Interfaith Families in the Huffington Post

This morning I got an email with the link to the Huffington Post, Interfaith Families: Can You Be Jewish and Christian at the Same Time? by Kate Kridkis.

I thought, Oy! I don’t even want to see the online comments. People get so nasty in cyberspace.

But what does this article say to professionals? It is proof that we need interfaith couples discussion groups.

Can it be that after more than 25 years of Jewish outreach that there are still so many good willed, uninformed young Jews? Yes, unfortunately, there can.

Also unfortunate, most responses are, as Kate says, angry ones. How can you have a conversation when someone is mad at you? People in Kate’s shoes stop listening. So we leave our young people with the naive belief that more is better, and that letting a child decide is about being fair and decent. Add that, in America, we are currently a culture that thinks that making parental decisions is unhealthy and doesn't allow our children to grow. So relinquishing parental responsibility becomes a virtue.

Note Kate's hopeful comment that with some education the children will be better equipped to make their own choice. Unfortunately what children don't need is the "freedom" to make choices about religion; they do need a community in which to grow up. The nuances of what St. Paul or Moses taught about the value of say, kindness, is not really important to a child. Both traditions support the same universal values. Children start out learning through stories. It is the narrative to which one belongs that both educates the child AND provides them with a place. A place in the fabric of history, a community that both belongs TO THEM and to which THEY BELONG. It is the awareness of the need for this core mutuality that we Americans seem to have lost. Human beings survive in groups - call them tribes, families, towns - they are the center from which we venture out. They are the hearth to which we return.

Some individuals in interfaith relationships feel an unarticulated truth, a pull to that core place where they belong and that belongs to them. They can't imagine leaving it. It is too important. So how can they ask their beloved to leave their own, but different, core? So who will go without? Their children. Their kids will not be raised with a place where they belong. The children will be visitors in two places, but not residents. I know these children. Some are perfectly comfortable without a community. They are decent, honest good people. As adults they are in the "no religion" group. Others are wounded; actively concealing their pain from their parents. Sometimes they rage at the Jewish and Christian communities; it's a lot easier to be mad at a faceless group that to be mad at Mom and Dad. So the alienation for them continues.

I've heard the angry comment, "So many people are intermarrying that soon we'll out number the rest of the Jews." Step aside from the obvious pain this expresses and the need to comfort and sooth these people for a moment and let's just examine this common misconception.

Being the child of an interfaith couple is a born-into status. You can't convert others to be children of interfaith families. Two percent of Americans are Jews and 50% of those Jews are intermarrying. Of those couples generally speaking, one third are raising Jewish kids, one third are raising Christian kids and one third are doing both or neither – more in the neithers camp. So we now have a group totaling >1/3 of 1/2 of 2%. Spread those folks out over the vast stretch that is America. OK. Now, how fast do you really think this group is going to "out number" the mainstream Jews?

But this kind of huffy defensiveness gets going because people feel cut out and hurt. They want to turn the table and become the insiders. If we act on their, at times repressed desire, the longing to be included, we would make a lot more progress. If we provided warm, caring places to have the difficult conversations, to lovingly bring up the hard questions, more Kates would get a chance to think this through, the same way she'll have to think through immunization, public school, vegetarianism.

What if one, or more, of these couples decide they aren't going to choose? They are going to boldly do both. What I tell my couples then is, in my opinion you have chosen the harder road. Now it becomes all the more important that you and I remain in touch. What if you need help? What if you hit a tough issue that isn't working out? Then you need to know that I'm not mad at you, that I care about you, that I want to help think things out with you. You have to feel confident that you can call me.

Sincerity and kindness can go places that angry and rejection cannot tread.

Core Interfaith Programs Hard to Find

The central workshop of interfaith programming is certainly the Couples Discussion Group. The idea has been around for several decades and like mother's milk, it's an old idea that is still good today.

The problem is that there are fewer communities that offer couples discussion groups. Groups are time and labor intensive. It takes money and tenacity to do the marketing, reach the couples, build their trust and get them signed up for a group. Then you have to run it! For seven or eight weeks. That means that a facilitator commits on the order of 14 to 16 hours to 5 to 7 couples. Fees must be kept reasonably low, so these are not money makers for agencies or synagogues.

When I get emails from couples around the country looking for help I look for a couples group. A few months ago I was emailed and then called by a young woman seriously dating a Jewish man. They were in New York City. Of all the cities where you'd expect to find interfaith programming, surely that was the city. Even the 92nd Street Y wasn't offering groups. I turned to my network of colleagues. Since the young man was raised in the Conservative movement I wanted to connect him with a Conservative program or person if possible. Fortunately, Rabbi Charles Simon of the Federation of Jewish Mens Clubs told me to send them his way.

