Still Jewish: A History of Women and Intermarriage in America
By Keren R. McGinity
New York University Press, 305 pages.
Freelance writer Beth Levine intended to marry a Jewish man and raise “nominally Jewish children,” although she could not define what being a Jew meant. But, after marrying Bill Squire, a gentile, in 1991, she was forced to become more knowledgeable about her own religion.
“More so than anything else,” she wrote in a Reform movement magazine a decade later, “marrying Bill has opened the door to my Jewish spiritual home.”
According to Keren McGinity, a Mandell L. Berman Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Michigan’s Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, the key to understanding Levine’s religious progression is that she is a woman. In her new book, “Still Jewish,” she traces the attitudes of intermarried women toward Judaism throughout the 20th century, based on interviews with 43 women from the Boston area, and archival research about three women who are deceased. As the century progressed, she argues (sometimes quite dryly), women became significantly more likely than men to retain their Jewish identity and bring up their children as Jews.
It is an ambitious thesis, which, if true, would have enormous practical implications for the “intermarriage crisis,” which is only rarely analyzed by gender. But McGinity — a Jew who was herself married to a man of Irish-Catholic background for nearly 14 years — overstates her case.
Before 1930, less than 3.2% of American Jews married ‘out.’ Three of the most prominent were Mary Antin Grabau, Rose Pastor-Stokes and Anna Strunsky Walling, women from working-class, immigrant backgrounds who married into wealthy Protestant families. For these three political activists, intermarriage was a way of moving into mainstream American society. While they never explicitly renounced their Jewishness, they moved into their husbands’ spheres of influence and two of them experimented with other religions. When their marriages broke down, however, the catalysts were not religious, but political and economic differences.
By 1960, intermarriage had doubled to 5.9%. Although there was still strong communal opposition to intermarriage, women had more opportunities to meet non-Jewish men because they increasingly went to college and to work, and as American Jews moved from Jewish neighborhoods to the more religiously heterogeneous suburbs. Many were also looking for a way to escape antisemitism.
Despite marrying out of the faith, many of the women in McGinity’s study continued to see themselves as Jewish, particularly in racial and/or cultural terms — even if they became, as was common, devoted Unitarians. A few even identified themselves as “more Jewish,” once they married out — a significant change from earlier in the century.
This reluctance to drop their Jewish identities, whether religious, ethnic or cultural, became far more pronounced in the 1960s and 1970s, when the civil rights movement, which encouraged people to overlook racial and religious differences, led to a spike in intermarriage. The feminist movement encouraged women to take a more equal role in their marriages, so women were less likely to give up their own religious identities, and more likely to take an active role shaping family life, rather than deferring to their husband.
Between 1980 and 2004, women, for the first time, were intermarrying in similar numbers to men (33% to 29%, according to the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey). Political liberalism continued to make intermarriage easier to do, but ethnic revivalism meant more women wanted to maintain their Judaism. This was more feasible than ever, because for the first time, many of the men they married had no faith at all.
Of the 15 women in McGinity’s sample who intermarried in this period, 13 described intensified Jewish identities, religious practices, or both — particularly after the birth of their children (this is, presumably, often the case among in-marrieds too, but no comparative data is given). McGinity describes women who deliberately kept their Jewish-sounding surnames, for example, or began to light Shabbat candles or attend synagogue. Increasing numbers wanted to give their children more Jewish education than they had received, and — strikingly — felt strongly that they wanted their children to marry other Jews.
“Marrying someone of another faith cast women’s Jewish identity into high relief and made the women more consciously Jewish than had they married endogamously,” said McGinity.
Is the threat of intermarriage exaggerated, then — at least when it comes to women?
McGinity’s thesis that intermarried women in the past few decades feel more strongly about Judaism than intermarried men is backed up by data from the 2000-2001 NJPS, which shows that 47% of intermarried women brought up their children as Jews, compared to just 28% of intermarried men. McGinity’s research, however, adds little to this data. Her sample of just 46 women is too narrow to base far-reaching conclusions on, and the intermarried women she interviews seem far more “Jewishly” affiliated than is the norm nationally (several surveys show this is typical for the Jews of Boston).
More fundamentally, it remains unclear what McGinity’s interviewees mean when they say they are “still Jewish.” While clearly, there is great value in a subjective feeling, empirical evidence shows that Jewish survival and continuity rests on an active Jewish lifestyle. How many of these women send their children to Jewish camps? Have Friday night dinner? Visit Israel? There are anecdotes, but no hard statistics.
