In his book Making a Successful Jewish Interfaith Marriage, Rabbi Kerry Olitzky comments on the extent of intermarriage in the Jewish community:

In the past 10 years, over half of the marriages involving Jews have been to partners not born Jewish. At least one third of the three million Jewish families who identify as such in the United States have a head-of-household (this includes men and women) who was not born Jewish. About one third of the families who are members of Reform congregations are interfaith families. And over 50 percent of the children born into Jewish families in the last decade have one set of grandparents who is not Jewish. There is no reason to believe that these percentages are going to become smaller in the years ahead (p. 1).

Hundreds of thousands of intermarried couples today are doing their best to figure out how to honor two religious heritages in a single home. Of the possible ways to do this, I would like to suggest that Messianic Judaism is the best-kept secret in the world of intermarriage. It is an approach that honors the faith traditions of both spouses, conveys Jewish identity to the next generation and makes it possible for intermarrieds and their children to worship together as a family. What is Messianic Judaism and how is it different from the popular “Interfaith” option?

In the Interfaith approach to intermarriage, children are raised as Jews and Christians. The couple seeks to maintain a household that has both a Jewish and Christian expression. The child’s identity is best described as “Jewish/Christian” with emphasis on the slash (“/”). This approach is generally not an attempt at reconciling the faiths but aspires to convey to the children two separate and distinct religious traditions.

By contrast, Messianic Judaism conveys a single religious identity to the children of intermarriage. Essentially, it is the removal of the slash between “Jewish” and “Christian.” It is the recognition that Jesus and his first followers were all Jews, that in the first century the slash did not exist between the two faiths and that it does not need to exist today. There are presently over 500 Messianic synagogues in the United States and around the world. Messianic Judaism challenges the notion that Judaism and Christianity are mutually exclusive religions and contends that it is possible to naturally reconcile these two faiths at their core and in a way that is respectful to both Jewish and Christian tradition. Therefore, it is possible today to raise Jewish children who believe in Jesus and live as practicing Jews.

A couple approached me to discuss how they were both feeling what they had never wanted to feel. Before Brian, who is a Gentile, and Sara, who is Jewish, got married, they promised to themselves and each other that their different religious backgrounds wouldn't get in the way. They loved each other so much more than that. They wouldn't be like the other couples they had met. They weren't going to have those sorts of problems.

Now they were feeling deep conflict and confusion.  They were partly surprised, but mostly scared. The first two years seemed to work out so well. They thought they had overcome any conflict and confusion, and were now on a smooth path.  They thought the only people who had problems about their marriage were their respective parents.  Now they were being forced to face how they had failed to be either aware or truthful regarding how their religious differences were impacting their life together. 

Brian told me that he felt like his home with Sara had become something other, that basically Sara was too Jewish. It seemed as if Sara had changed, while the luster and newness of their first few years together had worn thin. What seemed okay before was starting to rub him the wrong way. Neither had ever seen the disparity between them as clearly as they did now.

Sara never thought much about Jewish ritual and artifacts while she was in college and dating Brian. After all, her roommates in college were non-Jews, and having a lot of Jewish stuff around was not appropriate to their roommate relatonship. But now that she had a home of her own, things were different.  The mezuzah on the door didn't bother Brian too much. After all,  it was pretty and really not too noticeable. But what was getting to him was the candle sticks and other Jewish "decorations" she insisted on displaying on their shelves. things he had never seen before. They were valuables from her grandparents' homes, and she felt they had a rightful place in the home she was building with Brian.  

But Brian had grandparents too!  He was surprised how angry he felt that what remained of his grandfathers mounted coin collections was still in boxes in their garage. The collection was important to him, a reminder of a beloved family member and the relationship they shared.  He remembered collecting the coins, mounting them in their ornate cases,  and the adventures he and his Grandpa shared going to coin stores and shows. He had felt just as special about these as Sara had about her "big candlestick holders" from her Bubbe. He felt a slowly mounting rage,  over how their entertainment center at home only showed her memorial objects while his treasures remained boxed up in the garage.

It certainly didn't help when Sara remarked that they were only coins, but that hers were religious antiques, some even surviving from the Holocaust. She argued that he was clueless in putting the two in the same category.

Sara also didn't realize that what was important to her when they were just dating changed since when she got married as they started talking about having children. Their common interests from college about community and social justice were replaced for Sara by worries over the loss of her Jewish culture and heritage. Somehow, being intermarried, and looking forward to having children, she started to feel more of a connection with "her people," more preoccupied with the threat of anti-Semitism,  and aware of the political climate in the Mideast. Somehow, being married to a Gentile strengthened her determination to hold on to her Jewish identity.  It was then that her grandmother's voice echoed in her ears, "We cannot assimilate.  Promise me you will marry a Jew and have Jewish children."

Now both Sara and Brian were with a growing sense of disappointment and resentment that both had sworn would never come between them.  In therapy, they confessed that these feelings made them afraid for their marriage, and disappointed that they were no different from other couples they had known. They had imagined that their love was stronger than all these issues. But they were wrong.

Do you identify with this? Has it happened to you yet? How have you dealt with it? This typical scenario reminds all of us that we must face rather than ignore painful realities.  Ignoring, denying, or stuffing the truth doesn't make it go away. It only surfaces later with its own leftover issues that still need to be dealt with, that have now collected more dust while losing no power to disrupt and dismay us.