Dear Emuna: Intermarriage & Marrying Jewish

Dear Emuna: Intermarriage & Marrying Jewish

Dear Emuna,

I am not extremely religious but Judaism plays a big role in the home and in our family. When I was single, I would only date Jewish men because I would only consider someone Jewish as a potential spouse. However, I have several friends in my life who have married non-Jews and are quite happily married. Ditto for family members. Now that I have young children, I feel conflicted about setting the right example. I care very much about these friends and family, and care about their spouses and children too.

Yet how can I teach my children the importance of marrying Jewish, when our life is filled with people who haven't made that choice? How can Jewish parents today teach this value without seeming to denigrate friends and family, many of which our family shares a warm relationship?

Trying to Do the Right Thing

Dear Trying,

You are confronting an issue that is both as old as the hills and extremely contemporary, a subject that touches almost every Jewish home in America today.

Although all relationships are different and some situations are particularly sticky, I think the answer may, perhaps, be simpler than you think.

I certainly believe that your instinct is correct. We don’t want to denigrate friends and family. In fact, I would take it even one step further. We don’t want to denigrate anyone at all!

Why should we? Negativity is never an effective or lasting method for boosting individual or national self-esteem. And a constant barrage of criticism of the non-Jewish world rarely stops intermarriage and certainly doesn’t lead to embracing one’s Jewish heritage. It’s just not a winning strategy.

The goal is to make the opportunity of being Jewish and having a relationship with God so wonderful, so special, so dynamic, so exciting, so meaningful and life-affirming and rewarding and joyful that it’s inconceivable they would choose anything else.

Teach your children the positive in Judaism, the meaning, the festive, the richness of a relationship with the Almighty; show them it’s something to celebrate. This will be infinitely more effective than attacking the secular world.

Turn all Jewish holidays into joyous celebrations. Your children will develop fond memories and attachments. They will want to continue these traditions.

Explain to them the meaning behind what we do, how it deepens our lives – and theirs.

It’s not necessary to put down Xmas but it is crucial to understand Chanukah and to explain it to your children. It is essential that the holiday be fun and joyous.

You want to inculcate Jewish pride and an attachment to the Jewish people and the Jewish religion. You need to practice what you preach. Show them the positive and they will respond in kind.

-- Emuna