What's the Matter with Intermarriage

by Tuvya Zaretzsky

Actually, don't be misled by this title. This isn't an article against intermarriage. It is just that there are so many issues related to Jewish-Gentile couples in the news these days.

I just got back from Israel and have been catching up on my reading. I keep a Google search on issues related to Jewish-Gentile couples. July was an interesting month.

First, I was stunned to hear that Jewish demographer, Gary Tobin, died at the age of 59 in Florida. As a student of cultural anthropology, I appreciated his work at Brandeis University's Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and his unconventional voice as president of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco. Gary Tobin researched the growth of contemporary Judaism and he took a “big tent” view of the Jewish community and the question, "Who belongs as a Member of the Tribe?" That, of course, is a discussion in the realm of Jewish-Gentile couples. We continue to reference that question, especially in regard to the children of Jewish-Gentile couples.

Interestingly, the same line of questions came up with a movie premiere that same weekend. It was the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. A theme in that film was a case of art imitating life. In the realm of Harry Potter, wizards, possessing magical powers, were a minority in a world of ordinary or non-magical people. Please don't think that I'm trying to make a perfectly matching metaphor out of this imagery. I am in no way implying that Jewishness is akin to magical wizardry and Gentileness is not. However, the identities of the characters in this Harry Potter movie are evidently determined by whether one’s mother was a wizard and one's father was non-magical. In my mind, I could see similar implications for the children of mixed ethnicities in Jewish-Gentile couples. It was interesting to also read that Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who plays Harry Potter, identifies as a Jew, though only his mother was Jewish and his father was a "Protestant."

The same week, The Baltimore Sun featured a commentary by Rabbi Yaakov Menken, who is the director of Project Genesis, a Jewish cyber-outreach organization based in Maryland. He commented on an article from Julie Wiener's "In the Mix," a monthly column featured in The New York Jewish Week. Ms. Wiener is an intermarried Jew who comments on Jewish-Gentile couple issues. Recently, she grappled with her own discomfort at the thought that a Rabbi might intermarry. That is not to say a rabbi would perform weddings for Jewish-Gentile couples – Reform rabbi's already do that - but that a rabbi would take a Gentile as a spouse. Rabbi Menken actually assumes that it will happen within "Progressive" Judaism sooner or later, and most likely sooner. He predicted that the Hebrew Union College, Reform Judaism's rabbinical seminary, would ordain intermarried rabbis "within the next decade." Rabbi Menken concluded his observations with a question about the implications of Jewish-Gentile marriage for Judaism:  "At what point will ’Progressive’ Judaism cease to be a religion practiced, in the majority, by Jews?"

Throughout these articles, the main issue was in the subtext:  "Can American Jewry survive the welcoming embrace of intermarriage to Gentiles?" There are plenty of relevant matters to discuss in relation to intermarriage. They ought not be rooted in ethnic or racial bias. They can't all solve the multiplex dilemmas caused by interfaith disagreements. Nor is the preservation or survival of the Jewish people and their enduring values the only matter that counts.

At JewishGentileCouples.com, we take the perspective that the best approach to these issues is to ask God what He might have to say on the subject. Sociology has told us that Jewish-Gentile marriages have a risk of divorce that is twice as high as that of the highest divorce levels in either of the two homogamous marriage groups (Jewish plus Jewish or Gentile plus Gentile). That was reported again in a scientific paper from the Netherlands in July. Our own research found that the greatest threat to Jewish-Gentile marriage, dating couples, or cohabiting partners is the inability to find spiritual harmony. God has a lot to say on that subject matter if we will listen to Him. We would be glad to suggest some further summer reading on matters related to Jewish-Gentile couple relationships.

How can we serve you?

RICHARD NIXON, BILLY GRAHAM, AND JEWS FOR JESUS

June 26, 2009

The Rev. Billy Graham informed Richard Nixon of the Jewish community's concern about Jews for Jesus in a private telephone conversation in February 1973. Graham represented the group as being "set up all over the country," at a time when the organization was in its fledgling stage, with just a handful of workers.

The 20-minute conversation, released on Tuesday as part of 154 hours of tape recordings from the Nixon White House, took place on February 21, 1973, the day Israeli jets fired on a Libyan passenger plane that violated its airspace, causing the plane to crash and killing 108 people on board. Nixon and Graham are concerned that this event will turn world opinion against Israel.

