Threat of Intermarriage to U.S. Jewish Community Stressed at Parley

Intermarriage threatens the Jewish community of America, it is widespread on the college campuses, and about 70 percent of the children born out of mixed marriages are lost to Judaism, a special conference on intermarriage, held under the auspices of New York’s Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, was warned here today. Fifty rabbis, Jewish social workers and communal leaders participated in the two day conference, conducted by the Federation’s Commission on Synagogue Relations.

Dr. Mordecai Kaplan, founder and leader of the Reconstructionist Movement, recommended the reconstitution of the Jewish community in the United States as one way to fight the danger of Jewish extinction. Without such organization, he stated, “all attempts to solve the problem of interfaith marriage are futile.”

He saw a number of dangers facing the American Jewish community, identifying these as lack of parental interest in transmitting the Jewish heritage to their children; resulting in “Jewish illiteracy”; assimilationist tendencies on the part of some Jewish lay leaders; “shortsightedness” of some Jewish religious leaders; and the lack of prestige attached to some Jewish causes such as Zionism and Jewish cultural and religious objectives.

Rabbi Benjamin Z. Kreitman, chairman of the Commission’s research committee, said that the increase in the number of children from mixed marriages lost to Judaism must be viewed as more serious from the fact that, in general, the Jewish birthrate in this country is lower than the birth rate in the general population. Noting that the Jewish population ratio in the United States now is 2.9 percent, he said that present trends indicate that, by the year 2000 that ratio will have been reduced to 1.6 percent.