By Jody Passanisi and Shara Peters
We are Jews married to non-Jews. We were each also raised in homes with only one Jewish parent. We are both leaders in Jewish day schools, raising our children Jewish and sending them to Jewish day schools. We are deeply committed to the future of the Jewish people.
And yet, we hear: “Intermarriage is the death of the Jewish people.” Often. And when we stand up for our parents, for our spouses, and truthfully, for our children, the response we often hear is: “Well, you’re an exception.”
Synagogue participation is dropping and has been. Jewish day schools across the country are struggling with low enrollment. When looking for answers, Jewish leaders have often zeroed in on intermarriage as the doom of the Jewish people, and that is wrongheaded. It’s similar to taking an abstinence-only approach to teaching sex ed. And guess what? It’s not working.
When a young person has internalized that intermarriage is a shonda (tragedy), but then falls in love with someone who isn’t Jewish, it can make them feel the need to choose between their heritage and the person that they love. If that young person eventually chooses their partner over their heritage, it comes with a strong sense of shame. We know. We’ve felt it.
We don’t always talk about it because we aren’t being radically welcomed, and instead feel shamed into saying nothing about feeling that we don’t completely fit in. We look for places that do welcome us. We want to be part of the Jewish community.
Instead of teaching of the evils of intermarriage, institutions should focus on the importance of raising a Jewish family and acting ethically in the world. We both received similar messages from our own families: find someone who you love, who loves you, who shares your values, and who is committed to raising a Jewish family with you. With so many Jews becoming unaffiliated, this is important for young people to internalize regardless of the religion of their spouse. Decriminalize us. Place the focus on where it should be: how we raise our children, how we act in the world, and in turn, how we shape our future.
“Well, you’re an exception,” again, says the person who just said to me that intermarriage is killing the future of the Jews. Maybe that’s because it’s hard to want to be part of a club where the members say that you, your partner, and your family are the death of the future of that club’s existence.
Now imagine that you’ve dedicated your whole career to the education of members of that club and the continuity of Jewish education, helping to raise ethical kids who are going to continue Jewish life.
We don’t believe we are the exception.
There is a significant fear in pockets of the Jewish community that intermarriage will dilute and end the community.
We propose the opposite, that if we do NOT welcome Jews who think of themselves as different in some way, if we don’t radically open our spaces to people who want to be part of a Jewish community who wants them – that will be the eventual end of the Jewish community. We have done an amazing job over history of adjusting our traditions to fit our geography, the cultural traditions of the diaspora, and we have endured.
The theme of Jewish particularism can be traced back to our very beginnings. And it’s something that we’ve always wrestled with. Moses’s wife wasn’t Jewish. Just saying.
We are not exceptions. We represent this shift and change. We want to be a part of the community. We are raising the next generation that will take that community forward in a way that allows Judaism to endure.
Welcome us.
Jody Passanisi is the Director of Middle School at Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto, CA and Shara Peters is the Head of School at Adat Ari El Day School in Valley Village, CA. Their children go to their schools as well – both of which have been very welcoming to their families.
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Jody and Shara, thank you for this thoughtful and well-articulated piece. Here at InterfaithFamily, we couldn’t agree with you more! I’m grateful to you both for sharing your stories, and hope that more interfaith families join you in doing so.
Allies and friends of interfaith families reading this—consider taking the Pledge to Support Interfaith Families: https://www.interfaithfamily.com/about_us_advocacy/advocacy/pledge-to-support-interfaith-couples-and-families/
Perhaps it’s hard to measure (maybe not?) how much of the intermarried community is Jewishly committed. I have no doubt it exists. Though is it safe to say that the majority of individuals who do intermarry are not likely to have been Jewishly engaged or interested years before they ever met and married and have no intention to ever do so? I’d say there are two parts to this issue: Those who are involved and make a deliberate choice to continue Jewish life and those who simply haven’t had the exposure or interest in general. Engagement, learning and community–however that’s defined especially during childhood years–is what any Jewish family, whether Jewish intermarried or not is what we have in common.
Great article and well said.
The only question we should ask of anyone entering the community of the Jewish People is “Will you have a Jewish home and raise your children .Jewishly?” If the answer is yes, then we have a duty to welcome each such person into the fold and embrace them lovingly.
The numbers are telling the story, as increasingly more mixed couples are raising their children to be .Jewish. And if we follow this path, then the population of Jews in the world will actually grow.
See my forthcoming article.
