Interfaith Family News

InterFaithways in the News

InterFaithways--Helping Interfaith Families to Make Jewish Connections. Jewish Exponent October 30, 2008
      Featuring Gari Julius Weilbacher, our NEW Managing Director.

Rabbi Rayzel Raphael's Passover Resources were reprinted in the Jewish Exponent April 17, 2008.

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Interfaith Families in the News

In the past few months, several articles have been published about interfaith families. Several studies have been released that have created the opportunity for the Jewish community to reexamine its approach to interfaith marriage.

The first study is an extension of the 2005 Boston Community Study. The CJP Report on Intermarried Families and Their Children states, "Close to one-half of the married population is intermarried. Over half of the intermarried families with children report that they are raising their children as Jewish [in Boston]. . . Doing so is near-universal among Jewish women in interfaith relationships, but less so for Jewish men. The study also found that children from intermarried families being raised as Jews are as likely as those from in-married families to have received Jewish education."

A report released by Brandeis University and the Steinhardt Social Research Institute, It's Not Just Who Stands Under the Chuppah: Intermarriage and Engagement, based on the 2000-1 National Jewish Population Survey, goes further. "Results indicate that when exposed to similar levels of these critical Jewish experiences as children and adolescents, adults raised in inmarried and intermarried homes look very much alike [in terms of Jewish involvement]."

A third report, Intermarriage and Jewish Journeys in the United States, asks 149 interfaith couples the following questions:
1. What are the factors that attract interfaith couples to Judaism and the Jewish community?
2. What are the factors that repel interfaith couples from Judaism and the Jewish community?
3. How do the needs of interfaith families and concerns in regard to the Jewish community change over time?
4. Given that we can answer the above questions, how should the Jewish community most effectively respond to interfaith marriage?

In the context of these reports, consider the findings of the Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, which indicate that there is a great fluidity in which religions American's practice. People are increasingly choosing religions other than that of their birth. National Jewish outreach leaders have quoted the study to illustrate the need for outreach to families who are intermarried.