They are also troubled by statements by Jewish leaders, in particular the late Rabbi Marc Tannenbaum, then the director of Interreligious Affairs for the American Jewish Committee, denouncing Christian efforts to tell others, including Jews, about Jesus. They feel this may alienate the Christian community against the Jewish people.

Nixon and Graham were anticipating seeing Tannenbaum the following week at a dinner for Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. Nixon tells Graham: "You tell him he's making a terrible mistake, and they're going to get the darndest round of anti-Semitism here if they don't behave." Graham explains to Nixon the concern of Tannenbaum and other Jewish leaders:

"And one of the things they're terribly afraid of is so many of these Jewish young people are turning away from Judaism. They're not turning away from Jewishness. They say they're remaining Jews, but they're becoming followers of Jesus. Well, that's just scaring them to death."

Graham continues, "They've set up all over the country, these Jews for Jesus at the various universities . . . . And this is frightening Jewish leaders, and they're overreacting in this country. I'm talking about the rabbis."

Moishe Rosen, the founder of Jews for Jesus and the director of the organization at that time, explains why a handful of staff could appear to be "all over the country."

"Our traveling musical team, the Liberated Wailing Wall, set up a number of church meetings," recalls Rosen, "and during the day we would go to the campuses. The group had some meetings in Texas, then traveled to Washington, Boston, and back to our headquarters in San Francisco. We probably appeared on fifty campuses in a three-month period. We were seen by a lot of people, but it was the same group!"

Rosen and Graham traded correspondence beginning in late 1977 after Rabbi Tannenbaum made a speech in which he referred to Graham's "repudiation of proselytizing of Jewish people through the deceptive techniques of such movements as Jews for Jesus." An article in McCall's magazine in January 1978 made a similar claim that "Billy is particularly opposed to evangelical groups such as 'Jews for Jesus' who have made Jews the special target of their proselytizing efforts."

In a letter to Rosen dated January 24, 1978, Graham said, "I regret that alleged statements by me concerning your ministry have caused you one minute's embarrassment or grief. So many people have reported to me what a blessing you and your group have been to them . . . . I can never recall ever criticizing your group by name in public or private! . . . Sometimes texts are taken out of the context to mean something more or less than was meant."

In the same letter, Graham said, "I have never publicly supported special missions to Jews—I preach to people as people! But you will notice when I give an invitation in my Crusades to accept Christ I usually say 'whether you are Catholic, Protestant or Jew.'"

What will the children be?

by Tuvya Zaretsky

These days the simcha (joy) of Jewish weddings is often tempered by angst. In North America, more than half of all Jews are now marrying Gentiles. As a result, the survival of the Jewish people is a natural concern. It is often voiced in the question, "What will the children be?"

For the participants of intermarriage, the experience can be a world of confusion. I recently received an email from one of my daughter's high school teachers. He wrote, "My wife and children are Jewish as is my stepmother. My dad's family members are Methodist and Baptist born-again Christians. My mother is a Catholic who converted to Buddhism. My sister is Lutheran, and my brother-in-law is Muslim."

How can we make sense of such a complex mixture of ethnicities and religions? How can any of that help us provide clarity and identity for Jewish-Gentile couples?

First, I separate ethnicity from religion. Ethnicity is derived from blood lineage, family DNA, and is sometimes called nationality. It has nothing to do with passports or legal citizenship. It is to be part of a people, and it comes from the bloodline of our parents.

Religion, on the other hand, is a component of culture. That is, it is learned from our family, social authorities, community and expressed through traditional practices. In an individual, ethnicity doesn't change. Religion can.

There are actually four relational stages through which a Jewish-Gentile couple will experience tensions and challenges as a result of their two different ethnicities and the many possibilities of religious cultural expressions in their lives. It all starts when they are dating.

During the romantic, courting phase of infatuation and intense feelings, a Jewish-Gentile couple will likely discover a variety of cultural differences that at first can appear humorous. "Do you really eat that stuff?" But it can get serious quickly upon discovering a difference in core values, "You just can't say that name in my parents' home! We are Jews and we speak about Jesus differently."

