As a way of identifying the best way to reach out to and engage interfaith families in Cleveland, the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland commissioned Dr. Pearl Beck, a research consultant who focuses on Jewish identity formation, to conduct a study of the population. After two years, according to a story in the Cleveland Jewish News, the study is complete, with some interesting results – most notably that “intermarriage is not a rejection of the Jewish spouse’s Jewish identity.”

Compared to national averages, interfaith couples in Cleveland participate in Jewish life at higher rates – 56 percent belong to a synagogue, compared to 15 percent nationally. But, Beck stresses that because the study used 51 families, many of whom found the ads in Jewish institutions, the conclusions are “descriptive and illustrative rather than representative,” and that there may be a “bias toward families more integrated in Judaism.” Despite the possible bias, the study found plenty of cause for concern in why many interfaith families are not involved in Jewish life:

The families interviewed cited several common barriers to their participation in Jewish life. These are the high cost of membership in Jewish institutions, feelings of inadequacy over their lack of Jewish knowledge, and a lack of intimacy within Jewish communal life. Both non-Jewish and Jewish partners feel this way, Beck says.

So what do you do to address these concerns? Beck recommends, among other things, increasing access to institutions, taking Judaism outside of the synagogue to reach more people, and creating “support groups for interfaith families centered around child-raising issues.” Sounds like an endorsement of some of JOI’s signature programs and initiatives – Big Tent Judaism, Public Space Judaism^SM, and Mothers Circle.

Beck’s findings and recommendations only reinforce what we have been saying and doing for years – namely promoting a more welcoming and inclusive North American Jewish community that embraces intermarried families and unengaged Jews, and encourages their increased participation in Jewish life. We have over 30 communities that now run the Mothers Circle, a program for women of another background raising Jewish children, and our Big Tent Judaism coalition, which advocates for all those seeking a welcoming and inclusive Jewish community, grows almost daily. By working to lower barriers to Jewish participation, we have helped innumerable people discover and rediscover the joys of Judaism.

We hope the lay and professional leaders in Cleveland will take the study’s recommendations to heart, and we are here for any help they might need along the way.

A recent article published in the Cleveland Jewish News shares several Hillel professionals’ feelings about the organization’s recently updated mission to reach out to more students on a college campus. News of the updated mission statement caused quite a buzz when it was written about previously in the JTA. However, this new article gives Hillel professionals from across Ohio the chance to create their own buzz - one of support for the new and more complete mission statement.

The new mission statement is “to enrich the lives of Jewish undergraduate and graduate students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world.” The campus Hillel professionals featured in this article stress that the Jewish organization always has and will continue to “expand Jewish life on campus for Jewish students” and that the essential goals for Hillel have not changed – including the fact that Hillel programs are open to everybody on campus. Jennifer Chestnut, executive director of Hillel at Kent State University, says the misunderstanding stemmed from the JTA’s inaccurate summary of the mission statement. She explains the difference:

The wording in the JTA article seems to indicate Hillel has shifted its focus to improving the overall world, rather than nurturing Jewish students to do just that, Chestnut explains. “We’re simply empowering Jewish students to do good.”

Nuanced phrasing aside, many Hillels are using the new mission statement to take a fresh look and approach to programming for the current generation of Jewish students - a more diverse student population that includes a large percent of adult children of intermarriage. This student population has voiced a need for a greater variety of inclusive programs where they can both interact with other Jewish students as well as bring along their friends—some of whom they are dating—of other religious backgrounds. The Hillels in Ohio, such as Ohio State University and Kent State University have found success by bringing these types of programs to where the students are, rather than the other way around. Much like JOI’s Public Space Judaism^SM model, this helps to lower the location barrier and reach out to Jewishly uninvolved students on their turf, where they are most comfortable. These events also attract non-Jewish students who may be interested in Judaism or community service.

We are grateful for the support of the Samuel Bronfman Foundation. As a result, I can look forward to continuing JOI’s work with both Hillel International and campus Hillels across the U.S. I can’t wait to see how they will expand their programming to reach out to students where they are, creating a more inclusive and welcoming environment.

With summer in full swing, planning for The Mothers Circle is moving forward rapidly in communities across North America, with at least a dozen communities set to launch The Mothers Circle course for the first time in the fall. An eight month, 16 session educational experience, the course brings together mothers from other religious backgrounds raising Jewish children. The moms have an opportunity to learn about everything from Jewish values and parenting to how to bring Shabbat into their home.

