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Intermarriage

The Intermarriage Beit Midrash

The Pew 2020 study of American Jews confirms that the overall rate of marriage between Jews and people of other faiths or cultural backgrounds is holding steady at 60%, with those outside of the Orthodox community marrying people of other identities at a rate of 72%. Strikingly, the study also found that about two thirds of multi-faith/multi-heritage couples are raising their children Jewish. These statistics are motivating many who have resisted this phenomenon to take another look at these families and their presence in Jewish life - now and in the future.


The Intermarriage Beit Midrash invites people to engage with classical Jewish texts that provide a values-based framework and vocabulary with which to explore today’s unprecedented fluidity of Jewish identity and hybridity of Jewish families; a language to talk about both the challenges and opportunities that these realities represent.

The Beit Midrash Will Invite People to Discuss
  • What is the role of people in our communities who aren’t Jewish in the realms of ritual, prayer, and community leadership?
     

  • What does Jewishness mean when it’s lived in an open, pluralistic, post-ethnic society, and how can we articulate a compelling new paradigm for Jewishness without losing its manifold textures and multidimensionality?
     

  • When a growing segment of the community claim that their Jewish identity is less about God/theology and halakhah (Jewish Law) and more about culture and heritage, how do we make those associations thick enough to be sustainable and transmittable to future generations?
     

  • What makes a marriage Jewish other than the identities of the spouses?
     

  • And many other issues that participants may bring to the conversation.

The Intermarriage Beit Midrash can be offered as a once-off program or over a Shabbat, as a virtual or in-person experience.

Testimonial

Dini inhabits a rare niche among Jewish educators: she inspires both scholars and laypeople to deeper engagement with study and action. Dini has a wild mind steeped in scholarship, a soaring soul fully grounded in our shared reality, and is able to make text study, Jewish law and ethics, and contemporary spirituality accessible and compelling.

~ Rachel Brodie, z"l

Senior Educator, Jewish Studio Project

Invite Dini to your community

Use the contact form in the footer to schedule this class which can be offered in person or online.