Since the 1970s, the Conservative movement has banned its rabbis from officiating or even attending wedding ceremonies between Jews and non-Jews. The denomination is more traditional than the Reform and Reconstructionist movements, which both allow their rabbis to decide the intermarriage question for themselves. But over time, Conservative Judaism has also been more willing to make concessions to modern life than Orthodoxy, leaving it distinctly vulnerable to challenges from within on one of its most sensitive policies. [...]
The question of whether Jews should be able to marry non-Jews has been a barely contained crisis for roughly as long as there have been Jews in America. The issue picks at the religion’s most sensitive scabs: Fears of assimilation mix with anxiety that Judaism is becoming irrelevant. The American traditions of self-determination and acceptance clash with Judaism’s ancient legal code. And calls for fidelity to Jewish tradition can seem hollow in the face of a young couple hoping to stand together under the chuppah, or Jewish marriage canopy. [...]
Pew Research Center found that 44 percent of married Jews in the U.S. have a non-Jewish spouse. That number is smaller within Conservative Judaism, which accounts for roughly one-fifth of American Jews: 27 percent of the denomination’s married members have a spouse who isn’t Jewish. But the ranks of intermarried Jews have been rising steadily since the 1970s, and are only likely to grow. Pew found that 83 percent of married Jews with one Jewish parent have a spouse who is not Jewish.
The rise of intermarriage over the past few decades directly mirrors a decline in American Jews’ engagement with their religion. Of American Jews born between 1914 and 1927, Pew found, 93 percent identify as “Jews by religion.” Among people born after 1980 who have Jewish ancestry or upbringing, however, only 68 percent identify as “Jews by religion.” The rest identify as “Jews of no religion,” meaning they see Judaism only as a facet of heritage, ethnicity, or culture. Of all the American Jewish denominations, Conservative Judaism appears to be shrinking the fastest: As of 2013, only 11 percent of Jews under 30 identified as Conservative, compared to 24 percent of Jews over 65, according to Pew. [...]
While the Conservative movement strives to welcome mixed families into congregations, schools, and summer camps, it has to do so “within the bounds of Jewish law,” said Julie Schonfeld, the head of the Rabbinical Assembly. “Judaism is fundamentally countercultural in that it’s all about boundaries.” While Conservative rabbis oversee a great number of “halachic, intensive conversions,” she said, there are limits to what the movement will do. “While emphasizing the openness of our communities to all who wish to come and worship with us, in regard to your question of whether the [Rabbinical Assembly] will consider permitting our members to perform intermarriages, the answer is no,” she wrote in a follow-up email after our interview.