The Washington D.C. Jewish community is fully participating in this Mothers Circle boom by providing support for seven courses in the Greater D.C. area, including Maryland and Northern Virginia. Washington Hebrew Congregation is running the program independently, and the other six circles are part of a larger Jewish Federation initiative to engage those on the periphery of the community, most notably, intermarried families. Jennifer Scher of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington explained:

“The Engagement Implementation Plan, approved by the Federation Board last year, focuses on three key target markets - young professionals, families with young children and interfaith families, with a particular focus to bring services to under-served areas. Because the goals of the Mothers/Parents Circle are so closely aligned with the Federation’s engagement goals and because it has demonstrated success in other communities, Mothers/Parents Circle was identified as a high priority Engagement program.”

While I am excited by this outpouring of enthusiasm for The Mothers Circle, I have been even more inspired by the collaboration of communal agencies, done in the name of making Washington D.C. as welcoming and inclusive as possible. The Jewish Federation’s engagement goals, in particular The Mothers Circle program, are providing an incredible outlet for community collaboration. Those agencies organizing The Mothers Circle are coordinating marketing, meeting times, location and community family events. Ultimately the creation of these partnerships will ensure the success of each individual organization, while also ensuring a welcoming community. When organizations link arms in an effort to create a more inclusive community, they have a much better chance of truly embracing all those on the periphery.

I’m not sure if this is an interfaith marriage that falls into the celebrity category, but Moment magazine this week tells the tale of Wyatt Earp, the notorious sharpshooter, and his Jewish wife, Josephine “Josie” Sarah Marcus.

She was a showgirl from a prosperous, German-Jewish family, and spent most of her young adult years as a performer until she moved to Tombstone. She got engaged to sheriff Johnny Behan, then broke it off to be with Earp. This romantic rivalry was one of the factors that led to the infamous gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

After the dust settled, Josie and Earp left Tombstone and lived out their days amongst the burgeoning Hollywood scene, until Earp died at the age of 80.

The article doesn’t dwell on their religious relationship – it’s not said whether they lived a Jewish lifestyle or not. But at the end of the piece is an indication that Sadie, throughout her life, still recognized and respected her Jewish roots.

Josie kept her husbands cremated ashes for months before travelling 400 miles along to the Hills of Eternity Memorial Park, a Jewish cemetery in Colma, a San Francisco suburb, to inter them near the graves of her parents and brother. She spent her remaining years in Los Angeles vigilantly protecting Wyatt’s legacy. When she died in 1944 at the age of 83, her ashes were buried alongside his.

Whether this counts as a “successful” interfaith marriage is clearly up for debate. But it’s certainly interesting to note that of all the ways Josie could have had her and her legendary husband remembered, she chose a place that will forever connect the two of them to the Jewish community. That, I think, speaks volumes.

Any news of a Jewish community undergoing a rebirth is good news. That is what’s going on right now in the Former Soviet Union (FSU). According to a piece in the Jerusalem Post, Jewish youth camps have helped spur a revival of Jewish life in the FSU, hosting thousands of kids.

“The goal of the camp is that children who are year around not exposed to anything Jewish can come and enjoy 24 hours surrounded by Jewish tradition, history and fun,” explained Rivka Klein, director of Gan Israel camps in Moscow.

But there is another goal stated later in the article. According to David Mondshine, general director of the Or Avner Foundation, a fund for Jewish education in the FSU, the purpose of the camps - whose development in general we can applaud - is to “fight assimilation and intermarriage.”

Efforts to support and educate not just children but their families is vitally important in areas like the FSU, where for so many years practicing Judaism was an impossibility. But putting so much focus on fighting assimilation and intermarriage, as well as only identifying as Jewish those of matrilineal descent, might end up being a barrier to the long term goal of growing the Jewish community. It’s well known that intermarriage rates are sky high in the FSU, but perhaps these camps can learn the same lesson that the American Jewish community is just beginning to learn - fighting intermarriage is a losing battle.

At JOI, we think a better and more sustainable approach is to try and engage these families, draw them in and show them the value of raising Jewish families. While it’s great to see so much enthusiasm in the nascent Jewish community of the FSU, we hope they will make sure to keep their tent open to all those who seek them out.

