although Rabbi Gellman expresses concern about the intermarriage issue and how it affects the Jewish population, he is wise not to utilize the scare tactics that so many parents and community leaders use when they push for marriage within the faith. threats and warnings are not going to increase rates of Jewish endogamy, and any sort of Jewish programming that has even the slightest hint of "hooking up single Jews with one another" can make people uncomfortable, even those who want to marry within the faith. they want to find someone on their own terms. Judaism has become less about rituals and more about concern with bloodlines and marriage. every religion teaches its preference for in-marriage, yet Judaism seems to take it far beyond the others. yes, marriage between Jews is preferable and wonderful. but using guilt and scare tactics to ensure marriage within the faith is inappropriate. it is more beneficial to highlight the positives of endogamy than the negatives of intermarriage. i agree with Rabbi Gellman when he says that Judaism isn't simply about food and humor. but i also think that Judaism isn't simply about who we marry either. a Jew is still a Jew regardless of who they marry and should not be treated as some sort of failure because they didn't meet a nice Jewish boy or girl.
and while we may not believe it, Orthodox Judaism is not immune to the influence of the outside world as demonstrated by a 3% intermarriage rate. it's small compared to the intermarriage rate among non-Orthodox Jews, but it shows that they are not as insulated as we assume (look at Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman. he grew up Orthodox and married a non-Jewish woman, yet he's still steadfast in his observance and his wife has been welcomed by several in the community even though she has chosen not to convert but instead to raise their children as Jews). every denomination is finding ways to deal with the intermarriage issue. although Orthodox Jews commonly admonish those who intermarry, there are some who are trying to work with the intermarried rather than against them. and given the decline in population and affiliation, that is probably a wise and bold move on their part.
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Choosing Outside the Chosen
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So what can be done to save the Beaver Valley Jews? I will only list a few of the directions I believe may be helpful.
The engine of Jewish identity must be our faith. Speaking Yiddish, vacationing in the Catskills, laughing at Jewish jokes and eating greasy, artery-clogging food are not now and never have been sustaining Judaizing forces. Ethnic Jewish identity is dead, and while alive was not able to survive the appeal of the broader American culture. What lasts and matters is that our souls (as well as the souls of all good people of every faith and nation) survive death and are brought to the world; that our virtue is informed by our faith so that the pursuit of justice is at once both a political and religious act; that the sanctity of life is a gift of God and not the state; that Israel is sacred not because it is a state but because it is Zion; that prayer is quintessentially not an act of petition but an act of gratitude and humility, and that the ways we are different from other spiritual seekers are fundamentally less important than the ways we are all the same in the eyes of God. All these beliefs are not only sustaining to a living community of faith, they are also true. The only people who should be rabbis are people who believe something like this.
The cost of Jewish life must be reduced. Contributing millions to hospitals and nursing homes and a whole host of important projects in Israel is good and fine. However, these efforts must now be balanced by the desperate need to offer free or easily affordable synagogue membership to every Jewish family who wants to educate their children and connect to a Jewish community of faith and charity.
Any person who wants to study Judaism from the best teachers in the world ought to be able to do so over the Internet for free. Every class of every great teacher must be recorded and transmitted and saved so that the most ancient wisdom can be made available though the most modern technology to those who are hungry to go online for more than porn and fantasy football.
Jewish programming must be increased and supported. The small impact the my friend Father Tom Hartman and I had as the God Squad convinced me completely that people are hungry to learn more about Judaism and faith and how it can matter in a modern life. What Steven Spielberg did to put the Shoah into the consciousness of the world can be done again and again on many levels and with many points of view. The rich mélange of Jewish life and thought must be made more public and more attractive. If we can make beating hearts out of chicken liver for bar mitzvah parties, we can surely make a great television programs full of Jewish soul—and heart—to air in prime time.
There is more, much more we can do, but one thing is certain. These things will not be decided in my lifetime. It will remain to the children of my children's children to chronicle the extinction of the Beaver Valley Jews, or—as I hope and pray and believe—the glorious news of their removal from the endangered species list in the Shangri-La that is America.
© 2008
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