Similarly, while readers are told that all of the women in her sample who had children between 1980 and 2000 brought up their offspring “as Jews,” there is very little serious analysis of what this means in practice, how the children see themselves, and how many of them choose to bring up their own families as Jews.
McGinity does try to argue that the definition of Jewishness must be expanded to include “Jewish identities that were personally meaningful” to her subjects, but this is unsatisfyingly vague for those interested in the implications for Jewish continuity. Clearly, there is a phenomenon here that is interesting and should not be neglected or ignored. Whether it is substantial enough to warrant a communal re-think, however, is not yet really proven; more facts, please.
Miriam Shaviv is the foreign editor of the Jewish Chronicle in the United Kingdom.
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I tend to agree. My mother was Jewish, my father Irish Catholic. I understand the Irish heritage but I am a Jew first and foremost! I married a Jew and am an observant woman whose family is. I work for Israel and consider myself a Zionist. Some might say I am half Jewish but I have never thought in those terms. Judaism is my religion as well as my culture and I can still enjoy some Irish tradition which in fact enrich if not my culture, then my life.
I have numerous couples in my congregation where the mother is Jewish and the father is not. It is crucial that the children be brought up with a strong Jewish education and that the non Jewish parent be supportive and participate in the Jewish education of the children. I have seen the love of Judaisn which such a child can possess .The non Jewish father deserves much credit in this endeavor.I have in some cases been able to convince the father to convert to Judaism.
Very often, one reads research which is meant to show that intermarriage is not such a negative phenomenon. All in all, if intermarriage is a "failure", then sadly one is forced to conclude that the Jewish experience in America has failed. Such an admission in the American Jewish discussion is an absolute "no-no" - no one will ever say that having come to America has been a blow to Jewish continuity. Instead, we hear that intermarriage brings "new blood", or that "in Boston such-and-such a percentage of children of mixed marriages are raised as Jews", and other such nonsense. Intermarriage is a SYMPTOM of the topic at hand - it is not the topic. The topic is the collapse of Jewish distinctiveness. The difference between an American Jew and another American is not too clear. The difference between an American Jew and another Jew in the world is very clear. This loss of distinctiveness is expressed in intermarriage. Anyone really interested in Jewish continuity will have to come up with an educational program that is meant to create a new generation of Jews who are different than other Americans - a new generation of Jews who does not have an American identity. The first goal is the return to a Jewish language. Alas, it's not going to happen, and the crisis in Jewish life will only worsen.
I don't know from where Mrs. McGinity chose her subjects for her study but I know from the overwhelmingly assimilated Queens, NY Jewish neighborhood that I grew up in, from the workplace and from friends that the reality is something different. First of all the assimilated Jewish intermarriage rate is very high, higher than stated, that intermarriage leads to more intermarriage, not uncommon is for all the children in a family to intermarry, I see grandparents whose only choice is to give Christmas presents. Jews who have no background besides an afternoon hebrew school, have no interest in Judaism and at best defer to the non-Jewish spouse and in many cases do not only raise the children as baptised Christians but themselves outright initially or eventually convert to Christianity baptism and all. What is even sadder is that Christianity is such a transparent falsehood and complete fiction. Jesus simply never existed. That an intelligent Jew in love with a non-Jew or not to fall for the Christian myth in the face of its stupendous idiocy and forgery is beyond belief. Where is their slef esteem. That Rabbis are not involved in fighting this intellectual scourge head on is their greatest shame and disgrace.
From a traditional Jewish point of view, the children of a Jewish mother are Jewish, even if the father isn't. Mainstream Orthodox Jewish schools in London accept such children. All British schools try to teach about the country's main religions, so even Jewish children are aware of the historical Jesus, recorded in Jewish as well as Christian sources.
Sorry Danny, Jesus never existed, Jewish sources reveal no such thing, and how would they know anyway they were created hundreds of years after the said non-fact, they are reacting to heresy and Jew hatred of existing Christianity, Jesus is a myth. The Christian sources are also mythical fiction and accreted forgery, there are so many problems with the New Testament that the support for major critical themes run into the thousand of examples.
JMK. The era covered by the Mishna includes the last generation of the Jerusalem Temple, the time of Jesus. He certainly existed, but not in the image created by later generations of Christians.
