Arthur Blecher and The New American Judaism

DID YOU KNOW?...

• The American Jewish community is in imminent danger of extinction?
• Judaism, as it is practiced today, is a religious faith tradition that extends back 4,000 years?
• The shtetl of Old World Europe was an idyllic Jewish utopia of shared faith practices, community values and ethnic pride?
• The Jewish people and Judaism as a faith tradition have never entertained any supernatural notions such as angels, demons, Heaven and Hell the way that Christians and others do.
• American Jewish denominations are authoritative forms of Judaism?
• Rabbis are the official leaders of Jewish congregations, as they have been throughout Jewish history?

If you know or otherwise believe these statements, it is likely that you are an American Jew, and even more likely that you are an observant American Jew who is a member in good standing of an Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or Reconstructionist synagogue. If you know or otherwise believe these statements, it is less likely, but still possible, that you are a non-Jew who is still familiar with these statements and accept them as fact. Both of you have one thing in common: you have been on the receiving end of an intensive campaign conceived of and executed by the mainstream Jewish denominations to motivate American Jews to strictly adhere to traditional Jewish practices. Oh, and you have one other thing in common: you're both wrong to believe that any of these six statements is a truthful representation of fact.

This is the central premise of Rabbi Arthur Blecher's new book, The New American Judaism: The Way Forward on Challenging Issues from Intermarriage to Jewish Identity. His book is an revolutionary thunderbolt, issued as a direct challenge to the authority of American denominational Judaism, for it strives to expand the ways in which Jewish identity can be expressed and seeks to bestow full Jewish status upon intermarried and other apostate Jews.

As a rabbi and psychotherapist, Rabbi Blecher (aka, "The Unorthodox Rabbi") has had the opportunity to interact with and counsel many interfaith couples in Washington, DC over the past twenty-five years. Because the choice to marry a non-Jew is actively discouraged by denominational Judaism, Rabbi Blecher has also been called upon to provide counsel to Jewish parents whose children had chosen a non-Jewish spouse and for which they were experience intense emotions of conflict and guilt. He relates one such interaction with distraught parents whose rabbi had recently delivered a sermon excoriating the choice to intermarry:

"There is nothing unusual about a rabbi using guilt and fear to promote attendance at services and classes. Clerics do this sort of thing all the time, and so have I. But when a rabbi invokes the Holocaust- that is pulling out the heavy artillery. Here in my office was the same pattern I have seen in almost everything I have read in English about the Jewish religion. We were talking about Judaism in terms of continuity, authenticity and survival. As I looked at the faces and postures of this couple, as I listened to the intonations of their voices, I instinctively knew that something is amiss with how my colleagues and I go about our jobs as religious leaders. How can a community thrive based upon a discourse of anxiety and guilt and on members who feel defeated and hopeless?"

This insight sparked Rabbi Blecher's journey to re-examine what he himself had once considered to be true about American Judaism and to re-evaluate these beliefs in light of the fact that the American Jewish population is far more diverse than the mainstream denominations are willing to allow or even acknowledge. Blecher sees an American Jewish community that has organized itself around principles that applied to the trauma of displacement experienced by Jewish immigrant communities of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but which no longer have any utility for modern American Jews. The organizing principles of Authenticity, Continuity and Survival became the cornerstones of American Judaism, and have remained firmly entrenched within the community's organizational bedrock, unchallenged by anyone in a position of leadership.

Until now. Rabbi Blecher's empathy for intermarried Jews and the anguish they experience has spurred him to examine and directly challenge what he labels as the one Great Myth of American Judaism: "intermarriage is an enemy destroying the Jewish people." The Great Myth of the Evil of Intermarriage has grown out of six separate myths, which he meticulously deconstructs. A cursory synopsis of this deconstruction is provided below:

Myth #1: American Judaism is Teetering On Extinction
"The myth that Judaism and Jewish identity are endangered in America was born from the trauma of cultural dislocation a century ago. The myth lives on in part because Jewish institutions believe they are essential to the preservation of Judaism in America; and the greater the peril, the more important their role."