Last month, we blogged about Ugandan rabbi Gershom Sizomu, the first black rabbi from sub-Saharan Africa to be ordained by an American rabbinic school. This, he hoped, would help the roughly 800 Ugandan Jews, known as Abayudaya, gain further acceptance in the worldwide Jewish community.

Rabbi Sizomu’s dedication to Judaism seems to have already had a big affect on the Jewish population in Africa. According to a piece in the JTA, Rabbi Sizomu, along with a contingent of Conservative rabbis from the US, oversaw the conversion of 250 Africans to Judaism, complete with a beit din (religious court) that supervised the mikvah (ritual immersion). The recent converts came from Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, and Nigeria, and the ceremony took place in the Abayudaya village of Nabogoye in Uganda.

This is a great step in the direction of growing the global Jewish population and facilitating participation in Jewish life. It shows that Judaism’s Big Tent continues to expand, and that we will always welcome everyone, regardless of prior background or knowledge.

“The relationship between God and the Jews in the Torah resonates for many spiritual seekers,” said Rabbi Sizomu. “It is important the Africans and others know that they can choose Judaism as a spiritual path — and that we are open to them.”

Here at JOI we’ve long said that the challenge of intermarriage is not really about the marriage at all. It’s about much bigger issues. Whether you share JOI’s optimism in the ability of intermarried families to raise Jewish children, or whether you take the pessimistic view that intermarriage is eating away at the size and cohesion of the Jewish people, either way, if the bigger issues are not being addressed, then we’re all doing a disservice to the Jewish future. So what are these bigger issues?

A recent New York Times article about the ongoing research on American religion by the Pew Foundation raises one such issue:

70 percent of Americans affiliated with a religion or denomination said they agreed that “many religions can lead to eternal life,” including majorities among Protestants and Catholics…. Among minority faiths, more than 80 percent of Jews, Hindus and Buddhists agreed with the statement, and more than half of Muslims did….“It’s not that Americans don’t believe in anything,” said Michael Lindsay, assistant director of the Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life at Rice University. “It’s that we believe in everything. We aren’t religious purists or dogmatists.”

So if most Jews believe that their religion is not the only path to eternal life, it begs the question: Why be Jewish at all? If there are multiple paths to salvation, why take the Jewish one? For today’s younger generations, the fact that this is the path their parents took, and their parents before them, is not an automatic sell. (Especially if their other parent was on a different path, or if there are people in the Jewish community who tell them they have no right considering themselves on the Jewish path to begin with because of their lineage.)

When looking at the trend of massive intermarriage, the big question isn’t about how we can get more Jews to marry other Jews. It’s about how we can get more people on the Jewish path, whether they are single, in-married or intermarried, children or grandchildren of intermarriage. Are we ready, as a community, to say that Judaism is not just one of many possible paths, but that it is the best path? And why is it the best path? Most Jews would be uncomfortable saying so, even if they believe it. Maybe our work is really about becoming more comfortable saying Judaism has the most to offer those who are looking for a “here-and-now” religion more than a “hereafter” religion, so please join us. And then making it a meaningful and accepting community to enter.

It is the middle of the summer and many Jewish communal institutions, including synagogues, are on vacation. Or at least that is what it seems like. The communal professionals are replaced by volunteers. Programming is much lighter. Websites are often not up-to-date. When busy schedules compel families to use the summer to make choices about the fall, I wonder if we are doing ourselves a disservice with this lax approach, especially regarding those new to the community or with young children who have to make arrangements for schooling. At the very least, we may be missing an opportunity to reach those in the community who are reaching out to us and, as I always like to say, it is a lot easier to reach someone who is running in our direction.

I invite you to use this opportunity to reach out to those in the community. In looking at your website, don’t wait for the fall holiday season to make sure it is up-to-date. Do it now. And consider what programs might be appropriate to sponsor outside of the walls of your institution to reach those on the periphery. Take advantage of the various public programs that are already taking place in your general community – such as outdoor concerts or community fairs. Don’t just put a table out with brochures. Use it as an opportunity to create an engagement event that reflects the best that your institution has to offer. And don’t forget to be sure to plan a follow-up event ahead of time and make sure that you have your name collection instrument in place as well.

When someone reaches out to us over the summer, let’s make sure we have the resources in place to welcome them in.

My daughter and son-in-law recently bought a house in a new community. Since it is summer, they wanted to be outdoors and have the opportunity to meet new people. They decided to shop around for membership in a pool club. They were shocked by the cost of membership fees. They finally found one club with a sliding scale, based on age, not financial ability. For 21-25 year olds, the dues were 10% of the full membership fee; for 26-30, 20%; for 31-35, 30% and so on.

