Word: rabbie
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Most faiths frown on mixed marriage, but in Judaism it has long been seen as a particularly severe violation of religious tradition. Since the Holocaust, America's Jewish community of 5.9 million has become sensitized to its erosion through intermarriage and assimilation. Emotions run high. Rabbis who agree to officiate at interfaith marriages -- and some 75% refuse -- are sometimes viewed as traitors and spurned by synagogues. Parents and grandparents worry about the future of their families and faith. "They fear that '5,000 years of Jewish lineage is going to end with my child,' " says Rabbi Robert Alper of Wyncote...
...time, the union is treated as one between Jews; requirements for conversion are toughest among the Orthodox. In addition, Reform and Conservative congregations welcome unconverted Gentile spouses into temple life; Orthodox synagogues are less accommodating. And while the Reform rabbinical conference in 1973 formally denounced the participation of rabbis in mixed-marriage ceremonies, rabbis in the most liberal of Judaism's major branches generally do as they please. Reform Rabbi Irwin Fishbein of Westfield, N.J., last year printed a national directory of 200 members of the Reform clergy who are willing to conduct intermarriages. Moment, a feisty Jewish monthly, caused...
...Most rabbis who are willing to help Jewish-Gentile couples demand certain conditions. Rabbi Robert Schreibman of suburban Chicago is typical: he performs mixed-marriage ceremonies only if the partners promise to rear their children as Jews. Rabbi Burton Padoll of Peabody, Mass., exacts no promises, but will not preside jointly with a Christian minister or within a church. A handful of rabbis are untroubled by Christian involvement. Chicago's Rabbi Howard Berman will conduct a ceremony if the partners simply agree to spend more than a year in his outreach program for the intermarried, one of the biggest...
...rabbis willing to bypass tradition? Some cite humanitarian reasons. Rabbi Fredric Dworkin of Leonia, N.J., first broke ranks 20 years ago, when an obese Jewish woman who had experienced difficulty finding a mate pleaded, "This might be my only chance at happiness." A more common argument is presented by Rabbi Richard Schachet, whose Chatsworth, Calif., synagogue consists almost entirely of the intermarried. "Every Jew who is turned away is a potential loss," he says. While opponents see intermarriages as a threat to Jewish survival, rabbis who perform them reason that the couples will wed anyway and a friendly approach...
Jewish strategy aside, Jack Frank, a Chicago Orthodox rabbi with a doctorate in pastoral counseling, questions the wisdom of intermarriages: "It's difficult enough to merge two individuals in a good marriage when their values and customs are the same." Often, he says, couples refuse to face the reality that when the first child is born, in effect "one member of the couple has to give up his religion...