It's one thing to say that Jewish mothers raise their children as Jews, but the real test is how many of those children grow up to affirm their Jewish identity and how many just disappear into non-Jewish American society. How many of them will marry other Jews and raise their children to be Jews? You don't have to be Jewish to be a trendy liberal !
While growing up with a Jewish mother and non Jewish father, I was very drawn to Judaism. Yet, the misguided approach to labeling people half this or half that was disheartening. The realization at age 12 or so that Jewish law dictates one is Jewish if your mother is so was the best news ever for me. That absolutely reaffirmed me in my sentiments and have been proudly, unhesitatingly, unabashedly called and cultivatating myself as a Jew since.
This piece also leads me to say: it is time to STOP the irritating habit of attempting to conclude people's Jewishness based on their last names. There are plenty of O'Connors, Thompsons, Garcias and McSomething or other that have sparkling halakhic credentials while plenty of Cohens, Bernsteins, Levys and XYZwicz's and ABCstein's that have no halackhic claim or even cultural interest in claiming their Jewishness.
As long as we're challenging marriage taboos, why not bring back polygamy? It's a logical answer for the imbalance in the number of available brides and grooms.
Moshiach is coming, you fools. We will all be judged, and NO-ONE will be judged more harshly than Jewish women who marry non-Jews. So, go ahead. Rationalize. Make it glamorous. Chortle and congratulate yourselves all the way until the final act. Then, when G-d's glory is no longer hidden, gaze open-mouthed at the staggering level of the stupidity and arrogance which you allowed yourself to stoop to, when it is finally too late for you and you have nothing left but a feeling of deep, profound embarassment of what you made of the life -- and the opportunity for holiness -- that G-d gave you. I for one am waiting for that day, and when it comes and I get to watch you all it will not come one day too soon. If you have one shred of humility, good sense and fear of G-d left within your self-serving and rationalized arrogance, do teshuva now while you still can. I won't hold my breath but I do have no doubt whatsoever that I will have the last laugh.
The issue of intermarriage is not really being viewed in the correct perspective. You can claim that "x" percent of intermarried Jewish women and "y" percent of intermarried Jewish men raise their children as Jews. Miriam Shaviv already raises the question as to the real meaning of "raising children as Jews". Always, in such researches, Jewishness or Jewish commitment is never actually defined. But there is another question that has to be inserted. The phenomenon of intermarriage is just two generations old (until the 1960's, it was still a very marginal percentage). Now it is no longer a marginal phenomenon - it might even be the norm. What will intermarriage mean after 10 generations of intermarrying? People don't think in terms of such a distance future, so my question may seem to be irrelevant. But, surely, rabbis and Jewish educators are capable of dealing with Jewish sociology and Jewish history in such terms. I don't think that any serious Jewish activist really can believe that - generation after generation after generation after generation of intermarriage - there will still be Jewish authors writing about "x" percent or "y" percent of mixed families that are still raising Jewish children.
Intermarriage means the ends of Jewish history in Diaspora communities. It's so tragic that the obvious truth is never stated in obvious terms. All these researches claiming that mix-marriages have not diminished Jewish life in America (or they have even added "new blood" into the community) are misleading the Jewish public. Pretending that Jewish identity continues even with one Jewish parent or with just one Jewish grandparent is an attempt to avoid stating that which is never stated in the American Jewish community: Jewish life is in the midst of disintegration, and it's time to sound the alarm.
Once upon a time, a person jumped off the roof of a very tall building. As he passed the 20th floor, someone called out to him: "How's it going?" And he answered: "So far, so good...." Telling us that "x" percent of intermarried women raise Jewish children is an attempt to tell us "so far, so good" without giving a moment's thought to the fact that soon, in another generation, no one will be answering the question anymore.
S Cohen says "I tend to agree. My mother was Jewish, my father Irish Catholic. I understand the Irish heritage but I am a Jew first and foremost! I married a Jew and am an observant woman whose family is." This is evidence that those with a Jewish mother and non Jewish dad can live with a Jewish life and continue to pass it down to their children but only as long as these people are welcome in the community and receive a Jewish education.
Those with both Jewish parents are more likely to believe in Judaism than those whose parents have intermarried. I know secular Jews who had a secular upbringing who went on Aish holidays and came back very religious which proves that education on it's own, regardless of a Jews upbringing can be enough for Jews to live a Jewish life.
My son has married a Jew after they got married she did not want him to mix withany of his family.is this their belief