In 2002 I was presented with an opportunity by a Jewish mission organization to produce and direct a film on the subject of interfaith marriage. At the time, I could think of no topic more irrelevant for a media project.

I began to do research, I was looking for a way to approach the material. I realized this could be an opportunity to utilize my professional skills in a venture that could potentially benefit my own Jewish people in the cause of the gospel.  I read various books and articles on the subject of Jewish intermarriage. I rifled through an enormous list of television shows and films that dealt with this subject matter. I wanted to get a sense of how pop culture was dealing with interfaith marriage. I also interviewed some people who were considered experts on the topic from both the believing and non-believing communities.

I discovered that a remarkable increase had occurred in the number of Jewish intermarriages. Until then, I had no idea that over half of the Jewish people marrying in the United States in the past twenty-five year had wedded non-Jews.

My preliminary research and numerous interviews revealed a significant shift, in attitude and response in the Jewish community, to the changing culture of Jewish intermarriage. Reverend Scott Brown, who pastors a Messianic congregation of primarily interfaith couples in Maryland, said in an interview,

    All of the major movements in Judaism are recognizing (interfaith marriage) as a reality except for perhaps the Ultra-Orthodox sector of the faith… In the last ten years, we have seen movement from the Reform saying “maybe,” the Conservative saying “probably not” and the Orthodox saying “never.” Where now, the Reform are saying, “This is the best opportunity we have had in years to recruit.” The Conservative are saying, “Oh, we better get busy and change some of our forums.” And the Orthodox saying, “Well maybe this is an option.”1

I read Mixed Matches: How to create successful interracial, interethnic and interfaith relationships by Dr. Joel Crohn, a leading Jewish clinical psychologist and author. In his professional observations, he confirms that the rate of Jewish interfaith marriage indeed has soared.

    This is leaving many traditional Jewish families to believe that there are a diminishing number of “all” Jewish families left. For the extended members of such interfaith families reactions often include emotions of guilt, anger, hurt, and confusion regarding their new gentile in-laws.

    For the marriage partners themselves, they are often pulled in many conflicting directions at the same time in an effort to remain loyal to all parties involved. These feelings of pain and discord can spread and deepen within the family making life for all extremely difficult at times.2

I discovered that, whereas a few years ago this issue had remained virtually ignored and “untouched,” today more and more synagogues are beginning to form workshops to help intermarried Jewish couples and their families cope with their unique set of problems.  Initially, such workshops were limited to dealing with the intermarried partners alone. Today, however, therapeutic approaches have developed to include the extended family as well.

Once I understood who our audience was and gained a knowledge of the people we were trying to reach, I became excited about this video project. I was on board. There was nothing like it existing at the time and I could see the immediate need for such a tool among the Jewish people. The challenges being experienced by intermarried couples led to the project name that raises the question, Joined Together?
 
I am a director, producer, and communicator. When crafting a media project there are always three strands involved in creating an effective piece.  

         1. The script (or information/content that one wants to communicate)
         2. The production and execution of the script
         3. The audience

Frequently, one or more of these elements are left out in religious programming. A production team may have great information to communicate, but when poorly produced, the message is often discounted. Conversely, a project can be well produced (featuring good acting, visually interesting footage, etc.) and have great content, but if the target audience is not identified and the information is not effectively communicated in a language they can absorb, the whole project is a futile endeavor.  

I knew our primary audience was to be intermarried couples. So, in order to understand this “market,” I also needed to comprehend the reasons behind the rise in intermarriage since that would become part of telling the story.

I learned as much as I could about the factors that were contributing to the emergence of this new intermarried  Jewish community. Three of the elements seemed pretty obvious.

         1. Growing assimilation of the American Jewish community
         2. The secularization of America and the erroneous idea that Jewishness is a religion
         3. Increasing tolerance of Jewish people in America

With the increase of tolerance has come a decline in anti-Semitism in America. This is certainly a good thing. However, it is leading many to assume that Jewish people are no different than anyone else. That was not the case fifty years ago.3  Of course, we find that growing American tolerance for minorities only contributes further to the increase in Jewish mixed marriages.

Dr. Michael Rydelnik, a professor of Jewish Studies at Moody Bible Institute, comments on the growing embrace of Jewish people in American culture by a religiously nominal gentile population.

    There are still pockets of anti-Semitism (in America). But because Jewish people are being tolerated more than ever, gentiles or nominal Christians … will be much more willing to marry someone who is Jewish. There are many people … who are pretty much (religiously) nominal. They do want to be married in a church or have their children baptized. So, as long as a Jewish partner is willing to allow that to happen, (nominal religious practices), they will get married.4
Including Children in the Mix
I found that one of the biggest hurdles faced by intermarried couples is deciding how to raise their children. Parents must come to an agreement about which religion and culture they want the children to learn and carry with them. Often, the ideas of Jewish and gentile parents are in competition.

