Spouses Influence Converts’ Commitment
A new qualitative study on interfaith families argues that it is a mistake to view converts to Judaism as a single class.
In her new study, “Choosing Jewish: Conversations About Conversion,” Brandeis University Professor Sylvia Barack Fishman attempts to explain why non-Jews convert and how their conversions affect the wider Jewish community. She divides converts into three groups: the “activist” converts, accounting for about 30%, who are highly committed to Jewish observance and peoplehood; the “accommodating” converts, accounting for about 40%, who generally become Jewish because they are asked to do so, and the “ambivalent” converts, accounting for about 30%, who have doubts about their decision.
Fishman based her study, which was commissioned by the American Jewish Committee, on more than 100 interviews with Jewish and non-Jewish men and women in Atlanta and in Boston.
She found that the likelihood of conversion increases when spouses, families and rabbis unambiguously promoted Judaism, and that the more Jewish “capital” a born Jew has — including religious education and a Jewish social circle — the greater the likelihood that his or her spouse will convert.
The findings seem to support the argument of those who stress the importance of publicly advocating conversion, including the AJCommittee’s national director of contemporary Jewish life, Steven Bayme. At the same time, however, the new study indicates that to some degree the success of such efforts is dependent on the religious background of the Jewish partner in a couple.
According to the most recent National Jewish Population Survey, conducted by United Jewish Communities in 2000 and 2001, more than one-third of American Jews are intermarried. And of those non-Jews who married Jews over the past three decades, fewer than one out of five converted to Judaism. Currently, 1.5 million Americans have one Jewish and one non-Jewish parent.
“The real issues regarding mixed marriages today are value-oriented issues,” Bayme said. “Namely, how do we feel about the phenomenon and how do we feel about the phenomenon of conversion.”
Bayme added that it is “extremely important to create Jewish environments in which Jews meet one another,” but that talking about the value of marrying Jewish is just as important because it is a message that is not transmitted by the larger American culture.
Paul Gollin, associate executive director of the New York-based Jewish Outreach Institute, objected to this approach. Highlighting Fishman’s findings about the importance of Jewish capital, Gollin argued that in the case of many interfaith marriages, the Jewish partner’s own lack of a connection to Judaism plays a decisive role.
“Most Jews in this country are not religious, and I think that’s one of the stumbling blocks to the suggestion that conversion is the answer,” Gollin said. “Because what you’re saying is that the nonreligious Jew who married a nonreligious non-Jew should ask them to go through a religious process, and it feels completely hypocritical.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Will the next pope be good for the Jews?
-
Yiddish איבערזעצערין קאַרעד אָברײַען שרײַבט בוך וועגן די שטערן סימאָר רעכטצײַט און מרים קרעסיןTranslator Caraid O’Brien writing book on Yiddish stars Seymour Rechtseit and Miriam Kressyn
זי שטעלט אויך צונויף אַ פּאָדקאַסט מיטן בראָדװײ־אַקטיאָר האַל ראָבינסאָן אין דער ראָלע פֿון רעכטצײַט.
-
BINTEL BRIEF How do you deal with invitations from someone whose behavior drives you nuts?
-
Fast Forward An Israeli think tank used AI to analyze 4,400 American synagogue sermons. Here’s what it found.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.