As we talked about their experience, I couldn’t help but compare what it is like when a young adult wants to become a member of a Jewish institution, which can be prohibitively expensive. How can we attract young adults and make sure cost is not a barrier for their participation in the Jewish community? One of the Big Tent Judaism principles, Lower Barriers to Participation, identifies cost as one of the possible concerns for those who are not currently engaged in Jewish communal life, and many Jewish institutions have developed creative ways to make sure anyone who is interested in participating in Jewish life is able to, regardless of financial ability. There are already a growing number of synagogues that offer such benefits as a free High Holiday services for non-members, a sliding dues scale, or a year of discounted (sometimes free) memberships for newcomers. And while it’s great to see institutions offering these deals, the bigger issue is letting people know these deals even exist.

If the goal is to grow membership and engage newcomers, young adults, and the unaffiliated, institutions need to do a better job of letting everyone know what sort of deals are available. If your synagogue offers free services or discounted memberships, put an ad in a secular newspaper, or on a bulletin board in a high traffic area. Expand your marketing to reach more people so they know what is offered; don’t wait for them to come to you. Tell people about the value of joining and becoming part of the Jewish community because we can’t “afford” to miss the opportunity to engage those young adults or others who want to enter our doors.

In the critically acclaimed 2001 documentary “Trembling Before G-d,” director Sandi Simcha DuBowski sheds light on one of the most conflicted groups in the Jewish community – gay Orthodox Jews. Throughout the movie, those profiled demonstrate just how hard it is to reconcile their personal desires and their spiritual ones, and how all they are looking for is tolerance in their communities and synagogues.

Seven years on, has this movie made any difference in the lives of gay Orthodox Jews? Or how about gay Jews of any denomination? Or more broadly, how welcoming overall is the Jewish community to its gay members?

Those were some of the questions asked in a recent article in Jewish Living magazine titled “How Gay is Your Shul?” The piece explains how the group Jewish Mosaic, one of the organizations behind a recently launched LGBT Welcoming Synagogues Project, and their partners “will start surveying every congregation in the U.S.” to see how inclusive they are to the LGBT community.

While the Reconstructionist and Reform movements have been ordaining gay and lesbian rabbi’s since 1984 and 1990 respectively, Gregg Drinkwater, Jewish Mosaic’s executive director, says that changes have to occur from the ground up, not merely from the governing body. “Without internal champions or external guidance, it’s very hard for shuls to change,” he explained.

One of the most interesting parts of the article was the pragmatism of Rabbi Steven Greenberg, an openly gay Orthodox rabbi who was featured in “Trembling Before G-d.” This is a man who’s spiritual and personal desires seem to be in direct conflict with one another, yet he still works to fit into both worlds. He has written his own criteria for “welcoming” synagogues, one that stresses tolerance on the synagogues part, but also stresses the congregant tolerate the synagogues needs.

“Gay people must recognize they can’t impose their hard-fought self understanding on a congregation,” he says. “That said, Orthodox congregations have to figure out how they manage reality. There are plenty of gay people who want to belong to Orthodox synagogues because it’s a form of Jewish life that speaks most to them.”

“Manage reality” I think is the key term there. At JOI, we believe one of the best ways to grow Judaism’s Big Tent is for congregations to leave behind assumptions about what Jews “look like” or how families are configured; rather they should celebrate our community’s diversity. There are many disagreements on how to help facilitate this change – Drinkwater, for example, wants to survey synagogues and tell them what they can do differently, but others want the changes to happen organically. Perhaps there is no one uniform way for a congregation to approach the subject of welcoming the LGBT community, but we’re glad to see it’s one that is generating such a big debate.

Birthright Israel has provided thousands of Jewish young adults with a powerful, if not exhausting first experience in Israel. Many of the participants board their El Al flight to Israel with some inkling of what they can expect over the 10 day trip: time at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a dip in the Dead Sea, an early morning trek up Masada, and a “nudge,” or push, by trip organizers and leaders to find that special, Jewish someone.

