A research project is offering a new view on how interfaith couples raise their children, with a few major surprises.
The new overview, published in the 2007 American Jewish Yearbook, compares the rates at which intermarried couples in different cities raise Jewish children. It comes on the heels of a study of the Jewish population in the greater Boston area that raised eyebrows with its finding that 60% of the children of intermarriages were being raised as Jews. But according to tabulations in the upcoming American Jewish Yearbook, Boston’s figure rests at the high end of an enormous national range among Jewish communities, one that goes from 75% in South Palm Beach to just 18% down the road in Martin and St. Lucie counties in Florida.
The figures bring a new layer of nuance to the debate over intermarriage. The presence of several major Jewish communities with more than 50% of interfaith couples raising their children as Jews undermines the long-held notion that intermarriage necessarily erodes Jewish identity and the Jewish population. But the seeming arbitrariness of which communities have high rates and which have low rates throws open the more complicated question of why some intermarried couples and their families remain engaged with Judaism while others do not.
The table was compiled by demographers Ira Sheskin and Arnold Dashefsky, and Sheskin warned that differing survey methods make it impossible to make precise comparisons between cities and also between individual cities and the national rate of 33% measured in the 2000 National Jewish Population Survey. Still, even within a broad range, the results seemed to defy logical explanation.
The cities with high rates of Jewish child-rearing among intermarried couples include rapidly growing Jewish populations, such as South Palm Beach (75%), and older and shrinking communities such as Cleveland (66%). Some older, well-established Jewish communities such as New York (30%) and Detroit (31%) rank below transient-heavy western cities such as Los Angeles (43%) and Las Vegas (42%), belying the common wisdom that Jews in the West are less affiliated.
The Boston study, which was released last year, attracted attention in part because the city’s federation had been funding a major outreach program to interfaith couples. In an op-ed in the Forward last year, two outreach advocates wrote that the Boston study, and in particular the 60% figure, “should end the debate over the effectiveness of outreach.”
But the new compilation, which was assembled in response to the Forward’s coverage of the Boston study, makes it clear that Boston’s figure is not exceptional and may not be the result of its programming. For example, Baltimore has no citywide interfaith outreach programs, yet 62% of intermarried couples there raise Jewish children. Meanwhile, San Francisco hovers at 38%, even though it has one of the country’s longest-standing outreach programs — though one former outreach director there noted that within the area served by the program, the Jewish childrearing rate was comparable with Boston’s 60%.
Most demographic studies, however, cannot capture the unique set of factors that go into individual decision-making. For example, Laurie Biundo, a mother of two in Walnut Creek, Calif., was raised by formerly Orthodox parents in a fairly unobservant household. She attended Jewish summer camp and joined a Jewish youth group, but, by her own account, Judaism wasn’t a large part of her life. When she and her non-Jewish husband married, neither considered religion a factor.
Biundo became reacquainted with her tradition when she took a part-time job working for a synagogue in the Boston area and enrolled her older son in an introductory class on Judaism. When she and her family moved to California, the classes stopped. But then her curiosity reawakened, and she decided to send her children to Hebrew school. She joined a synagogue, and both of her sons went on to be bar mitzvahed.
“I sort of got hooked into the idea of wanting my kids to know some of my history,” she told the Forward.
By most demographic indicators, Biundo and her sons were engaged Jews; however, the children have both since drifted away from Judaism, and Biundo herself did not renew her synagogue membership.
To Leonard Saxe, the primary author of the Boston study and a sociology professor at Brandeis University, it is backstories such as Biundo’s that have more of an effect on Jewish continuity than intermarriage itself.
“The bottom line is that the problem is not intermarriage,” he said. “Intermarriage is not what is leading to the dissolution of the American Jewish community. The negative presses are the lack of engagement and the lack of Jewish education that leads to a lack of engagement of folks.”
