Performing Interfaith Weddings Tops Agenda for Reform Rabbis

Nowhere are the Reform movement’s tensions between cohesiveness and autonomy, between boundaries and inclusiveness and between authenticity and modernity more apparent than in the debate now taking place about intermarriage.

At the 107th annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, held this week, discussion of intermarriage occupied center stage.

The conversation among the approximately 500 Reform rabbis gathered at a hotel here was honest and often painful, a discussion that reflected just how central the issue is in the life of the Reform movement today.

It quickly become clear that many other related policy positions adopted by the movement, particularly patrilineal descent and an emphasis on inclusion in synagogue life of interfaith families, have so changed Reform Jewish practice that there is no longer a clear sense of where Reform Judaism stands on the issue of intermarriage.

Patrilineal descent, adopted by the movement in 1983, accepts individuals as Jewish if either their mother or father is Jewish and they are given a Jewish education.

In an effort to clear away the confusion and to refocus Reform Jewry on the tenets central of Judaism, including Torah and mitzvot, which a new generation of leaders view as vital, the movement has begun a new discussion on the implications of intermarriage.

“We have not thought about resolutions, about changes [in our policy], but about talking with each other,” Rabbi Simeon Malsin, president of the CCAR, said in remarks introducing the convention’s second plenary session, which was devoted to intermarriage.

In his presidential address, Maslin, who opposes interfaith officiation, called on his colleagues to adopt and live by “community standards” and to diminish the “anarchy” in their practices “that is all too often based on ignorance and convenience.”

The rabbinical organization brought together for the first time congregants and rabbis to address the issue in a major session, which included two Reform temple members and two rabbis.

“Our people need boundaries,” said Rabbi Debra Hachen, who does not, as a rule, officiate at interfaith weddings. She leads Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westboroguh, Mass.

Rabbi Harry Danzigner of Temple Israel in Memphis disagreed. “Having changed so much of the context, nonofficiation sends a confusing message,” he said. “Intentional or not, in our context it says, `We welcome you marriage, but not your weeding.'”

The movement intends to replicate the joint discussion at the regional level, said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, incoming president of the movement’s congregational arm, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

Although the Reform rabbinical association passed a resolution in 1973 formally discouraging officiation at interfaith marriages, the Reform rabbinate remains deeply divided over the issues.

Nearly half – 48 percent – said in a recent survey they are willing to officiate at intermarriages in at least some circumstances. The other 52 percent said they would not be willing, though most would refer to a colleague who did officiate.

In some cities, such as Boston, it is nearly impossible to find a Reform rabbi willing to officiate at an interfaith weeding.

In others, mostly outside of the Northeast, it is easy.

Although there a number of Reform clergy who hire themselves out solely to perform intermarriages, for which they collect sums as high as $1,500, for the overwhelming majority of Reform rabbis, the issues of whether to officiate is a serious one.

During plenary sessions and small discussion groups, many rabbis made it clear just how hard they grapple with their own decision on the issue.

Still, the issue is tendentious within the Reform rabbinate and between Reform rabbis and their congregations, which often bring pressure to bear on the rabbis to perform the ceremonies.

It has become common for synagogue search committees to ask a candidate for the pulpit in the first interview whether he or she officiates at intermarriages.

The issue is often used as a litmus test.

There have been some cases in which contracts have not been renewed because of this issue alone, said Elliot Stevens, executive secretary of the CCAR.

Other rabbis here said tenure has been denied or job security threatened over the issue.

One rabbi, who asked not to be identified, said in a discussion group that for 15 years, he did not officiate at marriages because he did not feel that it was the right thing to do.

He spent three years looking for a pulpit that would not require him to perform intermarriages.

In need of a job, he finally gave in to the pressure and agreed to officiate in a congregation that “made it clear” to him during the interview process that it was an important issue for them, he said.

Although most of the debate took place between rabbis, the voices of laypople were also heard at this week’s convention.

Jacqueline Guttman is an active member of Temple Emeth in Teaneck, N.J., and has served as the congregation’s vice president.

When her son Edward met a Presbyterian woman, Katherine Daniels, at college, Guttman feared that she would never have Jewish grandchildren.

But when Ed and Kaite became engaged, they decided that they wanted to have a Jewish wedding, would have a Jewish home and raise their children as Jews, though Katie was not interested in converting, Jacqueline related to the gathered rabbis, her voice cracking with emotion.

Yet even though they fulfilled nearly every requirement that a Reform rabbi might have in order to marry them, they could not find one willing to do it.

In the end, they found a Reconstructionist rabbi to officiate.

The experience left Guttman angry.

“It is astonishing that Reform Judaism, which has opened up the tent, simultaneously sets up stumbling blocks to those who agree to live by its rules.”

“It was a metaphoric slap in the face,” she said, adding that Katie “got a clear message that she is not good enough for Reform Judaism – this woman who makes Shabbas, who makes seder.”

Not every Reform Jew feels the same way.

When George Markley, a Bridgeport, Conn., attorney and an executive committee member and the trustee of the UAHC, married 27 years ago, this wife, Chris, was not Jewish. They got nothing more than a lecture about the pitfalls of intermarriage from a Reform rabbi whom they approached to perform their wedding, he said.

In the end, they were married by Unitarian-Universalistic minister, but never again set foot in that church.

She has since converted to Judaism.

Today, Markley ardently opposes rabbinic officiation over intermarriages.

“It is the responsibility of Jewish clergy to be our spiritual leaders, not our followers,” he said in a speech here, which received a standing ovation from about two-thirds of the rabbis present.

No matter what the intentions, “we know that the chances of there being a thoroughly Jewish household and multiple generations of Jewish children issuing forth from that marriage are seriously diminished,” he said.

“It is not the rabbi’s job to make us feel good all the time; it is to make us feel Jewish,” he said. “And that may sometimes mean having to say no.”

The rabbis at the five-day gathering, scheduled to end Thursday, were expected to adopt resolutions later in the week establishing a task force to study patrilineal descent and supporting civil marriages for gays and lesbians.