It is amazing to think that as important as children are to a family, too often they are an afterthought, since the subject is too disruptive at the beginning of a relationship. Couples fall in love, then get married, and at the beginning the differences in their cultures remain a novelty in their relationship. It seemed to me that the majority of these intermarried couples considered themselves to be secular and non-religious. However, when children came into the family a whole new set of cross-cultural issues appeared.

Reverend John Perling pastors a Lutheran congregation is in the heart of Beverly Hills. With a high concentration of Jewish people intermarried with his Lutheran members, he counsels many interfaith couples. He observed that “being in love is nice, but it is not enough because eventually children come. People get very religious where they had not been religious previously.”5

When children need to be instructed, the traditions that previously seemed unimportant suddenly become paramount. Should they have a bris (circumcision) or a baptism? Should the children receive instruction for Bar Mitzvah or prepare for Confirmation? Will they attend church or synagogue? Children look to their parents for their religious and spiritual identity. Issues that were previously submerged can suddenly force their way to the surface as children begin to wonder, asking questions of their parents about things like God, Jesus, and Jewishness. Often, even the most ardent attempts to answer their questions with sensitivity can cause the other spouse, or even in-laws, to feel discomfort, alienation, or resentment.

I realized at the outset of this project that one of its most important aspects was how to treat the issues regarding  children. That topic seemed to be a catalyst for many of the tensions reported by the couples I spoke with.  

Initially, I even considered doing this project from a child’s perspective, as a short film. That idea was overruled in favor of the approach that featured interviews with different couples.

From a creative perspective, footage of talking heads is, by far, the most difficult type to make interesting. So, I set out to find “our couples.” As I pre-screened couples, I found that many of them were a bit embarrassed by the topic, especially the ones who were not followers of Yeshua (Jesus). Curiously, many of them seemed to be in denial that any issue or problem even existed. They tended to downplay any notable differences.

In my day to day life, when people asked me what project I was currently working on, I would answer, “A documentary on intermarried Jewish-gentile couples.” It was amazing how often there was a squeal of recognition from the inquirer if they were part of an interfaith marriage, or if they knew someone who was.

One day at a barbeque, a female plastic surgeon yelped, “Oh, we should be in it!” She ran to retrieve her Jewish husband to inform him of what I was doing. However, when I mentioned that I wanted to explore the conflicts or cross-cultural issues in the film, they retreated. The topic suddenly seemed to be threatening. There was a reluctance to admit that any of the differences related to their backgrounds could be a cause of  tension that existing between them.  

I questioned my research sources a bit more. Dr. Michael Rydelnik is not only the son of Holocaust survivors; he is a partner in a Jewish-gentile marriage. He revealed an interesting nuance.

First of all, I am personally opposed … (to) the typical categories of race, particularly because I am Jewish. The whole Nazi (interest in eugenics) with the Arian races (over) the Semitic race. (The Nazis) were thinking that people can be categorized (and improved upon) biologically… There are different ethnic groups and we can celebrate culture. However, when you start categorizing people biologically, I feel uncomfortable with that.6  

Clearly people’s unique cultural perspectives were going to color the responses I observed. No one wanted to be labeled in way that highlighted their differences or conflicts, especially the ones that could possibly stem from race or religion. A significant number of the intermarried people that I interviewed, especially the Jewish ones, were sensitive about having the spotlight focused on their ethnicity.

American culture places a high value on tolerance and multiculturalism. There is a reticence in noting conflicts that might be attributed to differences in race, culture, or ethnicity. On top of that, the conflicts between distinctive religious beliefs appeared to be deeply felt, causing significant hurt. It would be a challenge for me to get people to discuss those things on film.

I decided the best Jewish-gentile couples for our film would be the ones who both knew Yeshua now, but had experienced these sort of conflicts prior to coming to faith in the Lord.

To find a sufficient number of Jewish-gentile couples to interview, I sent out letters to Messianic ministries and congregations asking about intermarried couples that might be interested in the project. Once I compiled a list of couples that fit the profile, I sent them a letter asking them to make a home video. I wanted to see how they answered some specific questions about their religious experience prior to the time of their engagement. It was a sort of survey on how each partner identified religiously. They answered questions about their faith and practice, connectedness to religious roots, difficulties and tensions they encountered, children, and their comfort with Judaism and Christianity.

Couples responded, sending VHS tapes with their answers to my preliminary questionnaire. From these I learned that the relational issues fell into some common and repeated categories. In addition to the issues of child rearing and identification, there were four other primary areas of difficulty.

      1) The wedding – a minister or rabbi, what traditions to include or exclude

      2) In-laws – the expectations and evaluations of each spouse’s extended family

      3) Holidays – how to incorporate both, neither, or some traditions for each partner.