In this one sentence, Blecher takes direct aim at scare-mongering as a self-serving tactic used on a daily basis by denominational Judaism. It is a tactic that does not hold up under close scrutiny. Using select statistics, as represented by the National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS), denominational leaders can certainly give the impression that Jewish numbers are declining in America. The 2000-2001 NJPS Report put the American Jewish population at 5.2 million, a decline from its 1990 finding of 5.5 million.

Myth-Buster: Rabbi Blecher counters that the NJPS under-counts Jewish Americans by relying exclusively upon denominational affiliation and a rigid definition of who "counts" as Jewish. As Blecher states, "Jewishness is happening in new places that do not fit the old categories." These include partial Jews raised in interfaith households, people who still claim a Jewish identity even if the American Jewish denominations will not claim them. It also includes virtual online Jewish communities and information centers such as:

• Ladino Komunita

• The Jewish Encyclopedia

• A Torah Infertility Medium of Exchange (ATIME.org)

Myth #2: Judaism is a 4,000 Year-Old Religion
American Rabbis worked to reassure immigrant Jews that the forms and practices of American Judaism are grounded in those stretching back to the dawn of Jewish civilization. Such reassurances enabled and enables the American rabbinate to offer a liturgical product that provides both Continuity and Authenticity, the cornerstones of the Jewish fortress of Survival.

Myth-Buster: Not quite, says Rabbi Blecher. Throughout its history, Judaism and its practice has gone through important transformations from within, oftentimes in response to influences from outside the Jewish community. For starters, he is able to delineate the epochal events that would transform the Judaism that followed each of these:

• The first Kingdom until the Babylonian conquest of Judea in 586 BCE: practices such as shabbat dinner and lighting candles came into existence during the exile period.
• The return from exile and the second kingdom through the year 70 of the Common Era.
• The era of rabbinic academies (rabbinic Judaism), which lasted until the Middle Ages.
• Diaspora Judaism, which was centered primarily in Eastern Europe, and which lasted until the era of Denominational Judaism, which commenced in the twentieth century United States.
  

Jewish civilization has seen many different iterations of itself throughout its 4,000 year history. The Judaism that is practiced today is not the Judaism of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Hebrew Prophets. And that's OK.

Myth #3: The Shtetl = Jewish Paradise Lost
Twentieth century America Jewish leaders have mythologized the Old World village known affectionately as the shtetl. At least it is known affectionately by those who have never had to live in a shtetl. The word shtetl is innocuous enough: it means "town" in Yiddish. As a word, though, it carries a great deal of symbolic and nostalgic weight among Jews who idealize what it represents. In the popular literature on the subject, the shtetl is held up as an idyllic, timeless community of Jews who live in perfect harmony, each knowing his or her role in the community, all bonded by their adherence to Orthodox Jewish rituals and practices. Blecher quotes from The Earth is the Lord's: The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe, written in 1949 by theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel:

But the Jews all sang: the student over the Talmud, the tailor while sewing a pair of trousers, the cobbler while mending tattered shoes, and the preacher while delivering a sermon... The stomachs were empty, the houses were barren, but the minds were crammed with the riches of Torah... Mothers at the cradle crooned: "My little child, close your eyes; if God will, you'll be a rabbi"... (p. 77).

Tevye sings "Tradition" (Fiddler on the Roof)


Myth-Buster: "Writers who idealize the shtetl are highly selective in what they talk about. Their descriptions of the devout husbands and their devoted, long-suffering wives are amplified by intense nostalgia, in contrast to their silence about the other Jews who lived in the shtetl (p. 83)." These "other Jews" included adults who did not marry, married adults without children or who had divorced, homosexual members of the community, and others who lives did not conform with the rigid expectations of Orthodoxy in an enclosed community (which, by the way, was not always so enclosed or even small). The propagation of this myth causes American Jews to idealize and pine for a community that did not actually exist. This in turn gives rise to the unreasonable expectation that such a community could and should exist here in the United States.