Steven M. Cohen, a sociologist who has studied intermarriage and its effects, suggests that the debate over intermarriage and childrearing is incomplete without a discussion about what kind of Jews those marriages produce. Even when raised Jewish, he says, those children don’t behave the same way as Jews born to in-married households do: They tend to receive less Jewish education, and in turn are more likely to intermarry themselves.
“For sure [the children] will not demonstrate the same levels of Jewish involvement,” he said.
Biundo said she hopes her sons will eventually come back to Judaism, even marry other Jews. But she admits she’s in no position to insist.
“I’m hoping that they might,” she said. “If not, then I will teach my grandchildren whatever little bit I know.”
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I am Laurie Biundo's father Robert Haft. When Laurie attended Florida State University, I contacted the Hillel and told them I would give them a generous donation if they would get her active in the Jewish programs. As it turned out they did almost nothing to instil Jewdiism in a 90% Gentile school, As a result, Laurie drifted away from her interests in Jewdiism until her involvement in California.
Contrary to these and many other comments, there is no such thing as an intermarriage problem. The data, while obviously confusing, deomnstrate one thing clearly: the children of intermarrieds can be Jewish if they want to be. (More on freedom below.) Therefore, the problem is not intermarriage. Intermarriage is a symptom of a much more serious problem: No one yet has come up with a way to make the majority of young Jews want to be Jewish! The Orthodox, with all of their boasting, represent such a small percentage of Jews (about 10% according to the 2000 NJPS, the most authoritative source on this subject) that their efforts can hardly be considered significant to the larger problem. We, who descend from people who made great sacrifices to enable us to be free, misunderstand what freedom means. It means that people are free to choose what they belive is in their best interest. Thus, if we want our young people to choose Judaism, we need to show why it is better for them. Clearly, appealing to tradition doesn't work. Appealing to a belief in the literal truth of the Torah clearly doesn't work. Appealing to the "circle the wagons" logic (we need to unite to defend ourseleves) doesn't work when our youth feel (rightly so) that American culture bars them as Jews from absolutely nothing. (Or has no one noticed that while Romney must defend his Mormonism, Lieberman faced no such prejudice in 2000?) Let's forget the name-calling and side taking among the denominations. Let's work on the real problem: coming up with why our youngsters should want to be Jews in the first place.
As a Jewishly-raised daughter of a Catholic Mother and Jewish Father, it gets tiring to hear outsiders' opinions about interfaith marriage. You have no idea unless you live our lives. Personally, I think the problem of my fellow children of interfaith couples not embracing Judaism is part of a broader problem, the labeling of Jews. Orthodox, Conservative, Chabad, Reform, etc. It's too disjointed. Not much of a brotherhood (sisterhood). I feel that if you think you are a Jew, you are a Jew. Or, if we want to get a little technical about it, if you have a Jewish parent you are a Jew. It will make unaffiliated Jews, uneducated Jews, and Jews with interfaith parents feel more welcome. And, just to be specific, over the years, the only people who haven't been very welcoming to me as a Jew have been the Conservatives. My Chabad and Reform family and friends are very welcoming and accepting of me. How can it possibly make a difference to anyone if I have a Jewish father instead of a Jewish mother? I refuse to let anyone deny me my Jewishness.
I am an Athiest and non Zionist, but I'm still Jewish! Nick
Norman, my thinking is more or less the same, except I have long been troubled by the following dilemma. If someone "identifies with the Jewish values of community and learning," in your words, "and believes in Hillel's dictum, 'That which is hateful to you, do not do unto others,'" then why in the world should it matter if even one parent is Jewish? In other words, if the spirit of the Law is portable, then why not simply throw the letter in the trash can?
There are religious Jews and secular Jews. You don't have to believe in God to be Jewish, by my definition. Secular Jews have a long, proud tradition -- from Karl Marx, to Albert Einstein, to Noam Chomsky, to Kenneth Roth. If someone has a parent who is Jewish, and identifies with the Jewish values of community and learning, and believes in Hillel's dictum, "That which is hateful to you, do not do unto others," I consider them Jewish -- even if they don't belong to a synagogue. My cousin's mixed family has a Christmas tree, but her children were bar mitzvahed and they're Jewish.
