Intermarried Challenges and Opportunities
Just as the American family has many forms, so does the Jewish family.
It may have one or more members who are not Jewish – an aunt or uncle, a son- or daughter-in-law, a father or mother – or there may be several members whowere not born Jewish but joined the family through adoption or marriage. These various configurations provide opportunities and challenges for each family as well as for the Jewish community as a whole. In the past a great deal of emphasis was placed on discouraging intermarriage, and only after the wedding did congregations try to figure out how to react to the couple and their family. Of late, the Conservative movement has softened its stance, welcoming interfaith families to its congregations and inviting them to participate. Many synagogues have been enriched by the energy and curiosity of these non-Jewish spouses and partners.
Despite the fact that so many families are affected by intermarriage, Jewish institutions have paid little attention to the needs of the extended family members when they find a person of another faith in their midst. Unless the community supports the whole family, it may lose the parents’ time, energy, and financial commitment as well as their children’s. Some synagogues do not announce the weddings and births of interfaith couples, weakening the parental ties to the congregation. After all, it is painful to be a member of a community when you cannot share your joys with others in it. Some Jewish schools, summer camps, and afterschool programs will not accept children unless the mother is Jewish. Grandparents might begin to question whether they wish to support institutions that will not welcome their grandchildren. In addition, some congregations will not hire welleducated Jews into positions of authority if they are married to someone of another faith. The community loses those willing and wanting to contribute to our people. It also loses role models who, although they married out, still maintain a Jewish home and bring up Jewish children. Each institution must examine the impact of its policies on the many families that have been touched by intermarriage.
There are ways communal agencies can help us make Jewish holidays meaningful both to people who are knowledgeable about Jewish customs and to those who know nothing about them. While some synagogues require policy changes, many require only a willingness to think creatively. The outreach committee of Temple Emanuel of Newton in suburban Boston learned that anything it did to encourage and support interfaith families enriched the entire congregation. The committee observed that many non-Jews were not learning about Judaism, and thought that some of the non-Jews married to Jews might be interested in learning more during family visits over the holidays, even if they had no intention of converting.
The committee convinced the congregation to hold a learners’ service on Rosh Hashanah. Many intermarried families came to the minyan, where they were joined by born Jews who felt themselves inadequately ed-ucated Jewishly. About 90 percent of the attendees were not intermarried. Both Jews and non-Jews face time constraints that may keep them from Jewish learning; many of them are willing to learn when they have set aside time for family and holiday celebrations. Many even crave such opportunities.
The committee also observed that many visitors to Shabbat services were bored. In response, the synagogue bought copies of Eitz Ratzon, a siddur that has both transliterations and interpretations of each prayer. Visitors are pleased to learn about Judaism during services, and the congregation now uses Eitz Ratzon in its Friday night service. Rather than discouraging people from learning Hebrew, the prayer book allows less Jewishly educated congregants to participate more fully in the service. When congregations reach out to those who have no Jewish past, they also help those in our communities who are born Jewish but have little Jewish learning.
Families need support, too. Many of us conduct holiday ceremonies with participants who have no knowledge of our traditions. For our children, despite all our preaching, religion is not as important a criterion for marriage as it once was. Parents no longer consider disowning children because they marry someone from a different culture. Many parents who once firmly believed their children should marry Jews waver as those children move into their fourth decade. By then, those parents often say, “I just want my child to find a soul mate.” We need subtle and sensitive responses that do not force parents or children to choose between family and community.
In my year on the road promoting my book, Don’t Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships with Your Adult Children, I found that issues for intermarried Jewish families most often revolve around the small decisions faced at each holiday or life cycle event. They are always tinged with family politics as well as religious questions.
Here are two examples:
“My child is marrying into a devout Catholic family. They have been very generous in understanding that the children have chosen a Jewish wedding and will bring their own children up in the Jewish faith. The groom’s only request is that we play his favorite song from a Bach mass as the couple marches out. How do I respond?”
“My daughter-in-law is Vietnamese. She came to this country when she was 6. For her family, the Christmas tree is a symbol of its assimilation. She makes all the Jewish holidays and schleps the children to Sunday school, but wants to honor her parents and hold on to her fond memories of Christmases past. My rabbi says that a Christmas tree is a symbol of Christ and has no place in a Jewish home. But to this American, it is a different symbol. It is a symbol of holidays with her family and of a difficult journey to Americanization. It has no religious significance.”
For parents of adult children who choose a spouse of another or no faith, there are many quandaries. Pat answers do not work. How do I welcome this new person into our family traditions without treading on his or her beliefs? How can I encourage my children to have a wedding that is meaningful both to them and to me? How can I share my traditions with my grandchildren? What is the effect if I, as a Jewish parent, do not appreciate a spouse who creates a Jewish home but still wants some remnant of his or her own past in the home?
What supports could our communal institutions put in place to help families negotiate the everyday decisions around the family politics of faith and tradition? Have we surveyed families to find what works? Does the reluctance of rabbis to perform intermarriages encourage our children to remain Jewish or does it rob the future family of the Jewish content of their wedding story? Does it free our children from confronting their differences before marriage and from grappling with how they want to incorporate Judaism into their lives? I don’t know the answers, but I do know that all of us have to wrestle with these questions.
In the 21st century, the communal focus on intermarriage should not be concerned only with the couple and their children. It should be helpful to the whole family. It is time to see the many faces of Jewish families as an opportunity and to work to create supports to embrace our diversity. We can thrive with all the energy and excitement new faces bring to Judaism.
Ruth Nemzoff, Ed.D, is author of Don’t Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships with Your Adult Children (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2008) and resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center. She is a member of the outreach committee of Temple Emanuel of Newton, Massachusetts.
