Last week, it was widely reported that Israel’s new minister of education likened Jewish intermarriage to the Holocaust. Like many, I felt gut-punched when I read his hateful words. Once again, interfaith families are being used as a proxy and scapegoat for disengagement with Jewish life and Israel. Once again, we hear a Jewish leader…
NEW YORK (JTA) — A majority of Jewish Americans have positive feelings about Muslims – and the feelings are mutual — according to a survey released Wednesday. The 2019 American Muslim Poll, conducted in January, found that 53 percent of Jewish Americans reported having positive views of Muslims — the highest of any non-Muslim faith group surveyed —…
Once you’re a rabbi, you’re good for life — unlike a law or medical license, no central professional body can take the title away. And while you can get the title from a Jewish seminary, such as Hebrew Union College (Reform), Yeshiva University (Orthodox) or the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative), there are thousands of rabbis…
A synagogue in Virginia has issued a statement in favor of Conservative clergy presiding at interfaith weddings even though the movement still officially bans the practice. In a Facebook post, the synagogue’s rabbi said that its board had voted to allow its clergy to marry a Jewish person to a non-Jewish person, but only when…
This month, many interfaith families are celebrating Christmas. Unfortunately, there won’t be many expressions of “Happy Holidays” coming from the Jewish world. Recently, Gil Troy described the very existence of intermarriage as “the great unspoken yet perennial source of anguish haunting the Jewish world…American Jewry’s great divider,” and said that “no Jewish community could ever…
(JTA) — A rabbi was among 32 religious leaders arrested in San Diego, California, at the U.S. border fence demonstrating in support of migrants from Central America. About 400 people gathered at the Border Field State Park on Monday to support the migrants as part of a nationwide week of action called “Love Knows No Borders: A…
Around the time my relationship with my now-wife Rachael took a turn for the serious, we went for a hike in the desert and talked about religion. Rachael is Jewish. I am Catholic. Rachael’s Jewishness was mostly cultural. (Holiday recipes, yes! Holiday services or prayers, absolutely no!) By contrast, religion in all forms has always…
The Conservative movement’s central authority on Jewish law has announced that rabbis can attend weddings between Jews and non-Jews. The decision overturns over four decades of assumptions that the movement’s rabbis could be kicked out simply for being a guest at an interfaith wedding. Over the years, rabbis skipped out on countless weddings of close…
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