The Associated Press and Officiation

Associated Press religion writer Rachel Zoll recently wrote an article about
the difficulties interfaith couples can face trying to find a rabbi to
officiate at their wedding. She gives examples of rabbis whose status as
rabbis is questionable, who do not respect Jewish tradition in the weddings
they conduct, and who charge unreasonable fees for their services.

Rabbi Lev Baesh and I were interviewed and photographed for the article. We
told her that there is a trend for more and more legitimate and respected
rabbis who do respect Jewish tradition to officiate at intermarriages
without charging unreasonable fees.

In a sidebar to the main article, Zoll wrote the following Tips for Interfaith Couples:

Jewish groups are trying to help interfaith couples avoid the anxiety and potential risks of searching on the Web to find someone who will marry them.

Interfaithfamily.com, an advocacy and education group based in Newton, Mass., has hired Reform Rabbi Lev Baesh to start a free referral service for mixed-faith couples planning their weddings. Baesh also checks up on couples six months after they marry to see how they're faring.

Unfortunately, very few publications picked up and ran the Tips, and worse, some publications ran the photograph of Rabbi Baesh and me with the article and without the Tips, leaving readers to assume that we are associated with the unscrupulous rabbis described in the article itself.

InterfaithFamily.com would like interfaith couples and their relatives and friends who read Zoll's article to know that there are respected rabbis who officiate, and that our Jewish Clergy Officiation Referral Service is a way to find them.

Ay, There's the Snub

Leave it to Julie Wiener of The Jewish Week to come up with an original take on Noah Feldman's The Orthodox Paradox.

Rather than use her column as an opportunity to critique or praise Feldman, she ponders the value of the snub--both Maimonides School's snub of Feldman and Feldman's snub of the school and the Modern Orthodox community. Does the snub work? Does it lead to a desired change in behavior, or does it just piss people off?

Wiener certainly leans toward the latter option. Feldman's case provides a double dose of evidence that the snub doesn't work: Feldman intermarried and was unashamed of his life decisions despite his exclusion from the announcement section of his day school's alumni newsletter while the Modern Orthodox community has responded to Feldman's essay not by reconsidering some of its policies but by counterattacking Feldman with often virulent force.

Wiener relates the "the snub factor" to the question of officiation at intermarriages, which we have taken a big interest in lately:

By refusing to officiate, are rabbis discouraging intermarriage and defending the integrity of Judaism, which has traditionally viewed intermarriage as damaging? Or are they simply pushing people away?

Wiener also lays responsibility on the snubbed as well as the snubber:

Bob Levy, the Reform rabbi who performed my Ann Arbor, Mich., wedding back in 1998, says he doesn’t accept the argument that refusing to officiate will discourage Jews from marrying non-Jews — but he also objects to “the idea that if I don’t marry someone then I’m dooming them to a life of never feeling welcome in a synagogue.”

“It’s my job to create avenues of openness that people can take,” he explains. “But it’s the responsibility of the individual to find his or her own place in life.”

Levy's philosophy is very close to our own Rabbi Lev Baesh's. He humbly feels that he is neither gatekeeper nor savior of Judaism. He'll help anyone explore Judaism, but he's under no illusion that all, or most, of the people he helps will become Talmud-quoting synagogue-goers.

Wiener's article also points out a worrying trend of snubbing among younger rabbis. She relates the story of how a couple found that younger rabbis were less receptive to officiating at an intermarriage than older ones. A 2004 Jewish Outreach Institute survey found that younger rabbis were generally more traditional and conservative in their outlook than their older colleagues.

None of us--not InterfaithFamily.com, not JOI, not Julie Wiener, not Rabbi Bob Levy--can say with certainty that welcoming any particular intermarried family will lead them to greater Jewish engagement, but we have plenty of proof that not welcoming them will lead to greater alienation.

The Rising Tide on Officiation

Not to toot our own horn, but we appear to have tapped into something with the hiring of Rabbi Lev Baesh as the director of our Rabbinic Circle and rabbinic officiation referral service. Julie Wiener of The Jewish Week has written her most recent "In the Mix" column on the growing interest in officiation at intermarriages. At last year's convention of Reform rabbis, Rabbi Jerome Davidson, of Temple Beth El in Long Island, advocated for the Reform rabbis' association to change its position on officiation; currently its official line says that intermarriage "should be discouraged," but leaves the decision on officiating to the discretion of individual rabbis.

