Nadene Goldfoot
There are people today who have taken a DNA test that are finding out that they have some Jewish genes. Some are shocked or horrified, some are very pleased, and others might even be in denial. Some have even become interested in Judaism because of the find and have studied and converted back to the religion. Yet it has happened and science can make this discovery. It works the other way around, too, with Jews rather surprised at finding some Christian genes, but really not that surprised being our constant moving geographically so many times. That and Jewish women having been taken advantage of in different eras could have brought on less Jewish genes than expected.
When did actual intermarriage become acceptable? Remember the radio show, or was it on TV, of Abie's Irish Rose? That may be the period where it had "come out of the closet," during the 1940's. At first it was a stage production. " The basic premise involves an Irish Catholic girl and a young Jewish man who marry despite the objections of their families. It was a comedy. It went viral and became a radio show. Nichols' original Broadway play had the couple meeting in France during World War I, with the young man having been a soldier and the girl a nurse who had tended to him. In Nichols’ version, the priest and the rabbi from the wedding are also veterans of the same war, and recognize one another from their time in the service.
Several TV shows have follow this theme. Abie's Irish Rose prefigured the comedy of Stiller and Meara, a husband-and-wife team (Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara), who often spiked their routines with references to their differing backgrounds (Stiller is Jewish; Meara was of an Irish Catholic background but converted to Judaism later during their marriage).
The play also provided the central premise for the 1972–73 television series Bridget Loves Bernie (CBS), which starred Meredith Baxter and David Birney (who later became husband and wife in real life) in a kind-of reversal of Abie's Irish Rose in that Birney played struggling young Jewish cab driver/aspiring playwright Bernie Steinberg, whose parents ran a modest family delicatessen, and Baxter played Irish Catholic daughter of wealthy parents, Bridget Fitzgerald, who falls in love with and elopes with Steinberg to the disappointment of both sets of parents. (Although both actors were Protestant, the casting partially inverted real life, Birney being of Irish descent.) The show was attacked by a broad range of Jewish groups for allegedly promoting inter-faith marriage, and it was cancelled at the end of its first season, despite being the fifth-highest-rated serial of the 1972–1973 year on USA broadcast television."
After all this exposure, both Jews and Christian youth were accepting the
idea of intermarriage in the USA.
What has happened to the children of intermarriage? This is a religious problem, and can mean the loss of more Jews or Christians. For Jews, this is a serious consideration because they are a much smaller group, and the loss of one possible member means a greater loss percent-wise. Jews make up only 2% of the American population, but only 0.02% of the population world-wide.
This phenomenon of marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew was rare before the Emancipation Period. Many don't realize that at one time, Jews were not considered as citizens in any country, and had even been thrown out of England for 400 years! That occurred from 1290 to 1655. Why? Because Jews were not Christians. Why. Anti- Semitism has existed ever since Judaism had evolved-a new idea that others didn't want to survive. So, to interact with a Jew was verboten (forbidden). This had been world-wide practice and attitude toward Jews.
Disabilities had been imposed on Jews. "The Emancipation Period was the time of removal of these, particularly in the western world from the 18th to 20th centuries. There was normally no specific anti-Jewish religious discrimination in the Roman Empire, and the Jews had benefited from the Edict of Caracalla of 212 which extended universally the rights and duties of citizenship. From the 4th century onward, the Christian Empire enacted an elaborate system of discrimination against the Jews which was adopted and intensified in medieval Europe as well as in the Islamic world. It was brought to its climax by the Ghetto system which aimed at the complete expulsion of the Jews from Gentile society." In other words, it was a Social Holocaust.
It took Abe Lincoln to emancipate Blacks in the USA which took place on January 1,1863. That only concerned the USA and Blacks living there. England had already emancipated Blacks under their reign. As you may know, the date did not necessarily change their lives completely. Today, Blacks are still feeling like their lives are at the bottom of the barrel and are holding BLACK LIVES MATTER marches, etc.
Jewish emancipation was the external process in various nations in Europe of eliminating Jewish disabilities, e.g. Jewish quotas, to which European Jews were then subject, and the recognition of Jews as entitled to equality and citizenship rights. The 1st emancipation was *French Revolution (1740–1789). The 2nd the Congress of *Berlin (1789–1878), comprised emancipation in Western and Central Europe.; and the 3rd was extended from the Congress of Berlin to the Nazis' rise to power (1878–1933) and saw in an atmosphere charged with newly inflamed hatred and racial animosity of the achievement of Jewish emancipation in Eastern Europe, and the struggle in many countries to maintain civic equality and the right to national definition.
Intermarriage means that one of the partners in such cases was inevitably converted to the other's religion. In the 19th century, with the establishment of civil marriage in most countries, the practice considerably increased in Western Europe and America. In some communities, such as in Italy, the proportion of mixed marriages , including those in which conversion took place, rose to nearly 2/3s of all marriages by Jews.