The next relational stage is when the couple plans their wedding. Will it take place in a synagogue, a church, a park, a country club, a catering hall, or…? Every symbol incorporated into the wedding ceremony becomes a potential cultural landmine.

And once the wedding ceremony is navigated, a Jewish-Gentile couple begins to discover their own household identity. "Are we intermarried or a mixed marriage?" "Are we both religions, neither, just yours or my alone?"

It can be challenging to preserve mutual respect, let alone romantic affection, when the ethnic heritage and possibly the religion of one partner is threatened. It is easier to tolerate spiritual differences during the romantic dating phase of a relationship than it is when that partnership is permanentized in matrimony. Differences in core values, that were so easily passed over during infatuation, now threaten to separate or alienate partners. Ethnicity is not necessarily a barrier to spiritual harmony, but the cultural component of religious beliefs can pose a significant threat.

Two people in a marriage can fend other influences, or compartmentalize and accommodate their differences of spiritual outlook. However, when children come along, everything changes.

The arrival of children raises the question of their future identity with what people and which belief system. The question, "What will the children be?" takes on deadly seriousness as conflicting core values come to the fore.

Children bear the genetic makeup of both parents. How they will spiritually identify may be determined by the way that they choose their religious cultural components.

Spiritual harmony in a family is possible. Family identity can incorporate the preservation and survival of Jewish ethnic identity, even when only one partner is Jewish. It is made easier when both partners each seek and know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In Him is the source of all life, the meaning of life and life as it was designed to be experienced. The key to a relationship with that God is through knowing His anointed Messiah of the Jewish people.

How might we serve you to find spiritual harmony as a Jewish-Gentile couple?

Read more on JewishGentileCouples.com

Where Will William Shatner Show Up Next?

by Rich Robinson

I enjoyed screening the new Star Trek movie the other week.  It was great seeing Spock, Kirk, Bones et al. in their more formative years, and wonderful to see Leonard Nimoy reprise his role as the "older" Spock.

Conspicuous by his absence, of course, was William Shatner.  Which made me wonder … in the years since the original Gene Roddenberry Star Trek, William Shatner has shown up just about everywhere.

He was T. J. Hooker. He was (and is) the pitch guy for Priceline.com. He was (and is, if you count reruns and DVDs) Denny Crane on Boston Legal. He has his own interview show, William Shatner's Raw Nerve.

Which led me to the question, where will William Shatner show up next? Could he become a fifth face on Mount Rushmore? Or an icon on the Corn Flakes box? Will they make a "Wii William" game, or will "Shatner's Sautees" come to the Food Network?

As I thought about it, I wondered if William Shatner was like God. You know, omnipresent. Eternal. All that.  Or did it just seem that way?

Then I got to thinking that maybe God is like William Shatner. After all, he runs a tight ship—it's just that it's the universe, not the U.S.S. Enterprise.  (Cut to the Bible—"for He views the ends of the earth, and sees everything under the heavens."—Job 28:24)

He plans to interview us all some day, just not on TV. ("For we will all stand before God's judgment seat."—Romans 14:10)

And he can get us something of great value at an incredible price, only it's not a hotel deal, but, you know, eternal life. ("Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost."—Isaiah 55:1)

Or maybe it is a hotel, kind of – "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you."—John 14:2)

I got to thinking that God is eternal, but that not even William Shatner will be around forever. Someday, someone, somewhere, is going to say, "He's dead, Jim."

In fact, some day he'll show up in God's interview room: "Real—unscripted—intimate—my guest is William Shatner. He talks with me about his life."

Maybe William Shatner has shown up in so many places to point us to something better than this world—a strange new world, where no one has gone before (except for Jesus—you're reading this on the Jews for Jesus web site, what did you expect?). A world where God is the captain of our lives, our defense attorney, and the one who gets us an awesome "deal."

If you're tempted to say with Scotty, "I've never seen anything like it!" or with Bones, "Are you out of your mind!?" just beam me an email at rich.robinson@jewsforjesus.org.

Of Mothers and Fathers

by Tuvya Zaretsky

Jewish survival is a dominant concern among Jewish-Gentile families. Will their children be Jews? Will the rest of the Jewish community consider them as Jews?