Myth #4: Jews Have Always Been a Reasonable, Rational People, Traits That Have Always Been Reflected in Judaism
Modern Judaism does not teach the belief in Heaven or Hell, or in supernatural beings such as angels and demons, or even a Devil. However, modern Jews are led to believe that it was ever thus, as this notion of historic Judaism was in keeping with the rationalist bent of the founders of denominational Judaism. In order for rationality and reason to be accepted as contributing to Continuity and Authenticity, it became necessary to whitewash certain supernatural elements from Jewish history.

Myth-Buster: The need to "protect" American Jews from the fact that their forebears held supernatural beliefs does not exist now, if it ever did. Rabbi Blecher proposes a four-step plan to shed this habit and set the record straight by simply explaining that:

• Jews used to believe in Heaven and Hell, but they no longer do.
• Jews used to believe in Satan, but they no longer do.
• Jews used to believe in magic and divination, but they no longer do.
• American Judaism prefers to understand the world rationally and scientifically. (p. 117)
  

Myth #5: American Jewish Denominations are Authoritative Forms of Judaism
The four American Jewish denominations- Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist- are the authoritative versions of Jewish practice. Smaller, independent communities and fellowships such as minyans, havurot, the Society for Humanistic Judaism and others are merely offshoots of the main four branches.

Myth-Buster: While it is in the best interests of the four principal denominations to be seen and thought of as Judaism's authoritative forms, the fact is that all four of these do not meet the needs of partial/duel-identity Jews and intermarried Jews. For starters, none of the denominations will acknowledge the Jewish identity of any such congregant (and will simultaneously decry the "shrinking" Jewish population). Congregants who are partial/duel-identity Jews and those who are married to a non-Jewish spouse are provided with limited services and status at best. The "purity" model of denominational Judaism does not work in a world where more and more Jews are marrying non-Jews and/or pursuing an interest in other faith traditions in addition to his or her original Jewish heritage. It is not realistic. And those who need Judaic forms that are realistic are looking elsewhere.

Myth #6: Rabbis are the Official Leaders of Jewish Congregations
"Today every Jewish denomination assumes that each of its member congregations is led by one of the denomination's rabbis, and conversely, Americans assume that every rabbi has a congregation. Thus denominational congregations are 'rabbi-centric.'" (p. 149)

Myth-Buster: "This is a radical departure from Old World Jewish practice where the rabbi was not necessarily associated with a congregation, and not every synagogue had a rabbi. The functions of the synagogue and the duties of the rabbi were independent of each other; communities had their rabbis, and communities had their synagogues." (p. 149)

Again, each denominational organization controls their member synagogues to the extent that each rabbi who is considered for a position must be capable of demonstrating fealty to all of the teachings of the denomination- he or she is not an independent actor, as had been the case for rabbis during the centuries leading up to denominational Judaism. This, Blecher contends, is harmful to Jewish congregants, and thus harmful to Judaism itself:

"The harm is that when rabbis- whether by intention or by instinct- make inaccurate claims about the historical facts of Jewish civilization, we undermine our own position in the community. Our ability to serve new generations of American Jews requires us to give up our claims to ancient authority and to accept the fact that our professional role is a modern American creation." (pp. 160-161)

Having exhaustively researched and deconstructed these myths, Blecher's work sets its sights upon building a new American Judaism. Intermarriage is the one important issue at the heart of this goal, as Blecher sees Judaism's response to this phenomenon as critical to the success of any such endeavor. Currently, in order for an intermarried couple to be recognized by their denomination, the non-Jewish partner must at least agree to help raise the couple's children in an exclusively Jewish home, if not convert to Judaism outright. But Blecher cites data that show that at least 30 percent of intermarried couples do in fact raise their children exclusively as Jews, sometimes regardless of whether the non-Jewish spouse convert to Judaism or not.

