Here is an interesting article having to do with the vibrant discussion we had in class this morning. Please read the article and write a comment about it.
- What do you think about it?
- Please choose one interesting fact you learned from this research and discuss how it influences or strengthens your opinion!
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/11/12/what-happens-when-jews-intermarry/
The general trend that the article describes, and its most prominent "fun fact" is that Jews with two Jewish parents are much more likely to be religiously affiliated than Jews with one Jewish parent. Because the number of intermarriages is on the rise, it seems that the Jewish religion will take the backseat to Jewish identity. I don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing, because Judaism is a continuously evolving phenomenon. I personally think this is good for eliminating class barriers. If we retain an identity of "otherness", we separate ourselves from the rest of the world, both its cultures and religions. As we further separate ourselves, nationhood and nationalism grow and we lose sight of ourselves as people who live on earth, only thinking ourselves as a people Israel. This type of national division is exactly what contributes to Marxist alienation between one man and others. Class systems continue to exist precisely because we try to distinguish ourselves from others. I support intermarriage wholeheartedly because it strikes down cultural barriers. While the religion, and perhaps even the culture, may suffer, something else will take its place with greater social potential.
ReplyDeleteNoah Arnold
I don't really agree or disagree with this article. The article was made up of a lot of statistics based on surveys of different age groups. Obviously, the surveyors are unable to survey each and every single Jewish person in America and tally the results, as that would be extremely tedious. I do, however, think that it's unfair to make a large assumption that the statistics are 100% true to how the whole country is in the context of being Jewish in their adult life. I was lucky to have such an open and understanding father and to be raised Jewish with full support from both parents. I know not every family is like mine and that's totally okay, in my opinion. I am proudly Jewish and my father being non-religious/raised Christian has no effect to that. I found it interesting that the children of intermarriages of younger generations are statistically more likely to be Jewish in adulthood, while those in older generations are more likely to be not-Jewish. I think that this simply fuels the more openness that comes with intermarriage. Either/both parties have to be open to the other's religion in some kind of way to be willing to be married and tied together until death (or in some cases divorce). This makes me believe more in the fact that intermarriage will not be "the end" to Judaism at any point in time. I don't think that the Jewish identity will be lost. Judaism is ever changing, just as people and the world are ever changing. I think it is important that everyone live with a sense of open-mindedness toward everyone regardless of religion, and to me, intermarriage is a huge step towards that direction(:
ReplyDeleteMost of this article was comprised of a series of statistics about intermarriages. It was interesting to see the way that intermarriage is so strongly impacting Judaism. An interesting fact that I found was that among Americans age 65 and older who had only one Jewish parent, only 25% are Jewish today. However, among adults under 30 with only one Jewish parent, 59% are Jewish today. This puzzles me because I always assume that the older generation would generally be more traditional than the younger generation. However, these statistics said the exact opposite. This made me wonder how people with parents who lived through the Shoah could lose their religion only one generation after the Shoah. I would expect people to cling to their religion even more after a tragedy like that, even with only one Jewish parent.. Overall this article contained information that took me by surprise and made me think about the past and future of Judaism.
ReplyDeleteThe topic of intermarriage is confusing yet fascinating. I found it so interesting that a greater percentage of married Jewish women(47%) have spouses of a different religion then married Jewish men(41%). i was also amazed at the fact that some Orthodox Jews have non Jewish spouses(2%). Although i am in full support of intermarriage one hundred percent, I do not completely understand it. Part of me feels like being with someone for the rest of your life should be because you have love for one another and you are open to their views and opinions. But than another part of me feels that you should share the same morals and ethics as your partner, and if you are different religions that can be challenging to observe multiple religions in one household. I do however like the fact that in today's modern world people can be together and be free to practice whatever religion they are because it creates a community of acceptance.
ReplyDeleteIntermarriage is a tough topic for me because as much as I want say it is fine and love is love, it feels a little wrong to me. I personally dont think I quite get other than in a statistical way, which the article had a lot of statistics. The most interesting fact to me was from people age 65 and older who have one Jewish parent, only 25% are Jewish today. That to me is another reason why we need to keep this Jewish tradition, even if a non-jewish parent says the will raise the child Jewish, what about the Grandparents or rest of the family? I think reading the comments from this article gave me more perspective on the whole idea. Some one mentioned how in reform Judaism that there are efforts to make it simpler to find jewish people to do and such, for example my parents meet playing softball with a JCC. I think if there are more opportunities to meet jews other than our Biet Knessets then the inter marriage rate and assimilation rate may go down. It is all a personal moral thing as well, not just numbers from a article, I know personally it would be so hard to marry someone not from a jewish family because Judaism is how I learned to view the world. Dont get me wrong, but intermarriage is all stats right now and it gives me a hard time trying to justify it.