Matt Lyons, an adult child of intermarriage, recently returned from his birthright Israel trip. In a piece that he wrote for Interfaith Family.com, he describes not only his personal connection with Israel, but explains why he agrees only in part with the trip organizer’s in-marriage “nudge.” Yes, Matt whole-heartedly sees the importance in someday raising Jewish children to not only support Israel but also to support Judaism, its people and history. However, he doesn’t necessarily agree that the only way to do this is to marry someone Jewish.

“…the obligation to pass along my Judaism does not require me to marry someone Jewish. I am surely evidence of that, as were the other young Jews on my trip from interfaith families. The Taglit-Birthright trip, at the same time, strengthened both my desire to raise my children Jewish and my belief that a loving, honest and open-minded interfaith marriage can help me accomplish it.”

Matt’s statement, which we couldn’t have said any better ourselves, is an important reminder to the community that intermarriage is not necessarily a problem or an ending, but it can be used as an opportunity for engagement. Here at JOI, we work with and offer support for many interfaith families who share in Matt’s views on interfaith marriage and raising Jewish children. To do so, we have developed programs like The Mothers Circle and The Grandparents Circle which are designed to help engage families and strengthen the Jewish community. We hope through programs like these and through adult children of intermarriage like Matt, the community will open its eyes to the interfaith families who make Jewish choices.

At JOI, we often talk about the principles of Big Tent Judaism – one of which is lowering barriers to participation. This includes taking Judaism out of the 4-walls of our institutions and bringing it to where the people are, which we usually define as a public space. Rabbi Eddie Sukol of Cleveland has put his own spin on that idea and taken Judaism not just to where the people are, but to where they actually live. In a recent article in the Cleveland Jewish News, we learn about Rabbi Sukol and The Shul - a “synagogue-without-walls.” Twice a month, people are invited into someone’s home for a Shabbat dinner, where they find “a little nosh, a little singing, and a little Jewish learning off the beaten path.”

The Shul came about, Rabbi Sukol says, because of a growing need for a more flexible form of Judaism. Lines between Reform and Conservative, he says, have become blurred, while the lines between Orthodox and non-Orthodox have become clearer. While those changes continue, he says communal institutions aren’t keeping up, and people might feel like they are not always getting what they want out of their synagogues.

That is not a criticism of established congregations and Jewish institutions, Sukol insists. “Institutions by their nature change slowly, and membership-based organizations are struggling everywhere n not just Jewish ones. So, I’m creating opportunities and alternatives for people.”

Although the services are informal, everyone who attends the twice monthly Shabbat services takes the process seriously. Along with singing and games are prayers and discussions about the weeks Torah portion. Sukol also leads two adult weekday morning study groups, and this fall The Shul is launching a religious school. Most participants are dues paying members at other synagogues, but they attend The Shul because, Rabbi Sukol believes, “the notion that a family joins a synagogue and their Jewish needs are solely met (by that single affiliation) is non-functional.”

Instead of synagogue mailings and newsletters, Rabbi Sukol keeps people up to date through emails and text messages. Their Torah is kept in a portable “ark-without-walls” with a battery operated ner tamid (eternal light) – the whole thing is sized to fit in the back of Rabbi Sukol’s car. We are excited to see such innovative methods for drawing people into the Jewish community, and it’s particularly interesting to see how Rabbi Sukol has adapted traditional synagogue procedures to help create a more welcoming and inclusive community for the 21st century.

The title of an Atlanta Journal article, “Judaism Drawing More Black Americans,” caught our eye a few weeks ago for a variety of reasons. Rachel Pomerance’s article highlights the growing number of Black American Jews-by-choice and the ensuing need for increased Jewish communal inclusivity, which JOI is cognizant of as evidenced in our Big Tent Judaism Coalition. The article explores the various reasons Black Americans are drawn to Judaism – which for some is a spiritual journey, but for others it’s returning to their roots.

In the article, Gary Tobin of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research (an organization that studies the demography of the Jewish people) cites three reasons for the growing numbers: religious identity is increasingly fluid across the American landscape (as recently illustrated by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey); the Internet makes information much more accessible; and the rise in interracial intermarriage, which has led to more multicultural families and communities.

While these points infer a growing sense of religious and cultural ‘mobility’ resulting in conversions to different faiths, Pomerance also writes about a population that throughout history was often marginalized and questioned in their own right - Jews of Color who were born and raised Jewish.