However, his larger point is that it is completely good and valid to acknowledge the Jewish identity of any Jewish child being raised under different circumstances, in homes that are not exclusively Jewish. American Jewish denominations are completely closing the door on couples and their children for choices that are made today, thus forever forfeiting the benefits they might have accrued from decisions made later in life- for a duel-identity Jew to fully identify as Jewish, for a non-Jewish spouse to convert. The current denominational modus operandi denigrates the choices made by people with mixed-Jewish ancestry. To the extent that they choose to identify as Jewish, Blecher contends that the denominations should encourage this decision rather than cast someone out of the community for being less than 100 percent Jewish.

I have written on the topic of interfaith and duel identity issues here, here and here. In one of the posts I wrote, "It is no irreverence or betrayal to participate fully in the rituals and sacraments of faith traditions different than one's own. Quite to the contrary, Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh sees this as a means to deepening and strengthening one's own spirituality. Exploring the truths taught by many faiths and partaking of the rituals and teachings of other faith traditions s a way of honoring the best values of one's own faith tradition." As such, I truly value Rabbi Blecher's message of expanding the meaning of identity and appreciate the courage it took for him to publish a book that directly challenges the foundational assumptions of the majority of his Jewish contemporaries. The New American Judaism is a rich resource for both the Jewish and the interfaith community, and reverberates with a message of hope and optimism for interfaith couples and other non-traditional Jews.

His work will likely be received with hostility and suspicion by American Jews who remain deeply invested in the perpetuation of the myths he outlines in his book. For those with an open mind, though, The New American Judaism could and should be viewed as a work of creative destruction, an opportunity for American Jews to re-examine those beliefs they hold to be near and true as a means to enriching and strengthening Jewish civilization, to expanding the meaning of identity and community:

"Disassembling myths removes their power to generate apprehension and despair. At the same time, myths endow life with meaning. I believe that recognizing myths for what they are does not diminish their power to capture the imagination or enliven the soul; rather, it provides a way forward. I have written this book with the firm conviction that clearing away myths will reveal a new American Jewish religion whose vitality and diversity far exceed the ability of any institution to contain or any rabbi to define. I offer these pages in the hope they will serve as the beginning of a conversation." So, let's talk. Shalom.

- Doug L.

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:

Question What You Know about Judaism


The New American Judaism (Amazon.com)

Intermarry and be merry, by Rabbi Arthur Blecher (The Baltimore Sun, December 12, 2007)

"Noah More!" by Ed Case (InterfaithFamily.com, August 9, 2007)

A Positive Response to Intermarriage (Rabbi Mark Goldsmith, Liberal Judaism.org, October 2004)

Jewcy.com

The Half-Jewish Network

Am I a Person or Am I a Jew? (Jewish Atheist blog, July 30, 2007)

Jew vs. Jew (SamuelFreedman.com)

"The Social Disability of the Jew," by Edwin J. Kuh (The Atlantic Monthly, April 1908, TheAtlantic.com)

I-Heart-Shiksas t-shirt (BustedTees.com)

Free To Be You and Me (and Us)

Interfaith people- couples, families- we're special. Sure, we don't like to crow about it, but let's face it- we made some unique and bold choices to be in the relationships we're in. We like breaking new ground. For the most part we come from families who were expecting to pass on familiar traditions, religious and cultural, for us to in turn pass on to our own children. Instead, we have broken the link in the chain of traditional purity, eschewing orthodoxy in order to pursue something else that spoke to us. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I think it's safe to generally say that for those of us in interfaith relationships we saw, and see, value in relationships that transcend theology and dogma. I am personally very happy to see Christians and Jews dating and marrying in greater numbers. I think that there is real power in current generations of young people refusing to perpetuate ancient animosities and hurts, refusing to see either religion as flawed or "less than", refusing to let differences in religious heritage and upbringing to stand in the way of a loving human relationship.

However... the tug of tradition and familial ties is strong. We may be perfectly happy in our interfaith relationship, and still feel the pang of longing for something more familiar and comforting. At the same time we are confronted with the question of identity: Who are you? If I am no longer intending to raise my children in the Catholic tradition, what exactly is my plan? Who or what am I? If I don't want them to be exclusively Jewish either, what alternative do I propose? Who will they be? I could ask the rabbi at the neighborhood synagogue to split the difference- throw in some Gospel readings every so often, but don't worry about serving communion. Or maybe the neighborhood parish priest wouldn't mind reciting the Sh'ma at the beginning of Mass and adding a Torah reading to the service. Right. I'm sure I'd get real far with either of these.

