The Interfaith Couples of 'Connected'

By Gerri Miller

This article has been reprinted with permission from InterfaithFamily 

Lori Levine met now-husband Jan Van Arsdale in summer 2013 on Tinder, after unsuccessfully trying other online dating services including JDate, eHarmony and Match as well as being set up on blind dates. “When I joined Tinder, it was so new that I would complain that there weren’t enough people on it. I kept seeing the same five guys!” she tells us. “That was June 2013 and by the time August rolled around there were a lot more people on it and that’s when Jan and I met.”

There are many reality series about people like Levine and Van Arsdale—hip, good-looking people and their love lives. But the new AOL original unscripted series Connected, which began streaming March 31, is a bit different. There’s no camera crew, and of the six New Yorkers who document their stories via personal camcorders, two of them, including Levine and Van Arsdale, are in interfaith relationships.

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Don't Get All Judgy About Our Interfaith Family

The Seesaw for The Jewish Daily Forward

We are an interfaith family raising our children both Christian and Jewish. Dad, me, is Jewish and mom is Christian. They go to Hebrew school at our temple twice a week, and once a month attend an informal educational gathering at our church. We don’t go to church or synagogue weekly, but we do attend services for the holidays and occasional Sabbaths if something special is going on. From the beginning we told our children that we wanted them to know both of our traditions and that whenever they felt ready they could choose one.

As a family, we feel good about this. Our children are getting a chance to learn about and experience two faiths, and both parents get to live a spiritual life that works for them. Unfortunately, our community has not been so supportive. It’s not that they are mean, but I can tell they view us more as a novelty than real or committed members of their religious communities. Some of my friends tell me to seek out other congregations or communities, but I really can’t imagine finding a place that will be much better. Both of ours are liberal, progressive places. Seesaw, how should an interfaith family explain ourselves to help people get it? —Is this Shul or High School?

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What the Term “Interfaith Family” Means

By Ed Case - This article has been reprinted with permission from InterfaithFamily

April 15th on eJewishPhilanthropy, Allison McMillan wrote an important piece, “Intermarried, Not Interfaith.” Her husband was an atheist when they met, had no religious connection to any holidays, is exploring Jewish traditions quite extensively, and has decided not to convert, in her words, “at least not right now.” She says their biggest issue is that they are labeled an “interfaith couple,” a term which “does not describe who or what we are. We are not trying to join two faiths together in our relationship. He is not halachically Jewish but he is also not anything else.”

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Your Intermarriage Obsession Is Just So Offensive

From the Seesaw at The Forward

I am a non-Jewish person who works for a Jewish organization. How do I politely tell my bosses and other colleagues how offensive I find their focus (un-Godly obsession?) on battling intermarriage? In my opinion it’s pretty much racist to focus on who anyone else should date or marry — and I would never tell my own child to do so.

If I was working with regular white people (or blacks or Puerto Ricans) who constantly discussed the need for their children or other members of their community to only date or marry within that community, I would tell them to keep their bigoted opinions to themselves. Why is it any different for Jews? Why do they think it’s at all appropriate to reveal their biases like that?

I find it especially disturbing since they are extremely liberal in most ways and even laud the ‘diversity’ in our neighborhoods and even within the Jewish community. How can you be a fan of diversity while fiercely fighting the relationships that boost that diversity. What hypocrites!

—Befuddled in Brooklyn

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