Thank you for sharing
Thank you so much for sharing. It’s painful to be invalidated by a community who should provide a sense of safety. Something I think about a lot is that we’re missing out on so much wisdom and feedback from non-Jewish/Jewish adjacent partners about how to make our community more inclusive, and how to emphasize the values that we are proud of. These are the people we should turn to to help guide the future of our community, because they are our community.
Absolutely! Agree 100% Thank You!
This is all well and good if you aren’t committed to an observant Jewish life and don’t hope for an observant Jewish life for your children. By observant, I mean buying into the concept of Jewish law, with Shabbat, Kashrut, Chagim, and shulgoing. That’s what I want for my family, what we have modelled. So, we’ve told our children to only date Jews. Never put yourself in the position of potentially falling in love with someone who isn’t a Jews. (To head off the screamers, yes, a convert IS a Jew.) To me, intermarriage is an enormous problem. I’m not thinking ethnicity, or challah, or dancing with the Torah, but an all-encompassing, Jewish law valued, complete life. I see more clearly that the Jewish people will be irretrievably divided into a tiny Jewish people and a huge Jew-ish people.
wonderful piece – thank you for sharing!!
I am not Jewish. However, my study of the bible leads me to learn about the chosen ones. And the googling of a certain word ultimately led me here. For a long time, I didn’t truly understand what unequally yoked meant. Curlytop hit it home though. Before I started dating my husband, he was Baptist. I let him know my beliefs and relationship with my Creator and told him he could convert or leave it. He couldn’t lead me Baptist. He couldn’t lead our potential children in his Baptist ways. So he converted, not even knowing if we would actually be together…much less get married. For me, it is important for us to have understanding of what we’re doing (as one) so we can pray together, learn together, teach together. And I don’t have to be the “head” of my family, because I already have one.
From my experience, the answer posed by Susan Berger–Though is it safe to say that the majority of individuals who do intermarry are not likely to have been Jewishly engaged or interested years before they ever met and married and have no intention to ever do so– is a big NO. In my circles. the Jews I know who intermarried are as Jewishly connected as those who married other Jews, myself included. What the authors point out and does impact them is when they are made to feel like they are part of a problem or are harmful in some way. I still, thirty years later, will get comments like “your last name isn’t a Jewish name”. We need to embrace these families who want to live Jewishly.
The problem in the Jewish community is assimilation not intermarriage.
The vast majority of non-Orthodox Jews do not receive a strong Jewish education growing up- that’s the problem.
If we can focus on giving our youth a strong meaningful Jewish education that includes the teenage years then less Jews will inter-marry and those who do will be much more likely to have Jewish homes.
Let’s focus on giving our youth a strong meaningful Jewish education during their formative teen years (not waitng for Birthright to do magic in 10 days) and not focus on intermarriage.
While every Jew should be made to feel welcome, it is also perfectly OK to emphasize the Jewish principle that marriage is a an institution for two Jewish partners. This is a belief , based on what we believe G-d wants us to do.
When one wants to live a life based on Judaism, naturally one wants to choose a Jewish spouse that shares the same religious values. It is also very clear that if we want to ensure that the next generation is going to be Jewish that it is important to maintain a solid Jewish environment where both partners are Jewish. Based on studies, it is clear that there is a much higher percentage of children being raised as Jews in in-married homes than there are in intermarried homes.
With such a high percentage of Jews intermarrying now a days, there is a very real threat to our future. We need to to start turning the tide. Not by excluding people, rather by educating people and showing them the beauty of Judaism.
To learn more please go to:
http://www.saveourpeople.org
The poster just above states that the J community should “emphasize the Jewish principle that marriage is a an institution for two Jewish partners.” I agree, however, in every movement outside Orthodoxy, including formerly reasonably traditional Conservative synagogues, there is such an effort to bring in intermarrieds that everything is to be celebrated. Celebrating an upcoming intermarriage with an aufruf, wedding songs, and celebratory kiddush is surely welcoming and gives the official OK to every congregant to marry non Jews. Most importantly, perhaps, it soothes the formerly troubled souls of the money people whose kids have intermarried. We have knocked ourselves out to raise our children to live a life of Torah and Mitzvot. To see this mockery has been the last straw for me. I’ve moved to the Orthodox community and plan to remain. Orthodoxy has troubles too, misogyny and sexism, for starters. But, in one hundred years, most of those offspring will be Jews. I feel thoroughly betrayed by the Conservative movement in which I was raised and educated to be an observant Jew.
