CMJS SPOTLIGHT ON JEWISH COMMUNITIES

INTERFAITH FAMILIES
Seth J. Katzen, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Delaware, recently noted that many in his community were surprised at the number of interfaith families documented in their recent Jewish community study. The study found the proportion of Jewish adults in the community with non-Jewish spouses to be 38%. Although a large proportion of the overall population, the share of interfaith families is similar to that found in other communities. Like those communities, Delaware and the Brandywine Valley are now considering new approaches to engaging these families in Jewish life.

Fortunately, Delaware and other communities do not have to start from scratch in thinking about how to engage interfaith families. Several focused qualitative studies, based on interviews with interfaith families in Toronto, Pittsburgh, and Boston, provide a starting point for considering ways to strengthen a community’s Jewish engagement efforts with this demographic. See below for some of the key findings from each report.

  • Interfaith families want to be involved
  • Couples want their different backgrounds acknowledged
  • Lack of Jewish knowledge is a barrier that couples want to overcome
  • Access to local Jewish family encourages Jewish involvement

  • Infrastructure for interfaith outreach is missing
  • Local family and Jewish daycare/preschool serve as doorways to Jewish engagement
  • Interfaith couples want specialized and integrated opportunities
  • Interfaith couples are not averse to affiliation with Jewish institutions

  • What is relevant to couples is tied to their life stage
  • Interfaith couples are looking for community, not membership
  • Authentic welcoming is necessary
NEW DATA ABOUT INTERFAITH PARENTS FROM
LOS ANGELES STUDY

Our recent 2021 Study of Jewish LA included sufficient numbers of intermarried respondents to allow us to dive more deeply into issues related to interfaith families. We found significant differences related to decisions about Jewish life depending on whether the non-Jewish partner had no religion or the non-Jewish partner had another religion. For intermarried parents, there was a relationship between the religious identity of the non-Jewish partner and decisions about their child’s religion. Among intermarried couples in which the non-Jewish partner had no religion, 56% of their children were considered Jewish only, and 6% were considered Jewish and another religion. Among intermarried couples in which the non-Jewish partner had another religious identity, 42% of their children were considered Jewish only, and 23% were considered Jewish and another religion. The remaining children were considered a religion other than Jewish or as having no specific religious identity.

We plan further exploration of this topic through analysis of the Data Synthesis Project, the combined dataset of all of our local Jewish community studies.

TABLE: RELIGIOUS IDENTITY OF ALL CHILDREN IN LOS ANGELES INTERMARRIED JEWISH HOUSEHOLDS BY NON-JEWISH PARENT RELIGION
Religious identity LA children in interfaith households
From the Research Team

Do you have a case study to share with other communities? A question we could answer for you about using study data? An accomplishment or challenge to share? Looking for best practices? Please contact the research team at cmjs@brandeis.edu to let us know what you’d like to see in upcoming issues of this Spotlight.
 
Janet Krasner Aronson
Matthew Boxer
Matthew Brookner
Leonard Saxe