianic Judaism came out today. We decided to do a story on Messianic Judaism because on the surface, it appears to offer a harmonization of Christian belief and Jewish ritual practice--"the best of both worlds," so to speak. But dig a little deeper and it becomes clear that it's not, that few Jews consider Messianic Jews to be Jewish, that some Messianic organizations are merely fronts for evangelical Christian missionaries.

In the issue, we look at how Messianic missionaries use a variety of approaches to proselytize to Jews: in Phoenix, Messianic Jews run a Judaica store; on the campus of Colorado State University, they hand out pamphlets with fabricated rabbinical quotes; in New York last summer, Jews for Jesus set up kiosks at a shopping mall; and in Germany, they target Russian Jewish immigrants for conversion.

Something similar to what is happening to Russians in Germany is happening to recent Ethiopian immigrants in Israel. Falash Mura, Ethiopians of Jewish origin who converted to Christianity generations ago under social pressure, have been immigrating to Israel for the last 15 years. Because their Jewish education was so minimal (read: non-existent) in Ethiopia, they are easy prey for the claims of Messianic missionaries who argue that there's no tension between being Jewish and Christian at the same time. Moreover, missionaries in Israel have provided friendship, money and housing to people who typically come to Israel with almost nothing.

A recent JTA article elaborates on the missionary efforts and the controversy over exactly who is doing the proselytizing. Some Ethiopian Israelis claim it is fellow Ethiopians who are taking advantage of Israel's open immigration policy towards Ethiopians, while others say the missionizing is primarily being done by non-Ethiopian Christians. One Ethiopian leader even levels the charge that non-Jewish Ethiopians are paying to marry Falash Mura, moving to Israel, divorcing their Jewish partner and then bringing their families to Israel under the humanitarian Law of Entry, which allows relatives of Israelis to immigrate to Israel.

In any case, all the stories point to what the simplest solution is to missionary tactics, be they from Messianic Jews or traditional evangelical Christians: Jewish education and support. Except in rare cases, missionaries are not forcing anyone to convert. If Jews, in interfaith couples or not, have knowledge and a positive attitude towards Judaism, they are unlikely to be susceptible to a missionary's efforts. Which is just another good reason why Jewish institutions should make every reasonable effort to welcome interfaith families.

Interfaith Couples During the High Holidays and More

A lot of relevant articles today:

Yay for J.!

Part of my job is trawling through Jewish newspapers for stories of interest to interfaith families and those who work with them. Most papers have items of interest every few weeks, but there is one paper that seems to always have intermarriage on its mind: the J., San Francisco's Jewish paper. (It's full and proper name is a doozy: J., the Jewish news weekly of northern California (formerly the JEWISH BULLETIN of Northern California)).

Part of this has to do with the community it serves. While San Francisco's intermarriage rate is actually lower than the national average, it is high for an established Jewish community of its size (228,000, according to a 2004 population survey, which makes it one of the 10 largest in the U.S.). But unlike some other cities with high intermarriage rates, San Francisco doesn't close its doors to interfaith families; indeed, the Bay Area is on the cutting-edge of outreach, and is home to numerous terrific outreach programs, including Building Jewish Bridges in Oakland and Interfaith Connection in San Francisco. This might partly explain why that same 2004 population study showed that interfaith families in the San Francisco area were more Jewishly engaged than interfaith families elsewhere.

Part of it also has to do with who works for the J.: Joanne Catz Hartman, a columnist, is intermarried; Dan Pine, an editor and writer, used to be married to a non-Jew; Rachel Sarah, a columnist and correspondent, is the child of an interfaith relationship; and Rachel Freedenberg, a copy writer, is in an interfaith relationship (which she blogs about for us).

Whatever the reasons for the J.'s continued focus on interfaith families, I would like to say "Mazel tov!" Jewish papers are a low-intensity way that interfaith families can explore Jewish identity; giving them stories they can relate to, and letting them know they're not alone, can help them on their Jewish journey. Keep up the good work.

This week's issue of the J. continues the trend.

