Yeshiva University Study Reveals 17% of American Jews Marry Non-jews

A Yeshiva University psychologist reported in a study just published here that 17 percent of American Jews intermarry and that Jews and Catholics who marry outside their faiths tun the highest risk of divorce and conflict in the rearing of children. Dr. Victor J. Sanua, associate professor of psychology at Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work, based his study. “Marriage Counseling: Psychology-Ideology,” on a number of studies on intermarriage made over the past 35 years including a book by the rabbi and sociologist Albert I. Gordon and a survey made by Iowa State University. His conclusions are that Jews and Catholics are most hurt by intermarriage, that the rate of broken marriages is more influenced by lack of religious identification of one of the partners rather than by clashes of religious values and beliefs and that approximately 75 percent of the offspring of Jews who intermarry are not identified as Jews.

Dr. Sanua observed that while there are no definitive studies of intermarriage divorce rates among Jews, information gathered in his report shows that Jews marrying outside of their faith see their relatives less regularly and “what is considered more significant, feel the unmarried can be just as content as the married.” It is also shown, the study said, “that Catholics and Jews carry an additional burden in that both groups have to cope with more pressure from church and family than do Protestants.”