The “Statement on Jewish Vitality” falls short. But we can make effective Jewish programs for interfaith couples and families!
By Marion L. Usher, Ph.D
Three times each week nursery school children meet after their daycare program for a Jewish program called MoEd DC at the Washington DCJCC. The focus is on Hebrew study through immersion and Judaics balanced with play and homework time. It is a small, effective, opportunity that brings young interfaith families into the Jewish community. Mothers can learn how to bake challah at any of the Whole Food Markets throughout the Washington area, a regular program sponsored by PJ Library. On Sunday mornings, a Jewish focused story-reading session occurs for young children serving interfaith and Jewish families living in the city. These are but a few of the many low-barrier entrance programs into the Jewish community, and we need to learn from them.
All these programs stand in sharp contrast to the latest “Statement on Jewish Vitality,” which just saddened me. The solutions it offered were unexciting and are unlikely to have any impact on young interfaith couples. The study suggests that “effective responses are feasible” – but none are proposed specifically for interfaith couples and families.
The survey tells us that 80% of those raised Reform and who married between 2000 and 2003 are intermarried – then, this group is never mentioned again. We dare not ignore couples like this if we wish to strengthen our Jewish community. Many of the interfaith couples do want “Jewish,” but they want it to be relevant to them, to meet their needs, and not ours! It is essential that those of us who work with interfaith couples and families tell a different story, as we know it.
Up until recently, there has been a dearth of creative programming for young interfaith couples and families. Community leaders have been wringing their hands and looking to congregations to fill this void. However, interfaith couples and families tend to be “Jewish building averse.” They cannot afford synagogue dues, they don’t particularly enjoy their parents’ form of Judaism, and they would prefer to be the creators of their own experiences. Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Family Foundation, said it best when he described this report as a vertical hierarchy devoid of open discussion and solutions imposed by the hierarchy.
Another very successful program created for this interfaith and unaffiliated population is “CityJews PopUp: Shabbat.” The target audience is urban families who have made a commitment to city living rather than moving out to the suburbs. In the last calendar year, we have held three pop-up Shabbat dinners. Thirty people attended the first one held in my home. Two others were held in a repurposed Wonder bread factory, an edgy space in a recently gentrified area. Each Shabbat dinner drew 50 and 70 people respectively, most are interfaith, others are Jewish and unaffiliated.
Five Jewish agencies and two synagogues came together to sponsor “CityJews PopUp: Shabbat.” The synergy between all of us with similar goals for engagement and meeting these families’ needs resulted in a whole new group of families experiencing a central tenet of Judaism, celebrating Shabbat together.
So what is success? What is possible and how can we continue programming for this cohort? What’s next? More relevant programming!
With an expanding email list in hand, PJ Library and Love and Religion created two new programs, “Make Room for Latkes” and “Make Room for Matzo.” InterfaithFamilyDC, the Jewish Food Experience, Washington DCJCC, and the Jewish Social Service Agency have now partnered with us. Each of these programs has a children’s component focusing on a craft project, a social justice component, and a food aspect. Families go home with a bag filled with tokens of Judaism including Hanukah or Passover prayers, recipes, and a list of community resources. The results were impressive. In the first year, “Make Room for Latkes” had 50 people. Last year, 100 people participated.
These vignettes represent anecdotal evidence that creative programming draws interfaith families towards Judaism. In talking with the attendees, they feel this is exactly what they want. A cynic might call this “Jewish light.” On the other hand, for many, this is the first time they are attending a program with Jewish content and have put their foot into the Jewish community.
With new and creative ideas, and by exploring relevant ways to involve interfaith families, we can change the community’s feeling of helplessness to one of inclusion and vitality. Please, no more reports with old ideas, only interesting ones that help interfaith couples and families imagine being Jewish and see that Judaism adds value to their lives.
Marion L. Usher, Ph.D, is Creator of “Love and Religion: An Interfaith Workshop for Jews and Their Partners.”
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Dear Dr, Usher,
I truly appreciate your response to our statement — that’s not simple colleagial courtesy. i mean it: We who framed and signed this statement want(ed) Jewish community thought leaders to engage in an informed and informative dialogue on the issues we raised and I, for one, am very happy you’ve taken the time to respond.
Now, for the issue at hand. I VERY much favor efforts to extend Jewish educational enrichment to intermarried families (and to all Jews, for that matter). And I (along with Rabbi Joy Levitt) have written about the need to treat non-Jewish family members as Jewish as they wish to be treated … If non-Jew is willing to say kiddush, then show her/him the way!
That said, given the very low rates at which the grandchildren of intermarried Jews are being raised as Jews by religion (9%), and given that NO OTHER ETHNIC OR RELIGIOUS group in America has perpetuated serious identity with the group after intermarriage, I want to ask you a simple question: Why not support BOTH efforts to engage the intermarried AND efforts to raise the rate of in-marriage?