There is a story on Rabbi David Booth, the new rabbi at Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto, who credits his non-Jewish college girlfriend (now his Jewish wife) for his decision to become a rabbi. His then-Presbyterian girlfriend's spirituality sparked his interest in his own religion, which was never high as a child. "My dad would sometimes drag me to shul, and I'd go only to please my dad, not to pray--God forbid," he says. "The comfort and meaning I derive from my faith in God is a gift from [my wife]."

Pine also wrote an interesting but flawed column about how he used to play down his Jewishness--act like John Q. Public, he says--around his ex-wife's born-again Christian in-laws. During barbecues in "places like Indianapolis and Yuma," he would talk about the weather or football. "In all those years, no one ever said anything rude to me," he says, but he says, "I imagine my in-laws saw me as some sort of freaky Jewish space alien." He finally gets his confirmation when he hears a secondhand account of a conversation between a relative and his former father-in-law: "'That Dan,' said the relative, 'he's pretty nice for a Jew.' Replied my father-in-law, 'Well, you can't have everything.'"

Pine says he was "stunned, hurt and mad them... It didn't matter how bland, boring and invisible I tried to make my Jewishness, the in-laws still saw me as a hell-bound Christ-killer."

I find his reaction very interesting, because I'm not sure there's anything anti-Semitic about what his father-in-law said (the unnamed relative is another story). Just like we don't consider it anti-Christian for a Jewish parent to want his child to marry a fellow Jew, it's not anti-Jewish for a Christian parent to want his child to marry a Christian. In most parts of the Jewish community, the attitude of "Well, you can't have everything" is actually considered a tolerant response to a child's intermarriage. I'm not quite sure where Pine picked up the idea that expressing disappointment in one's child's marriage to someone of another faith is the same as seeing the child's partner as "a hell-bound Christ-killer."

But, to his credit, Pine ends the story with how his former father-in-law came to his Jewish grandchild's bar mitzvah and sat in the front row, humming along to "the strange tunes of the Amidah, the Aleynu and the Chatzi Kaddish." To my mind, that action speaks a lot louder than the father-in-law's overheard, whispered word.

Amy's Thoughts on Mourning

This is Amy, the Community Connections Coordinator, blogging for the first time ever - from Micah's account (mine's not set up yet). I just couldn't wait until it was set up, because I had some thoughts about today, being that it's the 5th anniversary of what I don't think any of us will ever be able to look at the same, the date, 9/11. I was thinking about how in Judaism, we have this concept of a one year period of mourning, and then when it's over, we recognize the anniversary of a death each by commemorating a "yahrzeit" - literally a remembrance of a person or an event. A yahrzeit can be a powerful thing; the wounds are no longer fresh, but each year, we never forget and publicly or privately express our own pain of loss and remembrance.

I started thinking about how on this anniversary, even thought it's been 5 years later, how raw many of us still feel. I take comfort in Jewish death rituals, but I wonder how many others haven't been able to rid themselves of their pain. I surround myself in community, and in family, and in friends, but today, I feel sad. If you are in an interfaith relationship, or you are part of an interfaith family, I wonder how (or if) your mourning changes. I share the same traditions and customs with my husband - but what if he practiced another religion than I did? Would each of our own mourning practices comfort each other? How does that get reconciled? Or does it?

When we lose someone or something, we often turn to comfort rituals, things that we know and understand. If you grew up in a Catholic houshold, you might expect to be having a wake. If you're Jewish, your concept might be to expect 7 days of sitting shiva (a period of mourning where guests come to your home and as a comunity prayers are said). Sometimes we don't know what we're "supposed" to do when we have a loss. Our comfort rituals as a country 5 years ago brought many of us together, in churches, in synagogues, in mosques, in town halls, and more. Our mourning was felt as a country, and I wonder how our faith(s) have continued to help us heal - or has it?

I heard the djs on the radio on my ride in this morning talking about how numb they felt. They talked about the thousands of families who were still in mourning, even now 5 years later. It made me think about my own numbness, and my own mourning. No, I didn't lose anyone personally during this atrocity. But, still I mourned. So I pulled into the parking lot and did my own moment of silence, and made a mental kaddish (the prayer we say when someone dies or on their yahrzeit). Then I thought about those families - and no doubt many of you, that did your own moments of silence today. I'd like to believe that our prayers were all mingled together.

