Counter Intermarriage by Welcoming Newcomers to Faith
By Steven M. Cohen and Joy Levitt, The Jewish Daily Forward
Millennia ago, before rabbis existed or conversion was invented, thousands who were not born Jewish became part of the Jewish community through a very simple act: They married a Jew. Sarah was the first, followed in turn by Rebecca, Leah and Rachel. Thousands more followed — both biblical characters and many more whose lives as Jews were never explicitly recorded in the Bible. In effect, our ancestors said to them, “If you marry us, you’re one of us.”
Centuries later, at a time when the number of American Jews marrying non-Jews has reached an all-time high — 80 percent of Reform-raised Jews who married in 2000-2013 married non-Jews — thousands are again choosing to join the Jewish people, but nowhere near as many as we would like.
Unbeknownst to even keen observers of Jewish life, about half of those who identify as Jews but were not born Jewish never underwent formal rabbinic conversion. The 2013 Pew survey of American Jews found 79,000 adult Jewish converts, but another 83,000 who identify as Jews even though they reported no Jewish parents and had not undergone conversion.
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