The emerging intermarriage consensus

A Reform synagogue in Maryland held a reception for new members last Friday. There was dinner, prayer of course, and a game: each visitor had a note pinned to his back with the name of a figure from Jewish history. The participants were asked to give clues, while the guest was to guess who the figure was. It didn't bother anyone that the organizer, an active member of the community, was not Jewish.

Marriage between Jews and non-Jews is commonplace in the United States, as is the membership of non-Jews in Jewish communities. The debate on intermarriage has also become routine. At first there was shock, then efforts to reverse the trend. Now it's time to accept it.

Even those who are not happy with it doubt it can be changed.

"We can't fight the tide of history," said Michael Rukin, an investment firm president and Jewish activist from Boston, at the Jewish Funders Network conference in Atlanta last week. He is familiar with the trend from his children's marriages and advocates wholehearted acceptance of mixed couples.

Rukin presented his position passionately, as though it were controversial. Scott Shay, a Jewish banker and prominent community activist from New York, countered with a more conservative approach. Soon it transpired that their views were not that far apart.

Everyone rejects the old agenda; there's no point in fighting it any more, Shay said, and rightly so. Jewish communities in America are agonizing and deliberating but ultimately reaching the same conclusion. Every now and then an argument arises whether conversion to Judaism should be advocated and how far the pressure for conversion should go, but the consensus is growing: intermarriage must be accepted and embraced.

A few obstacles remain, however. Rabbis do not marry mixed couples and in most synagogues a non-Jew cannot become a member of the executive committee. But it is already clear that this will not stop interfaith marriages. Shocked reactions are not in keeping with the liberal, humanist approach to which most Jews subscribe. In the absence of objection to mixed marriages, as the study conducted by Professor Sylvia Barack Fishman of Brandeis University indicates, the number of young people who will choose a partner regardless of his or her religion will only grow.

Two recent studies are often cited in such debates. On the one hand, Professor Steven Cohen found that mixed marriages are leading to a split in the Jewish nation. On the other hand a study conducted in Boston seemingly proves that the Jewish identity of the offspring of mixed couples could be strengthened by educational means.

The data in both studies show similar results - that half of young Jews marry non-Jews. To consider them no longer members of the community would be emotionally and demographically intolerable.

Not everyone wants to convert to Judaism and pressure leads to alienation. So even if conversion is still the preferred route - as Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, reminded movement members in a speech in Houston last year - many community leaders believe that patience pays off. Some spouses convert to Judaism even after 10 or 20 years. A bit of optimism couldn't hurt either: many of the donors in Atlanta believe that Judaism has become a "trendy" faith and its attraction has increased. In any case, if non-Jews are welcomed and embraced by the Jewish community, they may ultimately join the tribe. Not with pressure, but with love.