Tomorrow is a new day, but as we exit our comfort ritual zones, I will think about how we are all in this together, and how our mourning is mixed with our different traditions.

What We Can Learn from the Zoroastrians

A few days ago, the New York Times published an article by Laurie Goodstein titled “Zoroastrians Keep the Faith, and Keep Dwindling.” It says nothing about Judaism, but the similarities between the issues the Zoroastrian community and the Jewish community relating to issues of intermarriage are uncanny. If you just replace the word Zoroastrian with Jewish and priest with rabbi, this article could be about the American Jewish community.

“We were once at least 40, 50 million—can you imagine?” said Mr. Antia, senior priest at the fire temple here in suburban Chicago. “At one point we had reached the pinnacle of glory of the Persian Empire and had a beautiful religious philosophy that governed the Persian kings.

”Where are we now? Completely wiped out,” he said. “It pains me to say, in 100 years we won’t have many Zoroastrians.”

There is a palpable panic among Zoroastrians today—not only in the United States, but also around the world—that they are fighting the extinction of their faith, a monotheistic religion that many scholars say is at least 3,000 years old…

While Zoroastrians once dominated an area stretching from what is now Rome and Greece to India and Russia, their global population has dwindled to 190,000 at most, and perhaps as few as 124,000…

”Survival has become a community obsession,” said Dina McIntyre, an Indian-American lawyer in Chesapeake, Va., who has written and lectured widely on her religion.

The Zoroastrians’ mobility and adaptability has contributed to their demographic crisis. They assimilate and intermarry, virtually disappearing into their adopted cultures. And since the faith encourages opportunities for women, many Zoroastrian women are working professionals who, like many other professional women, have few children or none.

Despite their shrinking numbers, Zoroastrians… are divided over whether to accept intermarried families and converts and what defines a Zoroastrian. An effort to create a global organizing body fell apart two years ago after some priests accused the organizers of embracing “fake converts” and diluting traditions.

”They feel that the religion is not universal and is ethnic in nature, and that it should be kept within the tribe,” said Jehan Bagli, a retired chemist in Toronto who is a priest, or mobbed, and president of the North American Mobed Council, which includes about 100 priests. “This is a tendency that to me sometime appears suicidal. And they are prepared to make that sacrifice.”

Their obsession with survival, their mobility and adaptability, their conflict over what defines a Zoroastrian—the similarities to the Jewish community are amazing. They become downright eerie as you continue to read:

…the intermarriage rate in North America is now nearly 50 percent.

According to the 2000-01 National Jewish Population Survey, 47 percent of new marriages involving Jews were intermarriages. And the range of Zoroastrians’ response to the their declining numbers is also quite similar to the spectrum of Jewish response to intermarriage:

Zoroastrians believe in free will, so in matters of religion they do not believe in compulsion. They do not proselytize.

Ferzin Patel, who runs a support group for 20 intermarried couples in New York, said that while the Zoroastrians in the group adored their faith and wanted to teach it to their children, they in no way wanted to compel their spouses to convert.

”In the intermarriage group, I don’t think anyone feels that someone should forfeit their religion just for Zoroastrianism,” Ms. Patel said.

Despite, or because of, the high intermarriage rate, some Zoroastrian priests refuse to accept converts or to perform initiation ceremonies for adopted children or the children of intermarried couples, especially when the father is not Zoroastrian. The ban on these practices is far stronger in India and Iran than in North America.

”As soon as you do it, you start diluting your ethnicity, and one generation has an intermarriage, and the next generation has more dilution and the customs become all fuzzy and they eventually disappear,” said Jal N. Birdy, a priest in Corona, Calif., who will not perform weddings of mixed couples. “That would destroy my community, which is why I won’t do it.”

Goodstein concludes with an example of a woman who sounds like many of our readers and writers.

The peril and the hope for Zoroastrianism are embodied in a child of the diaspora, Rohena Elavia Ullal, 27, a physical therapist in suburban Chicago. Ms. Ullal knew from an early age that her parents wanted her to marry another Zoroastrian…

Ms. Ullal’s college boyfriend is also the child of Indian immigrants to the United States, but he is Hindu. [They married on Saturday and had two ceremonies—one Hindu, one Zoroastrian.] But Ms. Ullal says that before they even became engaged, they talked about her desire to raise their children as Zoroastrians.