Meanwhile, Rabbi Erica Greenbaum, a recent graduate of Hebrew Union College, the Reform rabbinical seminary, recently completed her senior thesis on rabbinic officiation at intermarriage.

Rabbi Greenbaum, who is director of Jewish life at the Jewish Community Project Downtown in Lower Manhattan, says the research for her thesis was heartening overall.

“There continues to be a perception in some parts of the non-Reform community that any rabbi officiating at intermarriages is a shady character just doing it for the money,” she [says]. “That’s not a fair characterization. Certainly there are those people, but lots of rabbis on both sides are doing what they’re doing with a lot of integrity.”

Further, we're aware of two studies in different stages that look at the impact of rabbinic officiation on Jewish involvement.

To all this, we say "Mazel tov!" We've long been of the opinion that the Jewish community is missing a golden opportunity to attract interfaith couples to Judaism through officiation at intermarriages. Nobody yet knows whether a rabbi's involvement in an interfaith wedding makes it more likely for an interfaith couple to engage with Judaism, but it certainly can't hurt. A rabbi's involvement in an interfaith wedding gives a couple a personal, emotional connection to the Jewish community that they might otherwise not have. We have received numerous thank you notes from couples who we've helped find a Jewish officiant.

In the coming months, I suspect we will hear even more about this issue.

An Unnoticed Outreach Hero

Rabbi Abraham J. Klausner died on June 28. The obituaries in the Jewish press, including JTA and the Jerusalem Post, described how Rabbi Klausner, the leader of a Reform synagogue in Yonkers, N.Y., for 25 years, was the first Jewish chaplain in the US Army to enter Dachau and had been a leading advocate for Holocaust survivors. The New York Times obituary tells that story too, with quotes from Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, that Rabbi Klausner was "the father figure" for more than 30,000 survivors found at Dachau, and was instrumental in improving conditions in the displaced persons camps after the war. But the Times tells one more story about Rabbi Klausner that the Jewish press didn't mention.

In 1986, Rabbi Klausner wrote a book titled Weddings: A Complete Guide to All Religious and Interfaith Marriage Services. The book, though out of print, is still available from online sources. it contains texts for wedding services from many religious traditions with suggestions for combining texts of different faiths.

The Times notes:

For Rabbi Klausner, refusing to marry interfaith couples was a mistake. "It's a very traumatic experience to have a clergyman reject your judgment," he told The New York Times in 1989. "I don't think this is the role of religion, which should be to heal and help."

I don't know why the JTA and Jerusalem Post didn't mention Rabbi Klausner's stance on rabbinic officiation at intermarriages in their obituaries. I think it was a lost opportunity to show that such an obviously wonderful Jewish hero was willing to take a stance on what remains, over 20 years later, a divisive issue.

Coincidentally, Rabbi Lev Baesh starts work today as InterfaithFamily.com's first Rabbinic Circle Director. Part of his work will be to create resources for intermarrying couples and the rabbis who work with them. We'll explore whether we can incorporate some of Rabbi Klausner's work, or possibly reprint it, as part of that effort--an idea for which we thank our friend Rabbi David Kudan.

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.

Difficult Decisions

Greetings InterfaithFamily.com readers! I wanted to share with you all a very interesting experience I had the other night. Quite often, my position here at InterfaithFamily.com as the Community Connections Coordinator intersects with my "real life" outside of work - as evident in the story I'm about to tell you. Outside of working here, one of my volunteer hats is to be the Social Action chair of my synagogue board. Part of this role is to attend the monthly temple board meetings to give a report. Monday night was our monthly meeting, however, it was like no other meeting I had ever attended. The rabbi of our congregation is retiring after over 30 years of service to the community, and our congregation has the daunting task of finding a new rabbi to be the spiritual leader of what is a small, but very warm - and extremely diverse - Reform congregation. Our search committee and long range planning committee brought a candidate to meet with us at our monthly meeting, and we had the opportunity to ask this rabbi as many questions we could come up with!