      4) Religious community – an unexpected need rekindled by desires for familiar traditions

These issues emerge like time bombs. That observation was confirmed by at least two experts that I interviewed for background research. A good deal of sensitivity is needed in seeking solutions with the interfaith community, since these emotional time bombs can appear unexpectedly, catching the couple by surprise as the relationship develops.

I structured the video around these primary topics, and looked into the various solutions and answers that they could provide from their experiences. I also tried to pepper it with perspectives from teens and children, both positive and negative.  

I hoped these couples would be able to find a place of vulnerability to enable them to relive some of their challenging experiences prior to finding Jesus as a commonality in their lives.

During the interviews for the film project, It was not hard to tap into the real emotions of those memories. Sseveral of the couples relived the emotions associated with the differences that surfaced in their marriages. Even after arriving at unity through faith in Jesus, they had to deal with difficult emotions from the conflicts that once existed between them. One couple went for marriage counseling to resolve past wounds that had resurfaced during the interviews for the documentary. The key to dealing successfully with those tensions was in their shared spiritual resolution through hope in Yeshua.  

Various solutions
Currently, there are limited solutions or possible resolutions for intermarried couples in crisis. Rabbis, pastors, and priests agree that having the same spiritual or religious foundation is very important. Reverend Perling doesn’t always quote the New Testament passage about being “unequally yoked” with non-believers to members of his Lutheran church who date Jewish people. Instead he refers to Ezra, who prayed for the Jewish people after their return to the Land from the Babylonian captivity. He points out that the Jewish people who had intermarried promised to abandon mixed marriages.7 His message runs along the same lines as that of many rabbis: It is better to marry only among your own people.

Allen Maller is the rabbi of Temple Akiba, a reform congregation in Southern California. His synagogue has about 325 couples, many of whom are intermarried. The congregation offers an eighteen-week introductory class to Judaism for the non-Jewish spouses. Rabbi Maller recognizes that interfaith marriages are a reality. Still, his personal feelings run deep.

    I’m not interested in promoting them (interfaith marriages). I believe that Jewish community continuity is part of the will of God. Interfaith marriage contributes to and erodes the continuity of the Jewish community.8

Many synagogues and Jewish community centers offer classes to intermarried or engaged Jewish-gentile couples to help provide them with answers. Usually, these introductory courses were actually the first step in advocating the conversion of the gentile partner to Judaism. Scott Brown surveyed some of those classes and concluded,

    … Some classes are primarily for the Jewish spouse. Or, for the Catholic spouse, that class is geared toward promoting the benefits of conversion. So, conversion is one of the major solutions being offered… You have that (and then) you have the seminars, which are more kind of giddy and fun. What they will do is promote a blended model where we look at our traditions. We try to find some common links and we tie them together. Then usually, with regard to child-rearing, they would say something like, “Let your children see you enjoying each other’s traditions, let them see you loving each other through compromise and let them make their (own) choice. Let them decide when they are older.” There is generally a lot of tension, because it never really works. There is resentment that happens between the parents as they try to do their own recruiting among the kids.9

Ironically, when I was doing the preliminary interviews, every person of the clergy I spoke with – including rabbis, ministers, priests, and Messianic leaders – said some version of the same thing: “It’s best to stick to your own kind.” However, once I turned on the camera, they all shied away from making those thoughts public. Despite their personal visceral response or the sociological analysis that these mixed marriages are not the ideal, they all acknowledged that intermarriages are here to stay.

An effective solution has been emerging from among Messianic communities: Jewish-gentile families can be unified by the mutual completion of both partners’ faith identity in Messiah Yeshua. Through this video project, I began to see a new and unique opportunity to present this spiritually effective option for both parties. Through the documentary we could provide information about a path to spiritual harmony within Jewish-gentile families. It was all the more exciting as we saw Jewish spouses becoming much more willing to explore the message of Yeshua than other Jewish non-believers.

    … Spouses in a mixed marriage are, spiritually speaking, orphans without a religious home. As they become more spiritually aware and begin to search for answers, they are far more likely to be open to a “Jewish” Gospel than you might think.10

I set out to produce Joined Together? as a tool to provide insight into the struggles of intermarried couples. I came to realize how important this subject is for ministry to modern American Jewish people. We could not just tell the story without also offering the ultimate and best solution, unity in Yeshua. My perspective has changed through this journey. My original skepticism regarding interfaith marriage as a relevant study subject has been clearly altered. There is no doubt now that this field of ministry is ripe for harvest in the kingdom of God.
 
 


Author info
 
Nikki H. lives in Hollywood where she works as  producer / director, educator and minister of the gospel within the entertainment community. The documentary Joined Together? that she produced on interfaith  aired on PAX-TV and has  won several awards. She holds a degree in theology and Biblical literature from Simpson college and an  MFA in directing from the University of Southern California.  Her ministry work, PRISM  (Partnering to Reach the Industry of Stage and Media) is currently under the umbrella of ACTInternational. NikkiLH@aol.com