ReplyDeleteBased off the facts and research done in this article, it’s hard for me to imagine that people could have a problem with intermarriage or consider it a threat to the continuation of Judaism. The article doesn’t seem to be particularly bias to any one side of the argument on intermarriage, but the statistics show that the percentage of kids who are outcomes of intermarriage and have continued to practice Judaism have raised since the Jewish Baby Boomer generation. Although intermarriage isn’t a guarantee that your kid will be Jewish, it is a strong possibility. In my opinion, a strong possibility is enough to be on board with the acceptance of intermarriage. The fact that 59% of outcomes of an intermarriage consider themselves Jewish today, I don’t think it proposes any threat to the continuation of the Jewish Community. There are so many Jews in the world and that percentage is a big number solely from intermarriages, along with the obviously large number of Jewish offspring that come from parents that are both Jewish. I personally have a unique situation with my parents being Jewish. My father was adopted from a Jewish agency, yet was raised relatively christian. My mother on the other hand comes from a very reform Jewish home in New York City. This allowed me to see both sides, although I always considered myself Jewish without any doubt. I’m not sure if that allows me to part of the 59% of children who are Jewish from a result of intermarriage, but if I am that makes me even more accepting of intermarriage.
ReplyDeleteThis article is full of interesting statistics about how many people continue Jewish tradition with intermarried parents. The article shows two different ways of looking at intermarried offspring. The beginning of the article questioned if intermarriage would cause assimilation or if it would welcome more people into the Jewish community causing the growth of Judaism. In some cases, both of these are true. When the article stated that 59% of American adults under 30 consider themselves Jewish today while only 25% of Americans 65 years and older are still Jewish today, I was surprised. Like Lana, I also assumed that the older generation would be more traditional with Judaism rather than the younger generation which contradicts my opinion of a traditional older generation. However, this statistic also shows that more young people with Jewish parents and intermarried parents are continuing their Jewish tradition and are expanding the Jewish community. This article showed many statistics on intermarriage and hopefully in the future, these statistics will eventually show an even bigger increase in the continuation of Jewish tradition in different generations and families.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting article, and it does a very good job of informing people about intermarriage, although it (maybe intentionally) leaves out important details. All of these surveys were conducted in the U.S, where 65% of the Jewish population is either reformed of non denominational, (facts from 2013 survey done by the JTA). Both of these types of Judaism are ok with intermarriage, along with other things the other forms of Judaism are not ok with. This means that by interviewing in an area that's majority is ok with intermarriage, you will most likely find the results leaning towards higher intermarriage numbers. The interesting fact for me was that the older generation with a single Jewish parent did not consider themselves Jewish, I believed that the older generation, coming from a less liberal and reformed background would have had a higher percentage of people considering themselves being Jewish than what was the reality. This doesn't affect my opinion at all, it just changes what I thought was true about the older generation of Jews.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis article seems largely irrelevant to the current number of Jewish adults. When looking at an article or statistics such as this one, you have to keep in mind that correlation does not imply causation. It is too difficult to predict whether the offspring of an intermarried couple will pursue their Judaism into adulthood, even if they are raised Jewish. What is in fact a genuine problem, that has been documented, is that the number of Jewish children and teenagers who continue their Jewish education beyond their bar mitzvah, is slowly diminishing. Whether this is the result of intermarriages or not is up for debate, but the problem remains. So, intermarriage cannot be looked at with a critical eye in regard to the future growth of the Jewish people, but instead must be looked at as a matter of morals. While I believe that intermarriage is morally acceptable, I would be more comfortable marrying a Jew, not for the sake of my children, but for my own sake. A shared religion and culture is more likely to lead to a fulfilling relationship, and any benefit for the children of such a relationship is circumstantial.
