1 min read
Inreach or outreach? It’s a continuing dilemma for policy-makers in Jewish communities.
Do you target your educational efforts on those who are already within the communal loop – synagogue members, Jewish day school pupils etc? Or do you try to engage the widest spectrum of Jews, or even potential Jews? If money were no object, of course, you would not have to choose.
When the intermarriage rate is now close to 60 per cent, as it is in the United States - and 70 per cent of the majority non-Orthodox Jewish population who have recently married have a non-Jewish partner - then it is harder to ignore the children of mixed marriages.
According to a new study carried out by the Cohen Centre for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University – Millennial Children of Intermarriage - there is some good news.
Intermarried children are more likely to identify as Jews than they used to: whereas 54 per cent of those born between 1981 and 1995 were raised Jewish, 61 per cent of them having reached adulthood identify as Jewish now – 29 per cent as religiously and 32 per cent as ethnically Jewish.
However, they were less likely to have had any kind of Jewish education, observed Jewish holidays or had a bar/batmitzvah than children of two Jewish parents.
But what can still make a difference is participation in events as a student or young adult, whether a Jewish society activity on campus or a Birthright trip to Israel. Such experiences can make a “profound impact” to their involvement in Jewish life, the study says.
How widely are intermarried Jewish students being attracted to Jewish programmes in the UK? That surely is something worth finding out.
To get more from opinion, click here to sign up for our free Editor's Picks newsletter.