It never ceases to amaze me how exclusive our community can be. People are forever deploring the decline of the provinces but nobody ever seems willing to do anything about it.
Out here in the sticks, we are facing 60% assimilation. I am forever being approached by people who have a non-Jewish spouse or people whose spouse has married out, and the constant litany of exclusion and shunning is enough to make one despair of the Jewish community.
All too often people who marry out are not running away from Judaism but are desperate to be attracted back in. Their spouses are often the ones who encourage them to engage with their Jewishness.
On Rosh Hashanna we shall doubtless see many who have gone outside the community and married out. Their children may well be in shul.
Why do we leave it to groups like Lubavitch to pick up the pieces and gather these people in? We should reach out to married-outs; whilst not condoning their action we must accept that it has happened, move on and encourage them back into the fold.
At the worst we are being welcoming. At the best we may have a whole new Jewish family engaged in our community activities.
The sentiments in this piece are all very fine - and who would not endorse them - but the fact of the matter is that each and every stream of Judaism in this country finds itself between a rock and a hard place. One only has to look at the instransigence of the US Beth Din over the Sagal conversion in Israel and their refusal to acknowlege this as valid in Britain to see that exclusivity at work in Orthodoxy. As reported, the Sagals are now attending a Masorti synagogue, whose congregrants would be regarded as Orthodox in observance by the majority of Israel's non-observant population but whose perfectly Halachic conversions themselves are not recognized by the Israeli State. Some British Masorti rabbis will accept BRITISH Reform conversions and for the sake of making Aliyah, so will the State of Israel, but any issue of such marriages as a Reform and Masorti convert might contract, the children will not be regarded as Jewish in Israel and unable themselves to contract a valid marriage there. Then we have the thorny issue of Liberal Jewish conversions. The progressive wing in Britain being split between Reform and Liberal, Reform conversions can be achieved Halachically, even though the resulting level of observance might be little better than your average secular Israeli, Liberal Judaism makes no pretence at Halachic conversion - does not require Brit Milah and in which the use of the Mikveh is optional - will marry mixed couples and now even bury them together - and will acknowledge any issue of patrilineal Jewish descent as bona fide Jews. All well and good you might say, but, as I have alluded to here on each and every occasion, Liberal Judaism, reflecting but 10 per cent of British affiliated Jewry, cannot decide if it is a political party or a religious institution and the most off-putting, leftwing political agenda awaits anyone who wishes to engage in non-Halachic Judaism - with a non-Jewish partner - but does not subscribe to a strident, shrill, leftwing agenda with about as much fairness and even-handedness about Israel and the Orthodox as you can find in an al-Jazeera editorial - on a good day. So, the Orthodox remain out-of-reach and standoffish to the point of being unHalachic about it all, Masorti and Reform don't cut the mustard and Liberal Judaism only appeals to those to whom it appeals - and doesn't want anyone upsetting the political apple cart. Leaves a lot of choice, doesn't it. So, where do you go? Israel, where there has been an element of corruption in conversions in the past but the stringency of whose rabbis over the vexed question of post-conversion observance is more Masorti or Reform? You tell me. One answer would be to do as the Americans have done and not have a Chief Rabbi at all - and stop him behaving like the Pope. Another solution would be to abolish the various Batei Din of the various competing streams and simply have those Halachically-minded and observant rabbis of whatever movement gather two other like-minded colleagues for the purposes of conversion. It might blur the edges of what constitutes Orthodoxy but would reflect the reality of life in the Jewish State and the habits of those who are not affiliated and drift from one shul to another, irrespective of the fine print attached to a conversion certificate. At the end of the day, I have met just as many inclusive-minded and welcoming Orthodox rabbis to the idea of conversion and been put off just as many non-Orthodox over the question of where they draw the line between progressive Judaism and progressive politics. Both Orthodoxy and progressive Judaism can, in their ways, be as difficult to surmount as each other. It is rabbinical ruling that determines conversion and a non-Jewish spouse's participation in shul to whatever level is deemed acceptable. Rabbinical opinion should also lead the way in what a congregation deems acceptable. Rabbis are also paid by their various congregations to reflect what that congregation finds acceptable. Until we ordinary Jews have our opinions listened to and have these reflected in the decisions are rabbis make ON OUR BEHALF, the status will remain quo. If so many are marrying out, there is a reason. And if so many can't find a way in - there is also a reason. Inter-marriage has always been a thorny question in Judaism but, historically, what usually obtains is what the people do - however long it takes the rabbinate to catch up with this and reflect it in their rulings. Until rabbinical posturing - political or otherwise - is deemed worse than marrying out, all the present excesses in each and every stream of Judaism will continue.
Posted by: Lior | October 27, 2005 at 06:12 PM