The questions started innocently enough, asking this rabbi about leadership style, generic rabbi-type questions, and even some questions about the weekly Torah portion that were used to open the discussion. The conversation turned however, when several people started asking this rabbi questions about working with interfaith families, within the religious school setting, Shabbat services, holidays, and more. Everyone kept dancing around the subject as to whether this rabbi officiates at interfaith weddings, and knowing how many of you I hear from on a daily basis, I couldn't take it anymore and had to ask what I knew was a difficult question. I finally raised my hand and asked the officiation question, and then the rabbi started to laugh, as did everyone else - and the rabbi said, "well that's what you all really want to know isn't it?!?" and everyone was like, umm, yes!! What followed was a really interesting discussion about how this rabbi has never officiated at an interfaith wedding, but talked about being torn about the issue and doesn't know if it will never be. This rabbi doesn't currently officiate, but described to us what kinds of welcoming steps would be taken to ensure that if he were approached by a couple, that couple would walk away from the experience feeling like a relationship could be formed and that regardless of whether the officiation would take place, that interfaith couple would have a welcome home at our congregation. He said a lot more about it, but unfortunately, no one was allowed to take notes during this time so I'm doing my best to remember exactly what was said.

After the rabbi left the meeting, it turned into a much larger discussion amongst the board about how important was it for us to hire a rabbi who officiated. None of the greater Providence rabbis (where I live) officiate. Everyone on my board knows what I do here and we spent a great deal of time talking about how what a difficult decision it is for a rabbi to make. They asked me to recount what kinds of things I hear from couples, etc. - both the positives and negatives, and I truly appreciate so many of you sharing your stories with me over the past 8 months.

I don't know what direction the congregation will go with this rabbi as I don't actually have a huge amount of say in the final decision. But this experience taught me that while many of you are stuggling with interfaith issues, our spiritual leaders are struggling right along with us.

Does Jewish Marriage Require a Rabbi?

There was a nice article in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent last week by Ryan Teitman called "Rabbi Deconstructs Marriage, in All Its Assorted Permutations." It's little more than a description of a Jewish marriage class taught by Rabbi Yair Robinson of Shir Ami-Bucks County Congregation, but it includes some little-discussed insights.

For example, the article points out "that a rabbi [is] not a necessary element in the Jewish wedding ceremony." As counter-intuitive as it may seem, a Jewish wedding does not require a rabbi to make it binding.

Robinson also speaks about how "many couples are not saying that they are interfaith, but that they're Jewish families with a non-Jewish partner," and how that "warms my heart."

While neither Robinson nor Shir Ami's head rabbi officiate at intermarriages, he says both of them will help interfaith couples with all the prepatory work, "from assisting them in developing a marriage service to following up with the marriage plans as they develop."

There's not to much comment on here besides that Robinson sounds like a thoughtful, sensitive rabbi who does everything for interfaith families that his principles will allow. That's worth celebrating.

New Approaches to Officiation in D.C., S.F.

IFF is in the early stages of developing a resource for rabbis on the issue of officiation at interfaith weddings. It's a sticky issue for rabbis; the Conservative movement forbids its rabbis from officiating at interfaith weddings, but obviously there are a significant number of interfaith couples in their congregations. The Reform movement's position is more nuanced: the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the association for Reform rabbis, has a resolution on the books that disapproves of officiation but also leaves the decision up to individual rabbis.

Once a rabbi decides he will officiate, the situation often gets trickier: What are the conditions? How do you announce the decision to your congregation? The third-largest Reform congregation in the U.S., The Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C., recently went through this process, as detailed in a Washington Jewish Week article. Judging from the article, it sounds like they've thought long and hard about the decision, and have come up with a carefully crafted policy that is fair to the needs of interfaith couples and respectful of individual rabbis' principles.

Meanwhile, a rabbi at a Conservative congregation near San Francisco, Congregation B'nai Shalom, has taken a unique approach to officiation at interfaith marriage, according to this article in the J., the Jewish news weekly of northern California. Rather than just saying no to interfaith couples who come to him asking to be married, Rabbi Gordon Freeman directs them to a group of retired judges who will perform civil ceremonies with some Jewish elements. His restrictions seem a bit severe:

...in working with [the judges], Freeman has been very clear about what is permissible and what is not at such a wedding.

For example, he won’t allow the breaking of the glass, since a non-Jew has no connection to the First Temple, of which the glass-breaking is symbolic. He won’t allow the statement that accompanies the ring exchange, consecrating the bride to the husband according to the laws of Moses and Israel. He will allow a ketubah, as long as they write it themselves.

But, nonetheless, his approach is a very good start, and we commend Rabbi Freeman for looking for innovative ways to keep interfaith couples Jewishly engaged. The J. apparently concurs with our view.