[This article first appeared on October 20, 2013 on The Times of Israel Ops&Blogs page.]
In late 2006 a young man named Jason telephoned me.
He had met the girl of his dreams, an Italian girl named Chiara. His
family were pillars of their synagogue in the suburb of a large Midwestern US
city. His grandparents were the synagogue’s founders who had bought and
donated the land on which the synagogue was eventually built. Jason’s father
had been Board president. Later on his mother held the same
position. Jason had become Bar Mitzvah in the sanctuary and confirmed with
his synagogue class.
When Jason approached the rabbi – the same rabbi who, when Jason was
born, had officiated at his Brit Milah ceremony and who called him to the Torah
as a Bar Mitzvah – Jason was eager to discuss his marriage plans. He
wanted to have his wedding in the synagogue, with his rabbi as officiant,
because, as Jason put it, “the rabbi was also my mentor and my friend.”
What happened next is something that has occurred thousands of times
before. The rabbi smiled and, when he heard that Chiara was not Jewish,
politely declined. “We don’t believe in assimilation,” the rabbi said,
and then he heaped on one final insult, “You mean to tell me, Jason, that you
couldn’t find a nice Jewish girl.”
Jason’s synagogue is part of the Reform Jewish movement, which means
that although interfaith marriage is not banned outright, individual rabbis can
make the decision to officiate or not. Jason’s rabbi subscribed to the
“or not” crowd. His Board of Directors did not approve of interfaith
marriages and to keep his job the rabbi had no choice but to go along.
What he did have a choice about was his attitude toward Jason. He
could have chosen to congratulate him for finding a wonderful woman to
marry. He could have chosen not to use the tired old “code word” -
assimilation – which really means that marrying a non-Jew is marrying someone
who is just not good enough or that a home with a non-Jewish parent is the
death knell for creating a Jewish family, both of which are patently not true.
It was from this “tsuris” that Jason and I found each
other. Out of his dismay at being rejected by his birth religion – a
religion where he and his family had been dedicated participants for decades,
Jason asked me to officiate at his interfaith marriage. I was delighted
and Jason and Chiara were married under the chuppah in the garden of a
beautiful villa in the Tuscan hills near Florence, Italy.
You might think that this is the end of the story. It’s not.
Shortly after Jason and Chiara returned home to the USA, Jason’s rabbi phoned
him. Yes, it was the same rabbi who rejected their wedding request. This time
the rabbi was friendly and enthusiastic. Jason described their conversation
this way.
“The rabbi congratulated me,” Jason said and asked all about the
ceremony. He seemed really interested and that made me curious. Why all
of a sudden was he so friendly? I found out in a minute. Rabbi told me
that the synagogue Board had made a decision – one that I would be real happy
about. Then he went on to explain that now interfaith families could be
full family members, too.”
Jason was stunned. He listened for a while as the rabbi described the levels and types of memberships that the synagogue offered and what the costs would be. “That’s when I stopped him,” Jason said. “You mean to tell me that when I needed you, when I wanted you to marry me in my home synagogue with all my family around me, you refused. But now you call to invite me to bring my interfaith family, my Catholic wife, whom you disdained, into the synagogue as a member?”
Jason went on. “So let me get this straight. You won’t officiate
at my wedding, but you’ll take my money. No thank you.”
Where is Jason now? He and Chiara have two children with whom
they regularly celebrate Shabbat and make the Jewish festivals around the family
table. They live in Jason’s home town but are not interested in
connecting formally with a synagogue. “It was such a bad experience,”
Jason says.
Jason’s story is the story of a phenomenon I call “Synagogue Suicide,”
something the Pew report (October, 2013) did not take into consideration when
they concluded that Jews who self-describe as “cultural” or “secular,” don’t
really want to be a part of established Judaism. Had the researchers dug a
little deeper, they might have found that many couples like Jason and Chiara
would be actively Jewish today if their synagogues and their rabbis hadn’t
pushed them away.
Recently I was invited to speak at a local Unitarian Universalist
church, something I do almost every year. I find the Unitarians to be friendly,
warm, and open-minded. I’ve made friends in the congregation so it wasn’t
unusual that after the service two women approached me.
They told me about their late husbands and how much they loved their
Jewish traditions. One woman said, “When my husband married me he was never
again accepted in his synagogue. People whispered at how he had “married
out.” And when it came time for our son to become a Bar Mitzvah, the
rabbi told us that I couldn’t participate in the ceremony. I was not permitted
to stand at the Torah, because I wasn’t Jewish.”
She went on. “No matter that I was the one who schlepped him to Sunday
school and Hebrew lessons. Well, this really bothered my husband and he left
the synagogue. That’s when my friend introduced us to the Unitarian Church.
There’s no talk about Jesus, so that fit my husband pretty well. He wore
his Star of David to Church and people were accepting. He missed the
synagogue and always felt bad about not going, but we just couldn’t get over
the hurt.”
The second woman chimed in. “My husband loved the synagogue,” she
said. “We’re both Jewish and really wanted to find a synagogue
home. But my husband never studied. His parents were secular so he
never went to Sunday school, and he never had a Bar Mitzvah. One time we
were sitting at services and he held the book upside down. The lady
behind us whispered to her friends and they all started laughing. Later on we
tried out the Unitarian Church. We never went back to the synagogue again.”
In my 15 years as a pulpit rabbi I have gathered hundreds of examples of
the self-defeating behavior that has led to a Jewish exodus from synagogue
life. And I am not alone. Many of my colleagues, the majority of whom are
pluralistic, serve in synagogues that are open and welcoming to Jews of all
backgrounds and run small congregations that actively encourage Jews who
describe themselves as “cultural” or “secular,” to give institutional Judaism
another try. If recent statistics paint a dreary picture, there are reasons why
Jewish life in America is so bleak. But it’s much too easy to blame
assimilation or secularization and leave it at that. If Jews aren’t Jewish
anymore, it’s time to find out why.