ReplyDeleteI think that intermarriage is completely acceptable in the Jewish community. I, myself, am from an interfaith family. My mom was raised Jewish and my father was raised Catholic. Although we visit my father's family on holidays he has symbolically converted to Judaism. A big part of Judaism is accepting others no matter who they are or what they believe. I am very thankful that I got to grow up learning about another religion as well as Judaism. It has helped me to better understand other people's beliefs as well as strengthen my connection with Judaism. A fact that I found interesting from the article is that 47% of women surveyed intermarried while only 41% of men did. I think this is because Judaism is traditionally passed down through the mother. This makes more women comfortable with intermarriage because they have the power to pass on the religion. This is also why more men might marry a Jewish spouse if they have a strong opinion on their children's religion
ReplyDeleteLexi
To me, it seems interesting how everything lines up in this article. I personally find intermarriage fine and also think that both kinds of jew are a-okay. That being said, I can't necessarily say that I agree/disagree with this article. I don't reckon large assumptions are completely accurate and based on how they did this (age and such) I would really beg to differ on this being the whole spectrum. However, these are probably popular views. I thought it was interesting to see that intermarriage is more common with men marrying men because Judaism is from the mother so it just kind of confuses me to see that. Myself being a product of that and still being raised very clearly Jewish since a young age I just find all of this quite fascinating.
ReplyDeleteBecause the Jewish community is so small in relation to the rest of the worlds' population, and because Jews live in less isolated communities than they once did, I think it is no surprise that intermarriage is on the rise. I believe this article is less a reflection on assimilation and more a reflection on the growth of global communication and, therefore, relationships. I thought the most interesting comment of this article was the point that "Surveys are snapshots in time." I do not believe that Jewish identity can be quantified, as this article attempts to do.
ReplyDeleteI think it is interesting how they are more people remaining Jewish at a younger age. Like in the table it says that among US adults older than 65 there are 25% Jewish people but then for US adults younger than 30 there is 59% percent Jewish people. I also think it is interesting that it has often been assumed that Jewish women are less inclined to intermarry than are Jewish men. Among the married Jewish women surveyed, 47% say they have a non-Jewish spouse. Among the married Jewish men, 41% say they have a non-Jewish spouse. I find this to be interesting because there is a bigger percentage of women who have a non-Jewish Spouse.
ReplyDeleteWith reform Judaism being so prominent in the United States, it is no surprise that intermarriage is commonly seen and discussed. First of all, the reform community is much more accepting of this practice than the orthodox communities unsurprisingly. While 98% of orthodox families are purely Jewish, only 28% of non-orthodox Jews are married to another Jew. This number, while I expected it to be lower, was shockingly small, however I don't believe intermarriage strips the Jewish identity of the Jewish spouse. My history teacher, for example, grew up extremely christian and married a Jewish woman. Now, although he has not officially converted, he feels connected enough both to his spouse and to the religion itself and is on the board of my temple. THerefore, I believe it is possible that intermarriage can often be a positive thing. It can open the eyes of those who would never be exposed to Jewish beliefs or teachings if not for their marriage. While it has been evident in certain studies mentioned by this article that those who grew up with only one Jewish parent were more likely to not be affiliated with Judaism (or any religion for that matter) when they grew up, each marriage is different. Even on EIE, we have several products of intermarriage that are just as much of a devout and practicing Jew as I. It did shock me, however, that the same percentage of products of intermarriage affiliated themselves with Judaism when they grew up as those with two Jewish parents. It both proved my point that it is possible to continue Jewish learning and "be a Jew" even if one parent was not raised in a Jewish community and also surprised me that those who were raised Jewish chose to leave the community. In my family, with the amount of exposure to Jewish learning and morals that I got, it was nearly impossible that I could grow up to disaffiliate myself with the religion. And no matter who I may marry in the future, I intend (at least at the current moment) to raise Jewish children that may hopefully learn to love Judaism as much as I do.
ReplyDeleteI learned that as people have aged, if they had one parent who was a Jew and the other was not, as they became older, they started to consider themselves as Jews even though they did not consider themselves Jews in the past. So I guess, as people become older, they wise up and realize Judaism is the religion for them. This influences me because right now I consider myself part of the culture and history of Jews but not religiously part of Judaism and in the future my mindset might completely change and I'm worried because that means I might become Chassidic.
ReplyDeleteTo me the topic of intermarriage has been very personal. My parents decided to raise me jewish and make me have a bar mitzvah. My dad converted before i was born as well. Today i thank my parents for the values and words of torah that they gave me. I have seen these statistics in my hebrew school and its still baffling that such a small percentage of the offspring end up jewish. I believe that in intermarriage most loose some of their connection to the religion. Today i can say that i would only marry a jew so that it would be easy for my child to be raised under a roof of one religion. I love everything that judaism has provided and i would want my child to go through judaic school, NFTY, and camp so that he may have the same experiences that made me the person i am.
ReplyDelete