Another Solution
The April 6 story, “Patrilineal Jews Still Find Resistance” was a reminder that the patrilineal principle has not lived up to its promise. The major movements do not accept patrilineal Jews who, because of that, find themselves in an identity limbo. The principle has undermined efforts to encourage conversion to Judaism by making it unnecessary. Patrilineality hasn’t even encouraged raising the children of an intermarried couple exclusively as Jewish.
There is a solution for those families in which the gentile partner does not wish to embrace Judaism formally. Since patrilineal Jews are being raised as Jews and think of themselves as Jews, why don’t intermarried families with a gentile mother simply convert their children at birth or in infancy? Such an effort is relatively easy and would solve future problems. Current patrilineal Jews, fairly or not, can ease their own lives by converting as adults. Surely the Jewish community can come up with ways to make such a conversion a warm and welcoming experience.
Lawrence J. Epstein
Stony Brook, N.Y.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
, editor-in-chiefSupport our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