This whole concept of "raising the kids Jewish" is a joke and big mistake. If the mother is Jewish, the kid is Jewish, no matter how they raise or educate him/her. If she's not Jewish, and does not convert according to the law of Moshe (Orthodox), then they are not Jewish, even if they eat 100 latkes every night of Chanukah... Either they're Jewish, or they're not.
The only ones really doing anything to solve this problem of assimilation and intermarriage is Chabad.
Engagement with Judaism and Jewish education are not lacking; the leadereship is. Contact ajcwerfel@yahoo.com if agree, understand and you want to do something to fix the problem.
Only if these children become Jewishly committed - assuming they are children of Jewish mothers - will continuity be assured.
Wthout saying anything about any individual case there is special significance in the finding of Steven Cohen i.e. In regard to almost all parameters which measure Jewish connectedness the intermarried do far worse than those couples in which both spouses are Jewish. That is to say the simple effort to dismiss the negative Jewish communal effect of Intermarriage by moving numbers around- does not tell the true story.
A lot of delusion being posted here. Makes no difference if the mother is jewish. If the sense of jewish identity has not been implanted firmly, the children are destined to disappear from the jewish people. If one parent is non-jewish but jewish identity is reinforced throughout childhood most of these children will lead lives with self-identification as jews.
INTERMARRIAGE IS A BIG PROBLEM! The only study that counts; 90% of the grandchildren of intermarried couples aren't Jewish. Enough said!
All these surveys and statistics are of little value. The term "raising Jewish children" or "educating Jewish children" is never defined. So a Boston-area survey can boast that 60% of intermarried families "raise their children Jewish" - but we don't hear what is the criteria for such a conclusion. It could be that sending a child for bar-mitzva lessons is considered "raising him" or "educating him" as a Jew. It could be that a few years of Sunday school is regarded as a "Jewish education". The sad truth is that "education" has meaning only in the non-Jewish world. A person who dropped out of high school wouldn't be called "educated", yet the parents of a Jewish child who sent him for a few hours of Sunday school lessons (given by a teacher who probably has had no training in Jewish studies) would probably declare in a survey that the child was given a Jewish education. The parents themselves have no standards or criteria for answering the questions of a survey, since they themselves probably couldn't even write their own name in Hebrew script. What is needed very urgently is an honest and clear declaration that Jewish life in America is in the midst of crisis, and that for generations Jewish education has been substandard and inadequate. In order to face a crisis and solve it, first of all one has to admit that there is a crisis.
People can estimate all they want, and even the word 'raising' has different meanings. But intermarriage as a whole reduces the number of Jews. The conclusions of this study is that "outreach" may work or it might not. But birthing Jews does work in keeping the Jewish people alive. And the more birthing of Jews the more Jews. The various ultra-Orthodox communities have virtually no intermarriage, no 'outreach', and huge growth.
I did a lot of study on Jewish-non-Jewish interfaith marriages when I was in graduate school, especially on Jewish woman to non-Jewish man marriages who raised families with strong Jewish identities, traditions, and congregational ties, including Orthodox, Chassidic, and Reform. All of these comments strike me as thoughtful and helpful, and yes, Chabad does more than anyone else to keep Jewish kids Jewish. My husband is not Jewish; Chabad, who intelligently wanted me daughter, welcomed us and made us feel welcome and at home. Since we've moved, the Conservative congregation where we live has alienated my daughter to the point where she refuses ever to attend any services with me.
An important and parallel study would be how many children of Jewish-Jewish couples are raised in the Jewish community. This study implies that children of Jewish couples are raised and educated within the Jewish community, which is certainly an interesting comparative question. Note to editor: "bar mitzvahed" is a folk term--the more accepted one is "celebrated his (or her) bar (or bat) mitzvah." A Jewish child reaches the age of bar/bat mitzvah regardless of whether or not it is marked in the community.
I think there's nothing wrong with intermarriage,we just need understanding each other