Reconstructionists Reconfirm Ruling on Patrilineal Descent; Will Offer Counseling for Those Intermar

Delegates to the 24th annual convention of the Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot (FRCH) reaffirmed a 1968 resolution which grants full Jewish status to a child whose father or mother is Jewish and who is raised and educated as a Jew.

In another resolution, the 200 delegates declared that Reconstructionist rabbis and congregations should offer counseling to a Jew and non-Jew expressing an intention to marry. The resolution said such assistance should be offered to enable the mixed couple to explore the liftetime implications of mixed marriage, such as education in relevant matters of Jewish custom, including the differences between Jewish Law (Halacha) and the Reconstructionist philosophy which does not accept Halacha.

The resolution also proposed that appropriate counseling should also be made available to the parents of the couple.

Another resolution declared that the traditional rites of the Jewish wedding ceremony (kiddushin) should be reserved for the marriage of a Jew to a Jew.

SEEK TO PROMOTE JEWISH HOME

Another resolution declared FRCH rabbis should encourage in every way the marriages of interfaith couples committed to establishing a Jewish home and educating their children as Jews.

Among the suggestions for such encouragement were the possibility of Reconstructionists attendiong their civil marriage ceremony and, after the ceremony, extend to the newly-married couple remarks of welcome into the Jewish community “and encouraging their continued involvement in the life of the Jewish people.”

Jewish religious and lay leaders should never take part in a joint inter-religious wedding ceremony, another resolution declared.

REACHING OUT URGED

In another resolution, the delegates said that the Jewish community should reach out to intermarried couples and provide them with opportunities to explore their relationship and that of their family “to the Jewish people” by special educational programs. invitations to home Shabbat and holiday programs and assistance to such families to find suitable congregations when they must relocate.

The reaffirmed 1968 resolution appeared to be almost identical with the resolutions approved by the 94th annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) in Los Angeles in 1983.

That resolution was a non-binding recommendation to Reform rabbis authorizing them to accept the child of a mixed marriage as being under the “presumption” — with the consent and cooperation of the parents — of being of Jewish descent, to be validated “through appropriate and timely public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish people.”