In 1932, 60 mixed marriages took place in Germany for every 100 Jewish marriages. In the US, the rate of intermarriage is very high in some smaller communities, though its incidence is checked in the larger towns by the more intense Jewish social life. A Jewish fellow must be able to find marriagable women in his own Jewish group, or he will look beyond it for a partner. It's pretty much the nature of man.
In most cases, accurate statistics are not available. However, it is clear that the phenomenon is on the increase. Intermarriage continues to be one of the main threats to continued Jewish existence outside of Israel and seriously endangers some European Jewish communities.
In the majority of cases studied, the children of mixed intermarriages with no conversion involved, are lost to Judaism. This is going along with the change of attitude of many young people in becoming atheists; not believing in any G-d. Attendance in churches and synagogues are dropping, possibly because of intermarriages stopping the attendance of their families so as not to cause problems within their own family.
Without a religious base, children have none. Or, if not becoming atheistic, they turn to agnostic belief. An agnostic neither believes nor disbelieves in a god or religious doctrine. Agnostics assert that it’s impossible for human beings to know anything about how the universe was created and whether or not divine beings exist.
At least in the 1930's, a Jewish man was afraid of his mother's attitude if he brought home a shiksa as his wife. The family would pronounce him "dead' to them and would have nothing to do with the twosome. That part of the culture had been keeping this event from happening too often. Conversion was the answer. If the girl converted, everything would be okay. It was not as bad if a Jewish girl married a gentile man because being Jewish was determined if the mother were Jewish, anyway.
Israel was created as a Jewish state, the only Jewish state in the world. It's something that is very badly needed to preserve the people and the religion. Their laws of marriage are more stringent, as they are determined to keep from happening of intermarriage which causes a loss of a Jewish population. As for the two groups of Jews, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, the Sephardis have been able to have less intermarriage than Ashkenazim, who were exposed to Western Europe and more intermarriage events. Thus, we see it having started in Germany quite early on.
Israel recognizes ten distinct denominations of Christianity. Marriages in each community are under the jurisdiction of their own religious authorities. The religious authority for Jewish marriages performed in Israel is the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and the Rabbinical courts. The Israeli Interior Ministry registers marriages on presentation of proper documentation. Israel's religious authorities — the only entities authorized to perform weddings in Israel are prohibited from marrying couples unless both partners share the same religion. Therefore, interfaith couples can be legally married in Israel only if one of the partners converts to the religion of the other. However, civil, interfaith, and same-sex marriages entered into abroad are recognized by the state.
Under the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, the right of a spouse of an Israeli citizen to automatic Israeli citizenship is dependent on the country or territory of the spouse; it is not automatic for West Bank residents or citizens of certain Muslim-majority countries.
Over 50 percent of Israelis marry before age 25, with marriage rates much higher among Orthodox Jews and Muslims than among secular Jews, according to statistics released on 18 June 2019 by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Actually, secular Jews or secular anything are even less likely to marry today, not
interested in producing any children in these fretful years.
However, a study was done by Pew and their abstract says: "The study examines changes in religious upbringing, identification, and behavior among children of intermarriage across three generations. Drawing on data from the 2013 Pew Research Center’s survey of Jewish Americans, we show that children of marriages between Jews and non-Jews in the Millennial generation are more likely than older counterparts to have been raised Jewish and to have received a formal Jewish education. Further, as a result of more widespread Jewish upbringing and education, they are more likely to identify as Jewish in adulthood and practice some aspects of Judaism." We attribute these developments primarily to the more welcoming and inclusive attitudes and practices toward intermarried families by Jewish organizations during the 1980s and 1990s. It's sad for the Jewish family, but the religious practice may get watered down by intermarriage. It takes stronger practices to hand it down in the first place, and the father may not be in the picture with the converted mother who possibly would have less religious background than the father.
Jewish people come from a very strong culture. There are parts of the culture still showing in Pashtuns after 2,000 years of being apart from Jews. The food and music and language, either Yiddish or Latino, are parts of the culture that last. It's every bit as strong as the Italian culture. It's something that continues on to the the children. Children reflect their culture.
In the USA, this is what has been happening. "Roughly one-in-five U.S. adults were raised with a mixed religious background, according to a new Pew Research Center study. This includes about one-in-ten who say they were raised by two people, both of whom were religiously affiliated but with different religions, such as a Protestant mother and a Catholic father, or a Jewish mother and a Protestant stepfather. An additional 12% say they were raised by one person who was religiously affiliated (e.g., with Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism or another religion) and another person who was religiously unaffiliated (atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular”)."
20% from mixed religions
10% =2 parents, Jewish and Gentile
12%=1 religious parent and the partner-unreligious.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abie%27s_Irish_Rose
https://www.dictionary.com/e/atheism-agnosticism/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Berg
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12397-017-9202-0
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