”It’s scary; we’re dipping down in numbers,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt his parents, but he doesn’t the kind of responsibility, whereas I do.”

One thing Jews can possibly take from this article is evidence that the traditional approach to intermarriage, which is a combination of prohibition and rejection, is not effective. The priest in California who refuses to do mixed marriages, accept converts or perform initiation ceremonies for the children of intermarriages says breaking traditional Zoroastrian prohibitions “would destroy my community, which is why I won’t do it.”

But, as the article demonstrates, the number of Zoroastrians is dwindling regardless of this line-in-the-sand kind of thinking. Moreover, by forsaking the children of mixed marriages, he very well may be contributing to the decline of Zoroastrianism. The same could be said for those in the Jewish community who would disregard the opportunity to welcome intermarried families and embrace their children.

The response of Rohena Elavia Ullel and Ferzin Patel, who want to raise their children as Zoroastrian but don’t want to push their husbands to convert, is more realistic in our diverse world. And their response certainly has a better chance of stemming Zoroastrian population decline than the outright rejection of the intermarried. The Jewish community faces the same issues. Whose lead do we want to follow?

Touring the Temple

Before I went to Salt Lake City for the RNA conference, I was urged by my publisher, Ed Case, to take a tour of Temple Square, the world headquarters of the Church of Latter-day Saints and the site of the original Mormon Temple. Since I always do everything my boss tells me, I snuck out on Friday afternoon to take the tour. It was a fascinating experience, and it has some interesting ramifications for the Jewish community, I think.

The tour begins unlike any tour you've ever been on. After you pass the fleet of young couples being photographed after their wedding at the Temple (which apparently can happen any time of day, any day of the week), as soon as you enter the Temple Square grounds, two missionaries approach you. They introduce themselves, ask your name and ask if you'd like to go on a tour. There are no tickets, no lines, no wait. Even if they only have three people--as my group had--they happily lead you on a tour through the grounds.

The centerpiece of the site is the Temple, which is reserved for Church members only, but they take you through the visitor center, where you ascend a broad, gentle spiral ramp up to a room with a domed ceiling painted night blue with stars, planets and galaxies. In the center is a 20-foot-tall marble statue of Jesus--Christus, as they call it--and you sit on cushioned benches or couches while a booming recorded voice tells you about the glories of embracing Mormonism. The tour ends in the Assembly Hall (which looks like an early 20th century church), and you sit on wooden pews made of white pine painted by hand, with combs and feathers, to look like oak. There, your missionaries tell you how wonderful it is to have a savior who embraces them and is with them at all times. It ends with them singing "I Am A Child of God," a song they learned as children.

As I listened to the singing, it occurred to me how easy it was for the missionaries to communicate why their religion matters to them, and why it should matter to their audience. And it made me think about how difficult it is for Jews to explain why their religion matters to them, and how it's especially hard for Jews to explain why their religion should matter to others.

In our work at InterfaithFamily.com, we encourage families to make Jewish choices, but it can be difficult to articulate why. There are certainly very good reasons--a rich tradition of study and critique, a flexibility in belief and practice levels, a focus on righteous action over thought or the afterlife, a series of diverse and unique holidays, especially Shabbat and Passover--but Judaism doesn't have a simple selling point, nothing to match the succintness of my tourguide's "It's so wonderful to have a savior who loves me." Judaism lacks what marketers call the elevator pitch, a short description of what you do that you can tell somebody while you happen to share an elevator ride between floors.

There are a lot of reasons for the lack of this pitch, from our complex understanding of God to the great spectrum of differing approaches to Judaism to the ethnic/cultural element of Judaism, and I don't want to get into those (nor do I think I'm sufficiently qualified). But I think if we came up with an elevator pitch, a quick, persuasive response to the question "Why Judaism?", we might have more success convincing intermarried families to make Jewish choices, and more success getting born Jews to reconnect with their religious heritage. If you have any ideas for the content of this pitch--or know of any good sources who have already developed this pitch--we'd love to hear them.