Lewis Gordon, founder of Afro-Jewish Studies at Temple University, says this population was “swept up in the tides of racism in scholarship and institutions” that saw Jews as exclusively white. He describes a history of segregated congregations and private observance amongst Black Jews due to exclusivity in the broader (white) Jewish community. But, according to Gordon, times have changed:

“There have always been communities of either black people who are already Jewish or black people considering coming to Judaism. What is different is that institutional structures are changing,” he said. “There is an increased effort to create a welcoming environment for them.”

Gordon speculates that as many as 1 million black people in the United States have Jewish roots, among them African-Americans, African and Caribbean immigrants and Afro-Latinos.

Which is why Gordon thinks that, among the rising numbers of black Americans coming to Judaism, some of them are simply returning to it.

So, while there may be increasing religious ‘mobility’ contributing to more black Americans being drawn to (or returning to) Judaism, Gordon says that these groups have been a fixture in Jewish history. It’s only now that they are starting to be embraced by the broader Jewish community.

And that, we think, is a wonderful thing. Through a variety of initiatives including the Big Tent Judaism Coalition, which serves as an advocate for newcomers, intermarried families and others on the periphery, JOI is proud to be a part of this movement towards a diverse, inclusive and more dynamic North American Jewish community.

Have you ever sat around and found yourself wondering, “Is Daffy Duck Jewish?” I know I have. But I never knew where to turn to find the answer. Until now.

The website Jewornotjew.com provides a tongue-in-cheek roundup of politicians, celebrities, musicians, athletes, and even fictional characters to let you know who is and isn’t Jewish. Daffy Duck? Borderline Jewish. Baseball player David Eckstein? Sounds like he could be, but he isn’t.

Everything is done on a scale with three categories. According to their website, this includes:

How Jewish they are internally, how Jewish they are externally and how much we want that person to be a Jew in the first place.

In practice, the I Score tends to refer to birth history with some adjustments for how we imagine they see/saw themselves. The O Score is for how Jewish they look and act. The K Score stands for Kvell (pride) and is subject to the whims of the creators of this Web site.

So, using this scale, the experts have decided that Betty Boop, who scores a 10 out of possible 15, is more Jewish than Neil Diamond, who scores a 9. How does a man sometimes referred to as “The Jewish Elvis” not even reach double digits? Because even though he was born and raised Jewish and still attends synagogue, he put out a Christmas album.

At JOI, we spend every day engaged in the debate of “Who is a part of the Jewish community.” We believe that should include all those who have chosen to cast their lot with the Jewish people, regardless of prior knowledge or background. But just as important as this ongoing debate is the ability to take a moment to laugh. While the website and its ratings should be viewed with a grain (or two) of salt, I’m happy to see there are people out there who can lighten us up with some intelligent satire.

In response to Charles Golding’s recent column denouncing non-Orthodox conversions in The Jewish Chronicle, London’s leading Jewish newspaper, Rabbi Jonathan Romain, chair of the Assembly of Reform Rabbis UK, wrote his own column encouraging dialogue and openness among the various streams of Judaism, especially in regard to cross-denominational acceptance of conversions. Rabbi Romain’s column, “Converted Reform? You are a Jew” counters Golding’s assertions that non-Orthodox conversions aren’t valid and that those individuals who convert within the non-Orthodox movements must be doing so because they just want to marry someone Jewish. Rabbi Romain explains:

It is simply not true that people convert so that the Jewish partner can marry a non-Jew. Intermarriage is now so widespread that an enormously high percentage of Jews are content to marry outside of the faith; it is only when the non-Jewish partner is sufficiently motivated to convert that they do so. The easy route would be to go straight to the register office, not delay for a considerable period to have a chuppah….50 per cent of those converting via the Reform — perhaps others too — do so several years after marriage, having become part of Jewish life and deciding to adopt it for themselves.

From our experiences with our Empowering Ruth program, we know that the majority of individuals who choose to convert do so because of their commitment to Judaism, not their commitment to a partner or spouse. Shouldn’t this commitment count more than whether they converted under the auspices of a Reform or Orthodox synagogue? Why deny someone, and possibly their children, the whole of Judaism because they didn’t convert in a way that one group says they should have? Of course, Romain says, differences between the Jewish movements exist – that’s a given. The movements don’t have to agree, but they also do not need to denounce each other’s beliefs and practices. Romain sees the value of diversity of the Jewish movements. He writes:

The variations between the groups within British Jewry today is not a problem but very healthy, giving choices so that different types of Jews can each find a home in one of them. Let’s enjoy being part of that rainbow of Jewish pluralism, each strong in our own identity but valuing what other strands have to offer.

