JOI Poll Results! Majority Favors Outreach to Intermarried
A series
of public opinion surveys carried out by the Jewish Outreach
Institute between 1990-1993 point to several guiding principles
for those concerned with Jewish continuity in an age of
increasing intermarriage:
- Jews are more eager to see their adult children
married than to see them avoid intermarriage--if those
are the likely alternatives.
- When faced with the reality of an interfaith marriage
where there is a commitment to raise the children
Jewish, the majority prefer to have a marriage officiated
by a rabbi rather than to have a civil ceremony.
- Where children are being raised as Jews in an interfaith
marriage even though the mother is not Jewish, the
great majority of Jews would consider such a child
Jewish if it were their own grandchild--though traditional
Jewish law would dictate to the the contrary.
The first of these surveys involved a questionnaire mailed
to 9,000 rabbis, synagogue presidents, UJA/Federation
leadership groups and executive directors of Jewish agencies
in Spring of 1990. The same questionnaire was published
in thirteen Anglo- Jewish newspapers around the U.S. and
Canada in the Spring and Fall of 1993. It was also mailed
to 5,000 Jewish philanthropists in North America in the
Fall of 1993.
These are the first comprehensive studies of Jewish
public opinion on the issues surrounding interfaith
marriage among America's Jews today.
At the heart of the questionnaire was a highly personal
story of a "thirtysomething" young Jew who is about
to marry a gentile. The goal of the questionnaire was
to get the respondents to focus on the issues of intermarriage
in direct human terms rather than in terms of abstract
ideology.
The questions that followed the story asked respondents
whether they would:
- accept such a marriage or not if one of their own
children were involved, and under what conditions
(e.g. conversion of the non-Jewish partner to Judaism);
- want the couple to be married by a rabbi or only
in a civil ceremony;
- regard the children of the couple as Jewish even
if the mother was not Jewish as long as the children
were raised Jewish;
- want their non-Jewish son or daughter-in-law to
convert;
- want the organized Jewish community to make a greater
effort to help intermarried families become part of
the Jewish community;and
- want to see their non-Jewish son- or daughter-in-law
be accepted as a member of a synagogue or other Jewish
organizations.
The survey of Jewish philanthropists was of special significance
because respondents, whose collective financial support
is the mainstay of the organized Jewish community, both
endorsed what he previous surveys had found and also specified
the dollar among that most would like to see spent on
outreach to the intermarried.
The average contribution of the sample responding
to the survey of philanthropists was $42,800, and on
the average respondents felt that 6% of their contribution
should be spent by the Jewish community on outreach
to the intermarried.
With American Jewry in a quandary over intermarriage;
with the percentage of intermarried inching upward each
passing year, these issues are both personal and communal.
What is to be done is equally puzzling on both fronts.
Jewish parents with intermarried children put the
matter very personally; we don't want to lose our Judaism,
but we don't want to lose our children either. Rabbis
and Jewish community leaders are anguished to see so
many of the community's best and brightest choose marriage
partners beyond the pale of normative Judaism. They
wonder how to secure the continuity of the community
in the face of such radical change in the make-up of
the modern Jewish family.
Some argue, with the force of normative Judaism on
their side, that more must be done by the organized
Jewish community to reverse the rising tide of intermarriage.
Others argue equally passionately, with a sense of uneasiness
about the faith and identity of their children and grandchildren,
that more must be done to reach, attract and retain
interfaith families in the Jewish community. Only history
will be the final judge of which course of action will
prove to be of greatest benefit to the long-term continuity
of our people. But, at least for now, we know which
course of action is most desired by the vast majority
of Jews in North America.
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