If my Facebook feed is any guide, converts to Judaism are commodities, not human beings. In countless posts, and in real life too, born Jews of all stripes opine about — depending on their ideological outlook — whether particular converts have met proper conversion standards, or whether there should be any standards at all. Not…
NEW YORK (JTA) — “It doesn’t help.” “I don’t know how it happened or why it happened.” “The most common response I’m seeing is confusion.” That’s what some Conservative rabbis are saying about their movement’s recent major statement on intermarriage, which reasserts the ban on rabbis performing interfaith weddings while urging its member synagogues to…
NEW YORK (JTA) — The Conservative movement will maintain its ban on interfaith marriages while seeking to welcome couples who are already intermarried, according to a new letter signed by the movement’s four leaders. The letter, published this week and addressed to the centrist movement’s clergy, educators and leaders, follows a summer when a few…
Recently I gave a presentation at a JCC, the marketing of which included the statement, “Intermarriage is good, period.” One of the newly intermarried couples in attendance came up to me afterwards to confide the difficulty of their situation. One half of the couple was not Jewish, while the other half hailed from a disapproving…
Last week, we reported in these pages that based on current age contours, the next 40 years will see a large expansion of the Orthodox population, alongside deep declines in the number of Conservative and Reform Jews. To take one startling statistic, of many: For every 100 Orthodox Jews 60-69, we have 575 children under…
The Jewish world has been obsessing over genetics recently. Are we or are we not white? Has the Khazar hypothesis been conclusively disproven? All these are interesting questions that are fun to discuss, but it’s time to take a breather. Not only are the tests that tell you your ancestry less reliable than people believe…
There is a vibrant debate going on about how the Jewish community should treat interfaith couples and the children of intermarried families. I understand why the debate is a difficult one, and why major Jewish institutions wrestle with it. On campus, however, the debate is largely over. At UCLA Hillel, we regularly serve students who…
Last week, the Forward published a piece by Allison Darcy entitled “Are Your Views on Intermarriage Racist?” It’s a well-written and thoughtful piece, and even as a religious woman who is opposed to intermarriage, I agree with many of her points. Particularly this one: “There is a big difference between wanting to marry someone who…
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