There is strength in numbers, so it’s those with an open and welcoming attitude like Rabbi Romain’s that will help us to grow Judaism’s Big Tent.

Admittedly, my sensitivity to the issue of interfaith marriage allows me to pick out items relevant to this issue in common culture. And that is what surprised me most when I picked up A Delightful Compendium of Consolation: A Fabulous Tale of Romance, Adventure & Faith in the Medieval Mediterranean by Burton L. Visotzky, professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. This volume is really an edited compilation and translation of some medieval material, among the infamous Cairo Genizah materials unearthed by Solomon Schechter.

At first, I thought it would be a historical novel—something that I could take along with me on the airplane to make my travels a little more tolerable. Then I opened the book and read about a man who required comfort for losing his daughter. I thought to myself, “This is not what I want to read. It is why I stay away from such movies and novels in contemporary culture.” But then as I started reading, I realized that the man’s daughter had fallen in love with a Muslim, a son of someone with whom he did business. The story takes place in the 11th century, but her explanation could have been written in the year 2008—almost. Her reflection, my words, “What did he expect? He encouraged me to be open and tolerant. And I was the only woman who wasn’t covered from head-to-toe in cloth. How could he not have been attracted to me?” The daughter didn’t die. He chose to lose his daughter, to say kaddish for her, to cast her out of his family.

Thankfully, it’s rare today for a parent to react so strongly to intermarriage that they would actually mourn as though their child had died. But these themes of disappointment and animosity are still far too prevalent, themes we constantly encounter in our work at JOI. In the end, Visotzky’s volume is a plea for tolerance, something we can all continue to learn.

In a milestone celebration, this year marks fifty years of Jewish outreach by Chabad in Detroit. Chabad is known for aggressively promoting Judaism, working to reignite the spark in unaffiliated, unengaged Jews to help them get back in touch with their Jewish roots. And Detroit has been no exception. Whether we agree with all of their outreach methodologies or their ideological stand on certain Jewish issues, we congratulate Chabad on this anniversary.

Writing in the Detroit Free Press, Niraj Warikoo explains how Chabad came to Detroit, and the effect it has had on the community since then. Local leaders, he writes, claim that up to 40% of the 72,000 Jews in metro Detroit have taken part in some sort of Chabad outreach event, and that Chabad is building a new $15 million complex in the suburb West Bloomfield. I would be curious to know what its name collection and follow-up techniques are after hosting outreach events. These are important JOI strategies indispensable to outreach, which we believe are better used as an overall methodology, not just something to reach a target population. But either way, these numbers do point to a certain degree of success.

Where JOI and Chabad definitely see eye to eye is on the issue of engagement. We both know that the best way to get people involved in the Jewish community is to go out to where the people are (what we call Public Space Judaism^SM) and lower the barriers of participation. We also both know that making people feel welcome is the best way to get them to increase their participation in Jewish life. In the article, a Chabad rabbi puts it nicely:

“The idea is to make Judaism accessible,” said the shul’s (Chabad synagogue of West Bloomfield) head, Rabbi Kasriel Shemtov. “We wanted to have a place where Jews of all walks of life would feel comfortable.”

Our work is based on the belief that we need to open hearts, minds and doors to all those who have chosen to cast their lot with the Jewish people. Along with Jews-by-choice, unaffiliated, and unengaged Jews, we believe this should also include welcoming interfaith couples and their families, and involving them in all aspects of Jewish life. Chabad may disagree with us there, but our bottom line essentially remains the same – to grow and strengthen the North American Jewish community.

In our ongoing debate over the challenges and opportunities found in interfaith relationships, one of the arguments we often hear is that when someone marries outside of the faith, the chances of Jewish continuity drop significantly. The theory is that with a non-Jewish spouse, the children won’t have a proper Jewish education, and they will grow up without a clear indication of their religion. Therefore their children will have an even lesser understanding of their Jewish roots. We tend to blame interfaith families for not engaging with the Jewish community or providing their children with a Jewish education, but at the same time we refuse to let them do so in our institutions.

We know that’s a nihilistic view that needs to change. And so does Shari Rabin.

Shari is a junior at Boston University, majoring in religion with a focus on religion in America. She writes a blog called the Chutzpah Chronicles for the website On Faith, in which she records “her observations and intellectual meanderings.”

