From: shimoff@umbc4.umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff)
Subject: Re: Intermarriage
Organization: Univ. of MD, Baltimore County
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 20:40:39 GMT

In article <BvtEFM.8vJ@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman
>In article <1992Oct8.015854.3744@cbnewsk.cb.att.com> alu@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (Al
>>In article <2AD1E105.6518@ics.uci.edu> mkrawitz@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (Marc Krawi

Herman Rubin writes:
>I see no such statement by Mr. Krawitz.  There are large numbers of quite
>serious Jews whose attitudes are substantially different from those of
>Mr. Lustiger.  There is no one Jewish culture; cultures need to evolve.


Nobody -- not even Orthodox Jews -- argue about whether cultures need
to evolve.  And many serious Jews would not agree with Mr. Lustiger about
everything.  The issue is interfaith marriage, not rejection of culture.
And I suggest that NO serious Jews accept interfaith marriage as a good
practice in terms of Jewish survival.


>Much of what is called the "Jewish culture" on this net is that isolationist
>phenomenon, partially forced on us by our oppressors, that we can only survive
>by essentially rejecting all external culture.  I do not have the precise
>reference, but the Tanya, I believe book 9, has the explicit statement that
>"the knowledge of the goyim is more defiling than impure speech."  Now those
>of you who recall my postings on the matter know that I consider secular
>knowledge as indispensible for religious understanding.  If our sages reached
>a conclusion by using incorrect secular knowledge, we must at least overthrow
>their reasoning.

Whoa!  Whatever else you might say about other scj posters, it is hard
to argue that they are "essentially rejecting all external culture!"
Most of us -- even those of us who are (shudder) Orthodox are reasonably
aware of external culture, and adopt _some_ features of it.  The statement
from the Tanya may or not be correct, but the Tanya is hardly one of
the Thirteen Ikkarim (for most of us).


>I am quite aware of the stetl mentality, and I have no desire to force those
>who wish to operate in that culture not to do so.  But that is no reason to
>attempt to impose that on the rest of us.  Intermarriage is not to be
>undertaken lightly, but even the Talmudic dictum that the child of a Jewish
>woman is Jewish recognizes that it must be considered.

I don;t know of a single Talmudic statement that could be interpreted as
accepting interfaith marriage.  Do you?  Matrilineal descent becomes
important in cases of rape or interfaith marriage, but the talmud sanctions
neither.  (In fact, Talmudic halakha does not recognize an interfaith
union as marriage at all.)

> Possibly conversion
>should be made slightly easier, and conversion for the sake of marriage even
>explicitly allowed, as it was effectively in much of the Jewish community
>earlier in this century.  Our religion can withstand challenge, and the
>Jewish community will not disappear even with far more common interactions
>between Jews and gentiles.

Perhaps you are right (although I don't think so).  But making
conversion easier is not the same as sanctioning interfaith marriage.
Again and again, I have indicated that NO mainstream Jewish movement
(Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, or Reconstructionist) favors intermarriage;
they differ only in terms of what do after the fact.


>I do not see a return to marriages being arranged by a shadchan, as in the
>past.  Even among the gentiles, having the man and woman arrange their own
>marriage is recent.  We need to adapt, and we can better adapt by not driving
>out all who differ from a particular view.

I'm not sure what shadchanim have to do with all of this.  But you are
right; we do need to adapt.   But being too open-minded becomes equivalent
to having holes in one's head.  We've gotta draw the line somewhere, and
most serious Jews have drawn it at intermarriage.



--
Eliot Shimoff                  |    n   n   n
   shimoff@umbc3.umbc.edu      |   X + Y = Z .  Easy to prove no solutions
Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu ...  |   for n greater than 2.  Darn.  Can't fit
Better luck next year!         |   it into this little .sig file.  Oh well.