But it has been equally hard in Los Angeles and Florida.

My wish is that a national funder would put money into supporting these groups - which provide a vital and powerful experience for the interfaith couple. I would like to see these groups available in every Jewish community.

A Definition of "Interfaith" "Outreach"

It might strike you as odd that I put two words in quotations in the title above. I did it for a reason. I hear many people tossing those words around singly and together without fully understanding what they mean. This cavalier use of the words means that they are often misused and that misuse leads to loss of support for and engagement in true “Interfaith Outreach.”

What is an INTERFAITH and OUTREACH Program?

Interfaith
An interfaith program specifically addresses the issues and concerns of interfaith couples and family members.


Many programs can function as part of an interfaith program that are not true “interfaith” programs. Some of them are: any introduction course, how-to classes for holidays and life cycle events, spiritual/theological education like A Jewish View of Jesus, social events like Israeli Folk Dance or Kosher Wine Tasting. Wonderful as these programs are, they do not help an interfaith couple dissect and evaluate the challenges that two different religious/cultural traditions bring to their relationship. They need programs that discuss personal identity, couple identity, community, children, and personal choices. They need that to happen with others who share their interests and concerns.

This is education on a very adult level. These couples must look deeply into themselves and evaluate their own interests and values. They deserve an experienced and knowledgeable facilitator. They deserve workshops that trust their emotional curiosity and intellectual integrity.


Outreach
An outreach program is publicized beyond the membership of the sponsoring institution.

Any program that is publicized only to the members of the hosting organization is not an “outreach” program. Hoping that your members will spread the word or that people will cruise your website shows a total lack of understanding of Marketing and Publicity.

A program is only an “outreach” program if you specifically invite the outside world to participate.

Unfortunately few people are doing programs that are both INTERFAITH and OUTREACH.

The Four Types of Interfaith Families

Jewish Demographics Studies
with Dr. Bruce Phillips

Over the course of years of studies, Dr. Phillips has come to identify interfaith families in four categories. They are:

Judaic - the only religion practiced in the household is Judaism.

Secular - no religion is practiced in the home. Both the Jew and the non-Jew (typically Christian) is not interested in religion.

Dual - two religions are observed, typically Judaism and Christianity. Family celebrates the holidays of both.

Christian - the only religion practiced in the home is Christianity.

There is an interesting error that most Jewish outreach stumbles on. The majority of outreach is directed at the Secular Family. This family has little to no interest in any religion. So efforts to draw them in are rarely successful. These individuals have no need or desire to have religion be a part of their lives. (I am using religion in its broadest terms here and including community.)

Additionally, Jewish outreach often shies away the Dual Religion family since Jews are uncomfortable with Christianity and do not support the idea of doing “both” religions in the home. Yet, these families are the most interested. Both partners are clinging to their religion and having trouble understanding how to sustain religion for each of them. They are the most receptive to learning about Judaism.

I do not want to down play how difficult programs for Dual Religion couples can be. They require a very centered and accessible facilitator who is comfortable with both hearing language that sounds like its neutralizing Judaism AND can express boundaries that are rational, not reactionary.

Cultural Differences between America and Judaism

For years I have been discussing with interfaith couples the core disconnect between being - AMERICAN and JEWISH. America has a culture of autonomy and individual choice while Judaism is a culture of mutuality and sacrifice for the whole. Neither one is “right” but they are different. For an AMERICAN JEW the divergent ways of perceiving one relationships and responsibility can be confusing.

Here’s an interesting article that brings it up in terms of American and Israeli Jews.

http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/article/2008/12/03/1001323/still-a-single-jewish-people

The better we ourselves understand this and can articulate it to couples the better prepared our couples will be to discuss their differing views.

Several months ago I had a couple come to see me in which both of the individuals were first generation Americans and shared an “old world” view of one’s responsibility to family and the community of origin. They both believed that the promises made to their parents must be kept. They were disgusted with siblings who had fallen away from their parents’ faiths and traditions. I pointed out to them that they were out of step with American cultural norms and were likely to be told that they should change their way of thinking. But since they were in agreement with each other it made more sense to me that they retain their shared perspectives and negotiate from a place where their values met.

Two days later I met with a couple in which the Jewish partner was an immigrant from Iran and the Christian was American with no recent immigrant past. In their case their core perspectives were in conflict. By American standards the Jew seemed old fashioned and hampered by an antiquated attachment to parents who live within a small Persian community. For this couple it was important to validate the non-American values and to acknowledge that, although they are not mainstream in the United States, they are not bad or wrong, just different. For this couple we needed to deal with the new world/old world, American/immigrant, individual/communal views that informed their discussion about family, parents and children.