In her most recent blog post, she writes about meeting the seven other participants in her summer internship in Jewish studies (she doesn’t say for what organization). As everyone starts to introduce themselves, one thing becomes strikingly clear – she was the only person in the room who was “100 percent” Jewish, that is, with two Jewish parents. In a room full of people preparing to spend the summer in a Jewish internship, two were not Jewish, and four were the children of interfaith marriage. The realization that interfaith families are increasingly the norm challenged one of her most basic assumptions about Jewish life. Shari wrote:

My family’s strong opposition to intermarriage has also ingrained in me a certain internal narrative in which intermarriage leads to confusion leads to disaffection leads to abandonment of Judaism. But the fact that 4 out of the 5 Jewish interns spending the summer doing intensive Jewish studies research come from such backgrounds has shown me that this is not always the case.

It’s often been remarked upon that converts are the most dedicated Jews. And I think that for my fellow interns and other dedicated Jews from interfaith families, there is a similar reason – Judaism for them is something exciting and chosen that they don’t take for granted. I am still convinced that marrying another Jew is the best thing for Jewish people, but I have learned to be a little less pessimistic about interfaith families.

It’s a good day when someone can look at the world around them and see opportunities instead of barriers; when they can put aside assumptions and approach things with an open mind. Shari grew up thinking interfaith marriage was an end to Judaism, a nail in the coffin. But during those introductions, she saw people excited and dedicated to learning about and preserving the Jewish faith. That optimism is what drives JOI, and in the end, we think that’s what will help grow our Big Tent and strengthen the North American Jewish community.

A couple of days ago, we blogged about the new Adam Sandler movie, “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan.” While it’s a slapstick comedy, it does deal with the bigger issue of an interfaith relationship – one between a Jew and a Muslim.

On the heels of Zohan comes another movie, this one dramatic, also about the relationship between Jews and Muslims. According to promotional material, the movie “David and Fatima” is about a young Jewish man, David, who falls in love with a Palestinian Muslim named Fatima. Unlike Zohan, where the protagonists carry out their relationship in America, David and Fatima try to have a relationship in Israel, against the backdrop of families and a culture that aggressively disapproves of their romance.

The Jewish/Muslim interfaith relationship might be the most taboo of them all. It offers some of the biggest challenges in the already complex world of cross-cultural relationships. Both these movies, while different in approach, show that it’s a subject becoming too big to ignore. Even last years “The Band’s Visit” falls into this category. Although it’s about an Egyptian band that gets lost in a small Israeli town, it drew rave reviews for it’s depiction of Arabs and Israelis putting aside their cultural differences and, as film critic Roger Ebert says, it “shows them both as only ordinary people with ordinary hopes, lives and disappointments.”

JOI has been advocating for a broader discussion of Jewish/Muslim interfaith relationships, and we hope the sudden spate of media interest in this subject will bring this conversation to a new level.

The Central Conference of American Rabbi’s recently concluded their 119th annual convention, and they have come up with a new approach towards addressing the opportunities and challenges of interfaith marriage. In their recent newsletter, it is explained that the CCAR is going to initiate “programs to guide and support its members in the critical work of welcoming intermarried families into the Jewish community through the work of a specially appointed Task Force.”

Reform Judaism has always been on the forefront of creating an open Jewish community, and this announcement serves as further validation of the work we do here every day. JOI long ago moved beyond the debate over intermarriage, instead focusing on what we can do to engage interfaith families and create Jewish continuity. Though they have been accepting of interfaith families for years, the CCAR has is now going to also work more on engagement. Rabbis at the convention shared their personal experiences of working with interfaith families in order to learn how their colleagues approached the subject. Peter Knobel, CCAR president, explains:

“We no longer want to make positions or pass resolutions which may divide us, but rather to work together to make the next generation of Jews,” Knobel said. “The goal is to provide Reform Rabbis with information, strategies, tools and guidelines that will enable them to lead more effectively as they face the myriad of issues arising out of intermarriage.”

The debate over intermarriage will likely never end. There will always be those who feel it erodes the Jewish community, and there will be those who feel it provides an opportunity to bring more people in. We, of course, believe the latter, and we have developed programs like The Mothers Circle and The Grandparents Circle which are designed to help engage families and strengthen the Jewish community. We’re positive that by “creating dialogue instead of debate over intermarriage issues,” the CCAR will help our big tent grow even bigger.