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cheers,
Mike

I have nothing against converts, as I think my post made clear. My wife is one, and so are my children. I’m Orthodox, that’s all, so for me, non-Orthodox conversions are a problem. It is foolish to deny this. I’m sorry if that offends you.

Just so you know, my wife is Japanese. While they were looking for wives, both my older sons had occasion to meet and date a number of Asian (Orthodox) converts. As it turned out, they didn’t go that way but it certainly wouldn’t have been a problem if they did.

Yes, I know plenty of born Jews who aren’t worth the fingernail of a ger tzedek. Did I not say in my post that it was the loss of Torah that leads to “born Jews slurping down oysters”?

I am all for “hybrid vigor” and race-mixing, since I am the product of such mixing myself. And I would certainly prefer that my as yet unmarried youngest son, when he is faced with a choice between marrying a born Jew who is not shomer mitzvot and a convert who is, will choose the convert, so long as the conversion was Orthodox.

You said “Intermarriage isn’t the issue…it’s secular assimilation and a lack of duty to purpose. That is a FAMILY problem. If you born Jews don’t live Jewishly and don’t make it important but not stifling for your kids then you will see them fall away.” And yet… they do fall away. Please look at the numbers cited at SimpleToRemember. How do you as a committed Jew, deal with that denominational reality?

Like I said, you are not a stain or a mistake. A mixed marriage that produces children merely identifying as Jews is an exception. Such Jews, wonderful as I am sure they all are, are in the minority. And despite the existence of these otherwise committed Jews, as a society, advocating mixed marriage is not a good idea if what we want to do is thrive and survive.

Again, this ought not be seen as a reason to shun or marginalize anyone. Once an individual Jew makes the decision to marry outside the faith, we as a community have every interest in being as welcoming as possible so as not to drive them further away.

Finally, I don’t think this video said anything negative about converts! Am I missing something here?

Of the 43 families we have all but 2 are intermarried. The 2 who are both Jews are in their 70s. Of the remaining families, some are converts for marriage (which I don’t agree with) and some are not. Of the active Jews, those who live Jewishly…ALL are converts save 2. And those two are in their 60s.

It’s the “born Jews” who sit around at the table slurping down raw oysters. I keep kosher. I am active at Temple. I teach Sunday Shul. I hope my children marry Jewish but I hope they live Jewishly. There are a lot of Jews who do not.

Intermarriage isn’t the issue…it’s secular assimilation and a lack of duty to purpose. That is a FAMILY problem. If you born Jews don’t live Jewishly and don’t make it important but not stifling for your kids then you will see them fall away.

And in the event you didn’t know this…there is an entire generation of Chinese children, mostly girls, who are growing up Jewish. At least some of them will be looking to marry Jewish men. Their Asian heritage isn’t a detraction to the Jew…it adds. You know hybrid-vigor and all that.

But anyway, we, the converts are not the enemy and we are not less Jewish than you. We are in many cases the lifeblood of the Jewish people at least in America. And I don’t appreciate the idea that somehow I’m a stain or mistake.

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My family is a perfect example. My mother is Jewish and my father is not. I have three siblings and four first cousins from my mother’s sister, who also married a non-Jew. Out of those eight children, only one of my sisters and I have any connection whatsoever to organized Jewish life. I’m Orthodox and my sister is sort-of observant and goes to a Reconstructionist “shul”. Her son had a bar mitzvah but is otherwise completely unobservant, probably taking after his father who stopped keeping mitzvot and now “observes” Shabbat by playing baseball and giving platelets dafka on Shabbat since he says it’s pikuach nefesh and therefore OK. Not sound halachic reasoning, but whatever.

None of my other cousins married Jews and none of their children, the few that there are, identify as Jews. Some are not even circumcised.

I’m sorry, but these people are lost to the Jewish community and people. There is no other way to understand this. Telling a Jewish joke or supporting what one believes to be the proper political cause because it is supposedly in line with Jewish “values” just doesn’t cut it.

However, it is not just intermarriage that has this corrosive effect. Illustrating J.D. Edelman’s point, I have 5 2nd cousins both of whose parents were strong “cultural Jews”. However, they were anti-religious, and as a result, their children are as well. They had no Jewish grandchildren, not a single one. All their children married out, and two even converted to Christianity. One eventually got a divorce and is now seeing a Jewish woman, but they are too old to have children. The Jewish line in that family is completely extinguished.

That being said, I know a lot of “intermarried” families in our shul, but they’re not really “intermarried” since the non-Jewish partner converted, as in my case, for example. The result? I have three kids, all shomer mitzvot, my two oldest sons married Jewish women, one of my sons is an ordained Orthodox rabbi, and I have three Jewish grandchildren with certainly more to come. I don’;t know what rad the youngest will take, but I’m hopeful.

So, what can we learn from this?

1. Intermarriage and assimilation lead to fewer Jews and the ones who are left are less observant, making increased assimilation and intermarriage more likely. This means even fewer Jews (unless you cheat like the Reform and just wave your hand and say everybody’s Jewish). If you really care about the Jewish people, there is no way you can put a positive spin on this. Any attempt to do so is just whistling past the graveyard.

2. Lack of Torah and mitzvot leads to assimilation and intermarriage even if the parents and children start out all Jewish.

3. Very occasionally, like in my case, the pintele Yid wakes up in time and you can save your family and children for the Jewish people. But it’s not a good idea at all to count on something like this.

So, yeah, assimilation, intermarriage, and the loss of Torah are bad. The best way to keep the Jewish people strong is to teach people to stay true to Torah and to marry other Jews, converts or otherwise, who live a Torah life.

And what Jorge said. That’s pretty much what happened with me and a lot of other mixed-background people I know. But it makes it very hard. better not to start out with two strikes against you.