Nor should I. I mean, I made the choice to pursue a non-traditional life path as far as faith and religion are concerned. There's nothing about my right to make that choice that obligates traditional faith communities to rearrange themselves to accommodate what I am looking for. That's on me. That's on us.

The Good News (technically not the Gospel variety, but obviously related) is that we are not alone, neither in our choice to marry outside of our respective faiths, nor in our pursuit of worship space and worship experience that does combine various aspects of our traditions. A wonderful example of this pluralistic approach in action is The New Seminary in New York City. The seminary's motto is, "Never instead of, always in addition to." The basic approach of the seminary appears to be one of teaching respect and reverence for all religions as legitimate paths to God. Seminarians are not asked to convert to a faith that is not their own, or to otherwise leave the faith they were raised in in order to enroll. The seminary is not about creating a pan-religion amalgam that homogenizes all religions into one mega-faith. Instead, the New Seminary simply refuses to demand that seminarians make the false choice between this or that faith, or to otherwise see more value in one faith and less value or "truth" in all others. The seminary states that "We believe that it is not the form of religious practice that is important, but the spiritual intent that underlies it. We recognize that God is in all things and in ALL people." And as I wrote in an earlier post, "it is no irreverence or betrayal to participate fully in the rituals and sacraments of faith traditions different than one's own."

The work of the New Seminary should be celebrated and applauded by those of us in interfaith relationships. The most threatening aspect of our relationships, to religious institutions, to family members, and even to ourselves sometimes, is the fear that nothing of our faith traditions and heritage will be passed on to our children because we're too busy dancing around the notion that you can only be Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or whatever other faith, but you cannot be both. For what it's worth, I'm with the New Seminary on this one- yes, you can.

Free to Be You and Me (Title Track)

Bottom Line: Who are we? I believe that as interfaith couples we are called to be trail blazers and examples to the wider community. We are called to move beyond the fear-driven false choice of either/or. Self-segregating ourselves within our traditional faith communities has obviously not resulted in a more harmonious worldwide human community. To demonstrate that we have the courage of our convictions we need to see the value in truly interfaith worship, in forging new paths towards being "both" in our respective households.

Yes, our respective faith traditions are beautiful and have their own unique character and history. However, this only has real value as far as our families and communities are concerned when we demonstrate how our unique faith and cultural heritages can also make room in our homes for our spouses traditions as well. We celebrate our spouses' traditions not instead of our own, but in addition to these. In doing so we serve as role models of peace, humility and respect for our children and for society in general. We keep what is good and beautiful about our traditions leaving behind the tendency to use these as an excuse to keep ourselves separate from others who are different. "Never instead of, always in addition to." Shalom.

-Doug L.

The Who: Who Are You?


FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:

On Interfaith, by Rabbi Roger Moss (NewSeminary.org)

Bad Girl's Guide: Inter-Faith Relationships (Vixentales.blogspot.com, September 13, 2007)

Am I a Person or a Jew? (Jewish Atheist blog, July 30, 2007)

Questions and Answers About Raising a Child in a Multi-Religious Family, by Racheline Maltese (Associated Content.com, June 6, 2006)

Debating The Year of Living Biblically (Slate.com)

Interfaith Observations, Pt. 1 (Way Is Vast blog, October 10, 2007)

"Faith space opens: Old Union facility promotes interfaith worship." (The Stanford Daily, October 9, 2007)

How Does God Speak in Interfaith America? (Mainstream Baptist blog, October 8, 2007)

God Big Enough to Embrace All, by Bishop John Shelby Spong (Washington Post On Faith, April 13, 2007)

