Embracing the Stranger: Intermarriage and the Future of the American Jewish Community [Hardcover]

Ellen Jaffe-Gill (Author), Ellen Jaffe McClain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1995

McClain, a deeply committed Jew who married a non-Jew, argues vehemently that intermarriage does not necessarily spell the end of an individual's Jewish life--or the end of the Jewish community. Combining hard data, anecdotes and personal interviews, this eye-opening account reveals why Jews intermarry and what concerned Jews ought to be doing about it.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

McClain, a junior high school teacher in Los Angeles who has previously written a novel for young adults, presents an engaging, easy-to-read book about intermarriage full of insightful interviews with intermarried couples and Jewish organization figures. The author also draws upon her own experience in being married to a non-Jew, which provided the impetus for the book. McClain believes that, although Jews marry outside the Jewish faith at a high rate, this can be beneficial for the future of Judaism in America. Her controversial opinion is not widely shared. Nevertheless, she believes there is a renewed vitality in outlook toward Judaism in many of these intermarried families and that these couples should be treated in a more welcoming manner by the Jewish community. McClain also offers advice and a directory of key Jewish organizations that can be of help to intermarried couples and their offspring. Recommended for medium and large public libraries serving a diverse clientele.?Paul M. Kaplan, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., Ill.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Widely regarded as the scourge of the Jewish community, intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews has few outspoken defenders. McClain counters the attacks on these unions as she issues a thoughtful plea for welcoming outsiders to the faith and strives to destroy the stereotypes many Jewish men and women have of each other. McClain finds considerable flaws in the gloomy 1990 National Jewish Population Study, which predicts eventual assimilation of American Jews, and asserts it is too early to discern how couples married so recently are raising their children. Besides criticizing the finger-pointing of such studies, McClain examines why some Jews neglect the community and faults uninspiring mainstream Jewish institutions and Jewish self-hatred. Her call for embracing Judaism while respecting individual marital decisions is clear and direct: "Just as many Gentiles through the centuries have been comfortable vilifying Jews as evil-minded, money-grubbing parasites, so have Jews become comfortable stereotyping those of us who choose to marry non-Jews as self-hating, anti-religious destroyers of our people. It has to stop." Aaron Cohen

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; First Trade Edition edition (November 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465019080
• ISBN-13: 978-0465019083
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,363,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Telling it like it is, March 31, 2000

By 

Rabbi Yonassan Gershom (Minnesota, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Embracing the Stranger: Intermarriage and the Future of the American Jewish Community (Hardcover)

This book takes an honest look at the growing number of intermarriages between Jews and non-Jews in America today, and what the Jewish community should be doing about it. Neither judgemental nor preachy, it is a cross between personal journal and anthropology, with the author giving her own thoughts along with the statistics. Also included are numerous interviews with Jews, intermarried and not, about their personal experiences.

I found the chapter "That's Entertainment" -- about images of Jews in the media -- to be useful as "back up" for what I've been saying for years: You rarely, if ever, see a happily married Jewish family portrayed on TV or in the movies. It's as if Hollywood thinks that nobody will be interested in a story about two Jews married to each other. (Imagine if they showed only black-white marriages on TV -- there's be an outcry from both sides!) The author traces the various portrayals of Jews in the movies and TV, and warns that these are the images which American Jewish youth are taking as models for themselves. With no positive portayals of Jewish family life, is it any wonder they marry non-Jews?

In the end, however, I found the author's stance to be far too permissive and somewhat pandering to the dominant culture. She does not, for example, see any problem with mixed-marriage couples having a Christmas tree, which she calls "just a decoration." And her conclusions in the last chapter are essentially Reform Movement, i.e., that intermarraige is here to stay anyway, so we might as well start blurring the lines between Jews and non-Jews in the synagogue rituals, etc. With this, I cannot agree. (And it may well be the reason this book went out of print so quickly.) Still, she did give me a lot to think about. She asks good questons, even if I don't agree with her answers.

2 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I'd cry if I wasn't laughing so hard!, July 11, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Embracing the Stranger: Intermarriage and the Future of the American Jewish Community (Hardcover)

The author treats intermarriage as essentially no big deal, and interfaith issues as nearly trivial, though she describes them in great detail.

But here's the truth: Only seven percent of Jewish-Jewish marriages end up in divorce (regrettable but true), while a whopping SIXTY PERCENT of Jewish-Christian ones do. Author Jaffe-Gill herself has now divorced two Christian husbands, one after the other -- does this sound like a recommendation?