Social research has shown two key challenges that Jewish-Gentile families experience related to children.¹ Marital dissatisfaction includes challenges to family harmony in forms like: parental reluctance to accept an intermarried couple; conflict over cultural symbols or competition to define an interfaith family identity. It was also found significant discord over enculturating children: which ethnic heritage will they claim, or what religious faith will be passed on to them?

It is helpful to frame the question of Jewish survival in terms of two perspectives: first ethnic and second religious. Jewishness of children is more easily defined through ethnic criteria.

Mothers or Fathers?

Jewish scholars agree that historically Jewishness was determined through the line of the father. The Hebrew people were first identified via the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and his sons. Genealogical lineage throughout the Tanakh was marked by the familiar formula: so-in-so "the son of…" The first census of the Jewish nation in the Sinai wilderness was "by their families, by their fathers' households" (l'mishpehotam l'veit avotam) in Numbers 1:2.

Yet, we find biblical evidence that Gentile wives could mother and raise Jewish children. Rahab of the Canaanites and Ruth the Moabite were two classic examples. If that were not so then king David and his family would have been discounted from the Jewish line because of his great grandmother, Ruth.

So ethnicity in Bible times included Jewish heroes or kings who married Gentile women and produced Jewish offspring. Judah married a Caananite; Joseph took an Egyptian princess as his bride; Moses wed a Midianite and an Ethiopian; David married a Philistine, and Solomon's harem was a role call of the United Nations. Patrilineal lineage was the norm, but matrilineal descent was also accepted for ethnic continuity of Jewishness.

Who made the issue of matrilineal descent the dividing line for Jewish ethnicity and when did that happen? Evidently, it came from the traditional Jewish scholars of Judaism. Until 70 AD, and the destruction of the second temple, Jewish ethnicity was determined through the father - particularly for the cohenim.

Sometime during the First Century AD, matrilineal descent was adopted as the basis for determining Jewishness. Scholars believe that was to bring the growing body of Jewish tradition into line with laws of the Roman Empire. When the Talmud was finally codified in the fourth and fifth centuries, matrilineal descent became the law of Judaism.²

Traditional Judaism today is divided on the question of "Who is a Jew?" Orthodox and Conservative Judaism hold to matrilineal descent to define Jewish ethnicity. Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism adopted rulings for a patrilineal descent in the early 1980s.

However, with 63% of American Jewry is unaffiliated with traditional Judaism and Jewish-Gentile intermarriage has been the majority since 1985. Therefore, personal experience is trumping rabbinic authority. Couples are finding that the Bible pattern is still trustworthy.

In reality, Jewish survival has continued with the ethnicity of either father or mother. There are plenty of good examples today. However, we would like to point out that Jewish survival was guaranteed by something much more enduring than blood lineage.

Survival of the Jewish people depends on the unconditional faithfulness of God through His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The preservation of a Jewish nation depends on the faithfulness of God's word and character.³ That is a pretty safe bet!

And yet, the participation in Jewish identity depends on what children learn about that God. They need to know that God has a purpose in creating the Jewish people. They would be instrumental in delivering the Messianic Redeemer to fulfill Genesis 3:15. The person of Y'shua (Jesus) fulfills the Israelite mission. Jewish-Gentile children should learn that God ordained the Jewish people as a lamp through which He would reveal the light of His presence to all the nations. His covenant care for the Jewish people would teach that His character is dependable for all peoples.

Jewish mothers and/or fathers are essential for survival of the Jewish people. Family spiritual harmony depends on teaching all children about the God who created Jewish people to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.⁴ History, the Bible and the personal experience of Jewish-Gentile couples are showing that one Jewish parent, sharing one messianic faith with a Gentile partner can create spiritual harmony and shalom bayit (peace at home). Happy Mother's Day and Happy Father's Day to every Jewish-Gentile mom and dad!

ENDNOTES

1. Zaretsky, Tuvya. "The Challenges of Jewish-Gentile Couples: A Pre-Evangelistic Ethnographic Study: A Dissertation submitted to the faculty of Western Seminary. (Portland: Western Seminary) 2004, pages 67 and 97.

2. Kiddushin68b according to an interpretation of Deuteronomy 7:3-4

3. Jeremiah 31:35-37

4. Genesis 12:3