Getting To Know The Heirs Of Intermarriage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I just returned from a (freezing) Chicago where I participated in the 2012 Colloquium of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism (a lot\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2012\/04\/getting-to-know-the-heirs-of-intermarriage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Getting To Know The Heirs Of Intermarriage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I just returned from a (freezing) Chicago where I participated in the 2012 Colloquium of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism (a lot\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2012\/04\/getting-to-know-the-heirs-of-intermarriage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-24T13:19:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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{"id":387,"date":"2012-04-24T13:19:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T13:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2012\/04\/getting-to-know-the-heirs-of-intermarriage.html"},"modified":"2012-04-24T13:19:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-24T13:19:00","slug":"getting-to-know-the-heirs-of-intermarriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2012\/04\/getting-to-know-the-heirs-of-intermarriage.html","title":{"rendered":"Getting To Know The Heirs Of Intermarriage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I just returned from a (freezing) Chicago where I participated in the 2012 Colloquium of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism<\/a> (a lot of words, I know, but still shorter than my own alma mater, Hebrew Union College \u2013 Jewish Institute of Religion).\u00a0 It was masterfully put together by IISHJ\u2019s North American Dean, Rabbi Adam Chalom, and hosted by Northwestern University.<\/p>\n

The topic was \u201cHalf-Jews? The Heirs of Intermarriage\u201d and it was fascinating from beginning to end.\u00a0 And I\u2019m not just saying that as a partisan Humanistic Jew.\u00a0 The sessions went far beyond any particularistic point of view and took a very deep look at an entire generation of self-identifying Jews from mixed backgrounds.<\/p>\n

The conference opened with artist Maya Escobar<\/a>.\u00a0 She blew us away with her in-depth \u2013 and highly entertaining \u2013 review of her work about her own identity.\u00a0 Another highlight for me was Paul Golin of the Jewish Outreach Institute<\/a>.\u00a0 He presented a highly inclusive vision of Jewish community that is rapidly becoming the standard for many Jews.\u00a0 And that\u2019s something to be both excited and grateful for.\u00a0 As more than one presenter pointed out, the Jewish community is no longer talking about whether to be welcoming to all kinds of Jews from all kinds of backgrounds.\u00a0 It\u2019s talking about how.<\/p>\n

Golin also made a startling demographic point with some simple math.\u00a0 We\u2019ve long talked about the 50% intermarriage rate, but that translates to the fact that two out of every three new marriages involving a Jewish person involve a person from another background.\u00a0 So for every one household with two Jewish partners, there are two households created with one Jewish partner.\u00a0 Improved outreach means that a whole lot of them are now connecting to the Jewish community.\u00a0 Translation:\u00a0 Soon there will be more Jewish households of mixed heritage than those from a solely Jewish background.<\/p>\n

In keeping with the tradition of these colloquia, the speakers were from a broad spectrum of (non-Orthodox) Jewish life.\u00a0 We heard from Hillel and Birthright\/NEXT professionals and from academics, too.\u00a0 Our own movement\u2019s Rabbi Sivan Malkin Maas<\/a> wrapped it up with a look at Israel\u2019s struggles with these issues.\u00a0 There are over 300,000 Israeli so-called \u201cnon-Jewish Jews\u201d whose ancestry is insufficiently matrilineally Jewish.\u00a0 They are victims of the nation\u2019s completely unethical Orthodox stranglehold on Jewish status.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, the conversation about the heirs of intermarriage was really a conversation about the boundaries of Jewish inclusivity.\u00a0 As such, it was really about us all.<\/p>\n

The Colloquium also launched the soon-to-be-released book, \u201cA Provocative People: A Secular History of the Jews,\u201d by Humanistic Judaism\u2019s founder, the late Rabbi Sherwin Wine.\u00a0 Adam Chalom has spent years putting Wine\u2019s manuscript in shape for publication.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be reviewing it very soon.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"