Amichai Lau-Lavie
The Intermarriage Innovator Asking The Tough Questions
Should a rabbi be permitted to marry a Jew and a non-Jew? This year, that question roiled the Conservative movement as it struggled to balance its embrace of modernity with the strictures of Jewish law and tradition. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie put a face, and a proposal, to that challenge.
Ever since he founded an experimental Jewish prayer community in Manhattan in 2013, Lau-Lavie, 48, has served as a spiritual leader often asked to officiate at interfaith weddings. But once he was ordained a Conservative rabbi in 2016, he was required to say no. Unsatisfied, he embarked on a yearlong research project to develop a framework within Jewish law to permit intermarriage under certain conditions.
In his proposal, which he unveiled in June and titled “Joy,” Lau-Lavie said that he would ask prospective couples to devote at least six months before the wedding to study Jewish values and demonstrate a commitment to community. “What should make a difference is not what is in your blood or on your documents,” he told the Forward’s Jane Eisner. “It’s did you show up? Are you a part of this?”
Not surprisingly, these ideas prompted a robust dialogue on the Forward’s pages and beyond. Around the same time, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, an influential Manhattan synagogue with ties to the Conservative movement, concluded its own yearlong review by deciding that its rabbis could perform intermarriages if the couple pledges to raise a Jewish family.
For Lau-Lavie, the consequences have been both joyous and difficult. He resigned in August from the Rabbinical Assembly, which represents Conservative rabbis, knowing that he would be asked to leave anyhow. He recently told the Forward that he is getting more requests to officiate at weddings than ever before, and about 60% are from interfaith couples. He plans to create public programs for these couples in the next year.
Meanwhile, the debate within the Conservative movement continues, as its rabbis try to reconcile the fluid identities of contemporary life with their commitment to maintaining Jewish tradition. The deep and complicated questions Lau-Lavie raised won’t be answered anytime soon.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