The Center for Progressive Christianity

Tikkun Magazine

Network of Spiritual Progressives

Intermarriage: Charting New Directions

"You can't be both!" The rabbi from the neighborhood shul sternly upbraided me after I had finished describing how my wife and I will one day raise our children in both the Jewish and Christian faith traditions. I felt the blood rise to my cheeks and the back of my neck became very hot. I never like being told what I can or can't do, especially when it has to do with something as personal as how my wife and I choose to raise our children. I was further upset because the premise for the gathering at the shul was held under the pretense of "interfaith dialogue". Instead, the evening was about the rabbi's desire to affirm non-Jewish matrimonial partners who had agreed with their Jewish spouses to raise their children in an exclusively Jewish household. Not my idea of interfaith.

In a way, though, it was hard to stay angry with him. After all, his job is to grow and sustain the Jewish community that worships at his shul. Encouraging his congregants to go out and baptize their children in the name of Jesus Christ is not the traditional way for rabbis to accomplish this. And his opinion is scarcely isolated within the world of religious Judaism. In many, if not most cases, the reaction to the growing intermarriage phenomenon by Jewish scholars, religious leaders and lay people is highly critical and denunciatory. My encounter with the neighborhood rabbi and the following comments posted by a rabbi on BeliefNet.com provide a good example of the types of fierce resistance that Jewish men and women encounter in response to the notion of marrying a non-Jew:

"I often ask Jewish men to think of the many Jewish women who need Jewish husbands. With so few Jewish men available to Jewish women anyway—Jewish men marry outside the faith at twice the rate of Jewish women—every time a Jewish man dates or marries a non-Jewish woman, it leaves another Jewish woman who will never find a Jewish husband.

"So you may ask, to paraphrase the Beatles, 'all those lonely (Jewish) people, where do they all come?' Well, a lot of them come from the paucity of Jewish spouses left because of high incidents of intermarriage."

It is a rare thing in life to hear an ordained member of the clergy invoke the Beatles as a means to laying down a serious guilt trip, so savor the memory of this moment. At any rate, this rabbi takes the kugel for chutzpah in my book. Nowhere in his column do his comments reflect any consideration for what it is the young man wants for himself. Marriage is seen mainly, primarily as a vessel through which the continuation of the Jewish people is ensured. The love between two human beings appears to be of secondary consideration.

Now, the purpose of this column is not to pick on Jewish rabbis, and the Catholic faith that I come from can be every bit as unbending in its insistence on orthodoxy of belief and practice. This includes choosing a marriage partner who at the very least will not impede one's ability to raise children in the Catholic faith. (Again, that theme: marriage as the primary vehicle for expanding and perpetuating an institution. Where's the love?). Now, on the one hand, I do have to say that the diocese where I live was very accommodating when I requested a dispensation to be married to a non-Catholic. I tip my hat to the priests who worked with me and my wife to secure Church permission to conduct a non-traditional marriage ceremony with the assistance of a Catholic priest. On the other hand, there are loads of über-Catholic Catholics who shudder to think that (a) there are people in the world who are not Catholic, and (b) worse yet, there are Catholics in the world who would (shudder) choose to marry a non-Catholic. You can read a sample of what I'm talking about by clicking here.

OK- then there is the subject of something that is referred to as the "Silent Holocaust". This term is used in reference to a handful of social and political topics, but the usage I'm referring to is when devout Jews ascribe this term to the high incidence of interfaith marriage. The contention is that Jews who would and should otherwise be marrying other Jews are thinning the overall worldwide Jewish population by marrying non-Jews. Thus, the contention is made that what Hitler and his evil legion of murderers and rapists could not achieve through violent acts of killing, interfaith couples are achieving quietly one wedding at a time.

I think I'll need to devote an entire other blog post to this particularly odious topic, as I've already said a great deal and this phrase stirs up very strong feelings inside of me. For now, suffice it to say that I am beyond offended that anyone would stoop so low as to even casually associate me and anyone else in an interfaith marriage to the vile and nefarious participants in Hitler's campaign of brutality and death. This association is beneath contempt. It maliciously slanders each person of good faith and character who is in an interfaith marriage, while at the same time carelessly cheapening the memory of those who perished under such mournful circumstances.

