U.S. Jewish movement embraces mixed marriages, reaches out to kids

The plastic "Project Welcome" file on Karen Kushner's desk contains dozens of thin brochures. This is the guide to the perplexed that she is offering to congregations in the San Francisco area - useful advice with a single aim: to help bring new people to the synagogues, including intermarried couples, Jews married to non-Jews.

The brochure contains, for example, a "Blessing for Non-Jewish Spouses" that Kushner suggests be recited on Yom Kippur morning. The brochure was written by Janet Marder of the Beth Am congregation in Los Altos Hills. And this is what she writes in the introduction to the blessing: "What we want to thank you for today is your decision to cast your lot with the Jewish people."

For Kushner, who has decided to distribute this text as a means of instruction, it is clear where the border runs between who is out and who is in: "If they raise Jewish kids, it's a Jewish family. It's not the parents who are important, but rather their choice regarding the next generation."

Kushner, who directs the "outreach" project of the Union for Reform Judaism in San Francisco, has drawn encouragement in recent weeks from the inundation of new studies examining the identity of mixed families in the United States. She says the immediate result will be more funds and resources for her initiative. And this is not surprising.

Two Boston-based studies radiate cautious optimism regarding the possibility of bringing mixed families into the Jewish community. A more general study of religion in the United States, conducted by the Pew Research Center, also has contributed to the sense that mixed marriages are more an opportunity than an obstacle to the American Jewish community.

The study, which identified religious mobility as an integral part of American life, found that more than 40 percent of Americans change their religious affiliation over the course of their life. When disregarding people who shift between different denominations of Protestantism, this figure remains at 30 percent.

Kushner's conclusion: A welcoming, vibrant congregation will attract mixed families. This means that the community's overall message must also change: from "It is important to marry a Jew," to "It is important to raise Jewish children." After all, the first message has long been doomed to failure. About half of young Jews marry outside the community. Kushner compares the mixed couples to immigrants: While the first generation preserves their language, their customs, their identity, the second generation is fully American.

Success in Boston
In November 2006, the Jewish Federation of Boston, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, published an initial study of the community's success in keeping mixed couples. This was a sensational study (whose main points appeared in the first article in this series).

Two-thirds of Boston-area intermarried couples were raising their children as Jews, double the rate in many other communities. In any case, about two weeks ago the follow-up study, "Intermarried Families and Their Children," was published by Katherine Gan of Harvard University. It states not only that mixed families are raising their children Jewish, but also that they are Jewish in a way that closely resembles the practices of Reform families with two Jewish parents.

For example, similar percentages have a Passover seder, light Sabbath or Hanukkah candles, and attend synagogue. Further, similar percentages of children have a bar or bat mitzvah. The researchers attribute special importance to this, as many believe that a bar or bat mitzvah is the key indicator of Jewish identity.

Another Boston-area study dealt with four Jewish communities in different parts of the United States - Boston in the Northeast, Saint Louis in the Midwest, Atlanta in the South and San Francisco in the West. Researcher Arnold Dashefsky of Hebrew Collegen noted, "Jewish respondents often mentioned their bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah as being particularly enjoyable," in the study, "Intermarriage and Jewish Journeys in the United States." It too was written with extreme caution, but it has contributed to the atmosphere of optimism prevailing among those who want to believe the Jewish community can transform what looks like a disadvantage into an advantage.

Dashefsky, in a conversation with Haaretz, described the 21st century as characterized by open borders even between religions. Among the couples he has studied - couples who already have chosen Judaism - he too has found characteristics "similar to the normative pattern of all American Jews."

That is, if they have chosen the Jewish community, they will not behave much differently from inmarried Jewish couples. Nevertheless, "for many of these Jewish spouses, a gap exists between their relatively normative Jewish connections (compared to other American Jews) and their perception of acceptance within the larger Jewish community," he said. That is, they live as Jews, but they do not necessarily feel that they have been accepted as members in equal standing of the community.

