Customer Reviews

Rabbis Talk About Intermarriage

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A study done in 1990 stated that 52% of Jewish Americans marry non-Jews. This book examines how rabbis, from various denominations, deal with this trend. Instead of having snowball samples and taped interviews, this study actually quotes sermons that rabbis have given to their congregations on the matter.

This book does a great job in showing the catch-22 in which these clergy members exist. On the one hand, there is nothing terrible about mixed-religious marriages, but if you were trained that a marriage not involving two Jews is not a Jewish marriage, then what can you do? How can you curb intermarriage without hurting the feelings of the resultant children who you wish would identify as Jewish? Many oppressed groups worry about mingling with the majority. If you only accept the pure, you are speaking to a disappearing population, but if you count just anybody with one drop, your culture and home base get watered down to the point where it might as well not even exist as unique. African Americans, my own community, and Native Americans struggle with this concern. This book would be interesting to many non-Jews as well as Jews.

I have two problems with this book. First, it should really just be a magazine article and not a whole book. It got repetitive quickly and does not have to be half as long as it is. Secondly, the authors use several negative adjectives to describe rabbis on this issue: anguished, isolated, upset, resigned, etc. I am worried that this will make Jewish leaders look "wimpy" and only fuel anti-Semitism in an already oppressive global situation. I hope that enemies of Jewish people do not use this book against them.