The end of the tour

So last week I was at the CCAR conference in San Francisco. I LOVE these things (I've only missed one--last year's--since my ordination in 2003, and that was because of my transition and my senior rabbi's sabbatical. And laziness). I love the study, the camaraderie of being with colleagues, catching up with friends, and seeing the city (it helped that my wife was able to come to this one--thank God for inlaws!).

It was neat meeting the new ordainees (last year's class) and spending some time with them. The new colleagues I met had a very positive vibe and terrific energy, and there were probably as many of them as my class. It was wonderful being with classmates (both from the Israel year and who were ordained with me), especially with many of us either in our first year in a new place or about to transition to one. I even enjoy the plenaries (I know, right?). And, frankly, it was great seeing colleagues I don't necessarily plan on connecting with. First day of a conference is a lot like Trafalgar Square; stand in one place long enough and you'll see EVERYONE.

Not much of this conference was particularly controversial. Study, obviously (or maybe not). We rewrote our governance rules and revised our ethics code (which either will make a difference or was the rearranging of the deck chairs, depending on who you talked to), talked about the future of placement and the conference within the larger context of the Reform Movement. Oh, and we talked a little about intermarriage.

The report from the Taskforce on Intermarriage was a long time coming. A little history; while the conference essentially discouraged the practice of reform rabbis officiating at a ceremony of a Jew and a non-Jew in 1973, there have been voices to mitigate that stricture, including a reaffirmation in the 1980s that still put out guidelines for those rabbis who would choose to officiate, resolutions embracing converts, non-Jews, the children of 'mixed' marriages (to use the old term) etc. When the Taskforce was formed, there was a concern in the Conference that its mission was to rescind the previous resolutions and open up the possibility for (or even require) officiation.

Instead, recognizing that to decide such a personal choice so aggressively would alienate one or the other half the Conference, they chose to build consensus. For some, that means they didn't go far enough. For others, I'm sure, there is a sense that they went too far. In my case, they were just right.

I'm not going to discuss the issue of officiation now (yeah, I know, I'm chicken). Suffice to say in this moment that it's something I'm always struggling with and I have enormous respect both for colleagues who don't and colleagues who do under certain circumstances, and have come to their positions with thoughtfulness and a sense of kedusha. What's more important, for me, is the sense of creating a welcoming atmosphere. To embrace and bless couples on the bimah regardless of religious orientation (or any kind of orientation, for that matter), to open up the possibility for conversion at any time for those who would choose to affiliate, creating opportunities to celebrate those non-Jews who raise their children in Jewish community and create Jewish households, providing programming and education for those who would want it, both for those in so-called 'interfaith' relationships and those whose children are in those relationships, are not only paramount and critical for a congregation, to me at least, they're no brainers. Not because they'll boost membership, but because ethically and spiritually they're the right thing to do.

This past week we celebrated a bat mitzvah of a girl who's great-grandmother (thank God, still living), grandmother, and father all grew up at Beth Emeth. Four generations of this family stood on the bimah together, passing the Torah from generation to generation. But something else happened as well; the mother of this girl, herself not Jewish but active in the Jewish upbringing of both her daughters, who knows the service probably as well as anyone in the congregation, stood on that bimah as well. She participated in that ritual of passing the Torah to her daughter. She read the parents' prayer that she and her husband had written. She stood proudly next to her daughter as she read from Torah, a smile full of pride and emotion beaming from her face. Perhaps those are controversial choices, to have her participate in this service. For me as a rabbi, as a Jew, as a parent, it was a no-brainer.

MASA Interfaith update

Just got this email from my friend Dr. E. Dankner, who's very active (and has been for YEARS) at ARZA, as well as other committees and boards in the Reform Movement:

Not twenty four hours have passed since I sent my e-mail to you all. Somehow my e-mails to you and ARZA Leadership [and those from others more important than I am] got to Alan Hoffman in the Soch'nut, the Jewish Agency, and I have received a personal letter from them. If you go to the MASA website now, the offensive streaming ad and the video are gone so, if you haven't already seen them, you thankfully no longer can.

It is hard to believe that I have spent most of this great weekend attached to a computer and on the phone, but it was worth it.

I guess that "Yes, we can" covers lots of situations.

Here's her previous email as well:

Do you know what MASA is? Their website states: " MASA enables young Jews from all over the world to spend a semester to a year in Israel on any of over 160 programs. " http://www.masaisrael.org/masa/english/. Now look at the streaming picture near the top on this web site. It is MASA's latest very aggressive ad campaign targeting "Jews "abducted' by intermarriage." It shows these people as though they are missing-like putting our missing children posters on milk cartons. "As part of the campaign, similar ‘missing person’ notices will be plastered on walls around the country." The web site on which I originally saw this article is:

Special issue: New MASA Israel ad campaign targets Jews 'abducted' by intermarriage.

http://religionandstateinisrael.blogspot.com/2009/09/video-new-masa-israel-ad-campaign.html

In the article the following is buried:

"MASA is a project of the government of Israel, the Jewish Agency of Israel, and made possible through the generous support of the United Jewish Communities, the Federations of North America, and Keren Hayesod - UIA."

This means that your donations through organizations that fund the Jewish Agency for Israel, JAFI, support this campaign. I am outraged at what I perceive as a new attack on Reform and Conservative Judaism (as well as the other streams), not to mention you or your children.

Please read the articles. They are short. If you are outraged as I am after you read them, I urge you to respond to Alan Hoffman at "Hoffmann,Alan" <Alanh@jafi.org>.

And looking at Ha'aretz yesterday, it looks like they've dropped the campaign.

Tone Deaf much?

So the Jewish Agency and MASA have a new ad campaign designed to combat intermarriage. Haaretz newspaper calls it a 'scare' tactic working to prevent the 'loss' of assimilated Jews by having Israelis work on their friends from other countries.

Now, I appreciate the idea of getting Israeli Jews to think about what's going on in the greater Jewish world and engage in the work of preserving a strong diaspora, but with a roughly 50% intermarried rate in the United States (at least according to the Jewish Population Survey and subsequent surveys), doesn't the idea of describing intermarried Jews as 'abducted' (again, from the Haaretz article) seem a bit...harsh?

No doubt, the realities of intermarriage are challenging, both on the micro level (how does a nuclear family navigate issues of holidays, life cycle, values, etc. without offending the extended families) and the macro (how do we as a Jewish community engage interfaith couples and families meaningfully and sensitively?). Steven Cohen, in a paper he wrote a few years ago (and presented at the CCAR just before publication) makes it clear that the normal tools used to encourage Jewish affiliation simply don't work for this cohort, but we as rabbis have a very clear opportunity to be 'gateways' into Jewish practice for both the Jewish and non-Jewish partners. These are not 'lost' Jews (as Cohen reports toward the end, most of those who intermarry report positive feelings about being Jewish), and need not only appreciation and attention from the Jewish community but also to be steered toward the resources and tools that will help them to make good choices.

Perhaps I'm making too much out of nothing and this is a good campaign that understands its (largely Israeli) audience, but it seems to me that it's better to engage interfaith families (or as one woman described it to me, "Jewish famililes with a non-Jewish parent"), find points of contact and expanding from there, all the while (as Cohen argues) making sure our youth take advantage of all the resources available to them (day school, camp, Israel trips, youth group, etc.). Yes, it would be fantastic to have Israeli Jewish society engaging in this conversation as well, but I'm not sure I want this to be their starting point.