TL;DR: At a time of rising antisemitism and instability in Israel, fostering a strong sense of belonging within Jewish communities is critical. Interfaith families, now a significant and growing part of the community, often feel less connected and engaged because they don’t fully feel they belong.
Moving beyond simple “welcome” to true inclusion is essential. This requires shifting attitudes, policies, and communal practices to actively embrace interfaith partners, ensuring they feel valued and integrated into Jewish life.
With the unsettled situation in Israel, and continuing incidents of antisemitism, members of Jewish communities feeling connection and belonging is more important than ever.
With a 72% rate of interfaith marriage among non-Orthodox Jews, Jewish communities include increasing numbers of interfaith couples, including partners from different faith backgrounds. For them, feeling belonging is a challenge.
Surveys show that interfaith families are relatively less Jewishly engaged than inmarried families; fewer are members of synagogues, or provide Jewish education for their children. One reason: there is general agreement that people will not engage in a community unless they feel that they belong.
Two national Pew reports, over twenty-five local Jewish community studies since 2013, and several qualitative studies of interfaith families show that interfaith couples feel much less of a sense of belonging to the Jewish people and to their local Jewish communities than inmarried couples do, and that some persistently experience a sense of being “other.”
We may have succeeded in making interfaith families feel welcome, but welcome only makes people feel that their presence as a guest is appreciated. Advocates for every other marginalized Jewish group, including LGBTQ people, people of color, and people with disabilities, all agree that inclusion – the feeling of belonging – is necessary to support engagement.
The challenge of our time, then, is to help interfaith partners who are not Jews feel that they truly belong in Jewish communities. Inclusion requires an adaptation of underlying attitudes towards those to be included, and adaptive change in the established system with which they engage. In the context of interfaith marriage, that means thinking positively about interfaith families and partners from different faith backgrounds, as well as treating them so as to encourage and maximize their participation in Jewish life.
The Center for Radically Inclusive Judaism advocates for attitudes, policies and programs that engage interfaith families in Jewish life and community. Our work is closely aligned with Global Jewry’s vision that “All Jews and their families feel welcome, heard and valued as members of the Jewish people” – a vision that is especially important, in the current difficult moment, for organizations and leaders to advance collaboratively.
Shavua tov,
Edmund Case
Founder and President, Center for Radically Inclusive Judaism
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