I’ve never read a single article about this that details a “how.” I read every single one. There’s always some version of your sentence – you say you are welcoming and you have great interfaith programming. (Ok, let’s say we are and we do, and this is clearly considered not enough.) so, what would be enough?
Is it better to treat each family with the formula we use for all families (personal invitations for lunch/coffee/breakfast), invitations to Shabbat, new member parties and special blessings, etc., or should there be something singular about their interfaith-ness?
People need to stop writing articles in which they tell people “you’re doing it wrong” without some recommendations for doing it right. Radical welcome is not so tangible.
Please forgive me, but, you ARE, most probably, the exception. Most intermarried couples are not raising their children “Jewishly”, as you are. Do you have any real numbers that show how the majority of Jews that intermarry are raising their children?
I very much appreciated reading this piece. It needed to be said. There are a whole bunch of us “exceptions” out there with you.
I grew up in a family extremely connected to our Conservative synagogue. I was an active USYer, dated a Hillel Chapter President during college and then 42 years ago, married a non-Jew who converted to Judaism before our ceremony. We raised two sons who were B’nai Mitzvah and attended Conservative religious school post confirmation. They watched their parents engage regularly at our synagogue and in multiple Jewish non-profit organizations. Each married a non-Jewish woman who did not convert.
One grandchild attends and his younger brother soon will attend a reform synagogue nursery school where the majority of the children have at most one Jewish parent. They are learning to celebrate Shabbat, celebrate all Jewish holidays and are surrounded by children with parents who have made a choice to be connected. Their parents were married by a Rabbi who had one requirement for conducting the ceremony – you will raise your children “Jewish”. They are.
Our other son was not married by a Rabbi yet his son had a Bris surrounded by family and friends and they joyously attend High Holiday services and host Seders for their friends. Is my grandson Jewish? Who is to judge?
42 years after I married a Jew by choice my husband is an active member and leader in the Jewish social justice community with me. Our children’s choices have been different – when we married their decision would have been difficult with less options. I am glad for them and for my husband and me that the world is very different and whatever works, works. and for all these years, I have cringed when someone claims that inter-marriage is our community’s greatest problem. I have learned that our community has many faces. Our Filipino grandchildren and their cousin whose parents are climate and social justice activists are evidence to the contrary. All have names and faces that may prompt the comment from a diminishing number of people, “funny that doesn’t look or sound Jewish”. So, too, are the numerous grandchildren of our friends who have taken similar paths.
Times have changed. Our diversity is our strength. Thank goodness it is.
I, too, am a Jew married to a non-Jew. I grew up with a family involved in Jewish life. I drifted away during college and after. I have begun to return to the fold after marriage (to a non-Jew). I have to admit that my return has been rocky. I am in a Masters of Jewish Professional Studies program and constantly am bombarded with my life choices being the downfall of Jewish peoplehood. I am still and trying to figure out how to be a part of a community that sees my family as a detractor. Thank you for this article, it has spoken my truth!
The Federation of Jewish Men’s Club’s Keruv Initiative, for the past 15 years, has worked with Conservative Movement congregations to be welcoming to families who happen to be intermarried. The program has trained over 200 rabbi and 300 Congregational leaders to build warm and welcoming cultured for their Congregation. The FJMC has developed materials and has worked with many congregations in North America on a strategy to be welcoming and to embrace all families in their Congregations. The FJMC has helped Congregation make significant policy chances to open wider their doors to all families. United Synagogue of Conservative Jewry has embraced the FJMC model and is now working closely with even more Congregations. The lesson is, by raising this issue and by educating around the issue, the FJMC has changed cultures and has made many Synagogues more welcoming. One by one changes have happened. From we do not want you here. to SHALOM please come in – has been a rocky road, but one well worth taking for the impact it has made a thousands of Jewish families.
And all of these comments, no doubt sincere, are why I only feel comfortable in an Orthodox synagogue now. My world view — that Jews should only marry Jews as a matter of Jewish Law (and don’t argue that unless you truly subscribe to Jewish Law) — is seen by non-Orthodox Jews as narrow, not welcoming, hopelessly outdated, politically incorrect etc. Well, my husband and I have gone to great lengths to inculcate in our children Jewish observance and I won’t celebrate the destruction of the Jewish People. OK, everyone has free will and everyone can be happy in his or her own way. But I can spend my time and worship with those who share my world view, in the Orthodox world. The Orthodox world has its own problems, and no doubt, I’ll try to help with those.