Dashefsky translates this into practical recommendations remarkably similar to Kushner's, including "sensitivity training for Jewish organizations on how to be welcoming" to intermarried couples. And this is exactly Kushner's specialization.

One of the most salient thresholds for mixed couples is something every young couple goes through: the wedding ceremony. Both of the studies raise a new question: Has the time come to persuade more rabbis to marry mixed couples?

The Reform movement will address this question at its annual convention of rabbis and cantors in Cincinnati this April. They will not necessarily make new decisions, but they will examine the findings and learn something new, even if is not necessarily surprising: Mixed couples who
found a rabbi to marry them are more connected to the Jewish community.

In the Harvard study, 54 percent of the mixed couples who chose Judaism were married by a rabbi - while only 10 of the couples that rejected Judaism were married by a rabbi. In the other study, too, "statistically significant relationships" (though not perfect correlations) "were uncovered in regard to rabbinic officiation, including raising children as Jewish, synagogue attendance on the High Holidays and the absence of Christian observances" from family life.

Christmas trees in San Francisco
In any case, the matter of "Christian observances" brings up a disturbing and intriguing point. To what extent do the researchers believe the existence, or absence, of such observances are correlated with Jewish observances? Is having a bar mitzvah or a bat mitzvah more important than a Christmas tree at home? And if so, why?

The Boston study presents a stunning example that justifies the examination of this question. Its conclusions are definite: "Intermarried Jewish families with Jewish children are generally as observant as inmarried Jewish families." As noted, this is indeed the case with respect to the bar mitzvah, the Passover seder, and candle-lighting ¬ but there are nevertheless a number of important differences. One of them is bringing a Christmas tree into the home. "One issue consistently brought up by both Christian and Jewish partners was the decision to have a Christmas tree," the study stated.

Here are the figures: Some 82 percent of mixed families that raise their children as Jews have a Christmas tree, at least some years. This figure is very close to the percentage of mixed families not raising their children Jewish (86 percent), very far from that of the Reform families with two Jewish parents (6 percent) and even further from the percentage of Conservative families with two Jewish parents (0 percent).

Dashefsky found similar figures: Most of the intermarried families (58 percent) have a Christmas tree. A large majority (74 percent) give Christmas presents. Some researchers are not comfortable with these findings, and especially with their interpretations. Professor Steven Cohen, in his 2006 study "A Tale of Two Jewries," which also aroused controversy - considers the Christmas trees incriminating. This is one factor he cites as evidence for his conclusion that there are now two Jewish peoples: those who marry Jews, and those who do not. Anyone who has a Christmas tree in his home - whether or not he held a bar mitzvah for his son - is not Jewish enough, Cohen feels.

But here exactly is the point of controversy. Kushner says the mixed couples have Christmas trees because "they can't undo their past." This is the symbol that is hardest for the non-Jewish partner to give up - and there is no reason not to evince a degree of tolerance here, she says. A Christian woman married to a Jewish man told Dashefsky's interviewers that "my husband gets upset if I put up too many Christmas decorations, so I put up more Hanukkah decorations." The study concludes: "It was clear that having a Christmas tree was very important to her."

Which brings Kushner back to the comparison with immigrants. The first generation finds it difficult to give up its old customs. They need to be considerate of family members - such as the parents of the non-Jewish partner who come to visit and want to see their grandchildren around the tree. The Christmas tree brings the researchers to a practical conclusion: It is better see the cup as half full - a bar mitzvah, a Passover seder - than half empty.

Dashefsky sees both the danger and the opportunity. It is better for the Jewish community, he believes, to stress the opportunity.

This outlook guides Barry Shrage, head of the Boston Jewish community, an observant Jew who chooses to believe these studies bear good tidings. "We believe," he explains, that the efforts of the Boston community to be more welcoming, more open, "are reflected in the decisions made by intermarried families in Greater Boston" to belong to the Jewish community.

In this sense, what this series called the most daring experiment in the history of the Jewish people is already, in his opinion, showing signs of success.