On a broader level, I really believe we have a demand side problem more than a supply side. We need more Jews who want to find a way to express their Jewish commitment. We actually have a pretty good (well: GREAT) product — Jewishness, Judaism, the Jewish People, Yiddishkeit, Torah — call it what you will. It’s in the hands of many creative people. The problem is that there’ll be fewer of us in another 30-40 years. Why not work to make sure we have Jews around as well as makng sure with have a good Jewish culture and communities to engage them.
Last, may I suggest you/we call intermarried families intermarried and NOT interfaith? Being Jewish is NOT only a religion. In fact most people in the Pew study said that it’s a culture or ancestry, and few said it was a religion. Such is more the case for both the Jews and non-Jews in inter-group or intermarred relationships: Their religious commitment is raher low. Remember, when Ruth became Jewish, she first said, “Your People will be my People.” And then she said, “Your God will be my God.” Let’s foreground our collective identity as a People, albeit a People who have a beautiful, variegated, and very enriching religion, religious culture and religious heritage.
On that note … An Shabbat Shalom to you and your family.
Steven M. Cohen Steve34NYC@AOL.Com
Marion, thank you for this piece. In particular, your point about developing new and creative ideas to involve intermarried families in the Jewish community really resonated with me-I’ve been thinking about it a lot because the Jewish Funders Network is running a matching grant, in honor of Michael Douglas being awarded the Genesis Prize this past year, to do EXACTLY what you are talking about!
More information about the matching grant can be found at http://intermarriedfamilies-genesisprizematch.org/; I’m so looking forward to seeing what kinds of innovative programs come from this grant opportunity!
Thank you so much for your comments. I would be pleased to talk with you about all the programming that I do. For dating and engaged I have been doing a program called “Love and Religion: An Interfaith Workshop for Jews and their Partners.” If you go to my website, JewishInterfaithCouples.com, you can read all about it and also view a video about the workshop.
I will also go to your site. I am looking for funding for my “Pop-Up Shabbat” Program.
Marion Usher
Thank you Steven for replying. As you know, I have been working with interfaith couples and families for 20 years running “Love and Religion: An Interfaith Workshop for Jews and Their Partners.” I have a cohort of over 600 couples and this is the group I would be delighted for you to look at them statistically. For a few years, I gathered an exit poll survey and found that over 80% of these couples that attended my workshop were going to raise their children Jewish. My workshop is now being run in 7 cities throughout the US.
While you state that only 9% of their grandchildren will be Jewish, it would be interesting to look at my cohort and see how they are doing on their Jewish journey. They will not have grandchildren yet, but they do have teenagers and college age children.
There is another important variable. I highly doubt that the cohort [you/or the other researcher who did the grandchild study] attended any workshop discussing the issue of religion. These sessions did not exit in those times. I think there will be a marked difference in those couples who have dealt with the issue of religion before marriage and how they will co-create a religious life in their homes than those couples who were married 35 years ago, were interfaith, and now have grandchildren. The Jewish community shunned this population at that time.
Yes, of course, I agree with you that all types of Jewish educational programming is the way to have more Jews in the world. That is exactly why I quoted the programs that we are doing here in DC on an on-going basis.
Thank you again for your comments and please, let’s continue this dialogue. I do this work because I feel as Jews we have a wonderful heritage and religious life.
Marion Usher
Dear Dr. Marion Usher, We really have no differences whatsoever about the Jewish commitment of participants in your program or about the extraordinary value of engaging and educating the intermarried. That said, excellent educational programs such as yours reach only a very small fraction of the population. The results I quoted are from the Pew study, and they refer to current parents, generally people in their 30s and 40s. Among those who had one Jewish parent, just 9% are raising their children as Jews in the Jewish religion (by their own testimony). As much as 59% are raising their children as non-Jews.
These patterns are quite consistent with patterns among other ethnic and religious groups: The descendants of the intermarried hardly identify with the ethnic or religious identities of their grandparents, be they Mexican, or Italian or Methodist or Catholic.
Given all that, if we care about Jewish continuity, why not advocate a combination of measures: educate the intermarried (as you do), extend more invitations to the non-Jewish partners to convert to Judaism (or identity as Jews), and advocate increased investment in all sorts of Jewish educational and engagement experiences for adolescents and young adults so as to raise their levels of in-marriage. One strategy doesn’t negate the others. Would you agree?
Steven M. Cohen, Steve34NYC@AOL.Com
Yes, of course, I agree with the concept of “more is better” as a way of offering all ways of introducing Judaism as a a way of life, the earlier the better. We are now touching on one of my favorite topics which is making Jewish Day Care & early childhood education available & affordable. Free would even be better!
Again, I appreciate this discussion & your interest in my work. Many thanks