OK. 'Nuff said about that for now. As for decisions that are inevitably forced upon the members of any given interfaith marriage, I see the issue as breaking along the lines of the false choice of all or none. Judaism, Catholicism, and other organized religions teach that you're either "X" or you're not. In response to this I posit that our children will learn that they are Jewish and Irish, Greek and Czech. They will learn about the cultural and historical aspects of all of the heritage that they will inherit. They can be believers in Jesus Christ without following the path prescribed by the Catholic Church or any other, if that is what they choose. They'll learn that it is possible to be X, Y and Z. In an earlier post I quoted Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hahn on this very topict: "In Christianity, you have to believe in the resurrection or you are not considered a Christian. I am afraid this criterion may discourage some people from looking into the life of Jesus. This is a pity, because we can appreciate Jesus Christ as both an historical door and an ultimate door." Indeed.

There is more than one way to be, people. The birth of new ways obviously will challenge the old ways. But the challenge is one that encourages growth and understanding, not destruction. Interfaith marriage is not, should not be about squelching one's faith or cultural heritage. Interfaith marriage should stand as an example of inclusiveness and provide a window that offers a glimpse at new directions that faith institutions could be taking. I'll close with a quote from Fr. Walter H. Cuenin, a Catholic priest who penned a guest column on interfaith marriage for the Jewish family Web site InterfaithFamily.com (see the link below). I've never met the good father, but I couldn't agree more with what he has to say:

"It also seems to me that we need to appreciate the good that can come from interfaith marriages. In a strange sort of way these marriages do remind us that God's call for the human family transcends all religious boundaries. There is no religion that has the only path to God. While we find great benefit in our own faith traditions and want to see them passed on to future generations, no one tradition has an exclusive hold on God's attention. When people of radically different yet connected traditions marry, perhaps they are imaging a new way of viewing life. It may seem disconcerting, but could it not also be a call to greater religious harmony?"

- Doug L.

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:

A Catholic Priest's Perspective on Interfaith Marriage, by Rev. Walter H. Cuenin (InterfaithFamily.com)

Jewish Mother, Catholic Girlfriend, by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (BeliefNet.com)

"Jews to Intermarriage as Babies to Bathwater," by Tamar Fox (Jewcy.com, August 6, 2007)

Catholic Discussion Board (Greenspun.com)

"Chaplaincy Holds Panel on Interfaith Marriage." The Brandeis Hoot, February 9, 2007.

AmericanCatholic.org

J-Date.com

CatholicMatch.com

Intermarriage (Ohr.edu, September 17, 2005)

Silent Holocaust (Wikipedia.com)

The Interfaith Union

"On Assimilation and Intermarriage...Again." (NewZionist.com, July 7, 2005)

Honor Killing: No Such Thing

There is nothing particularly brave about taking a stand in opposition to murder. It takes about as much courage as it might for any member of Congress to publicly state his or her support of puppies and kittens. Nonetheless, this is the most difficult subject I've taken time to write about to date, and words escape me in my attempt to address this subject in any meaningful way. The monstrous nature of "honor" killings is such that I truly wonder if there is anything intelligent anyone can say in response, other than that this ritual is so inhuman and unspeakably cruel as to be obviously far outside the realm of minimally passable human behavior. You can ask "why", as in why would anyone do such a thing, and yet only an eternal optimist would expect an answer that makes any sense or otherwise puts this form of murder into some type of appropriate context.

A very cursory Internet search using the term "honor killing" immediately and unfortunately yields a wealth of information about this sinful phenomenon. Its origins are primarily found in Islamic cultures of the Middle East. It is a tradition that has tragically migrated to the countries of Western Europe, and even to the United States.

I am not a Koran scholar of any sort, and won't attempt to delve into how the tradition of honor killing emerged from various interpretations of Sharia law. You can find further information about Sharia on the Council of Foreign Relations Web site, which includes specific information about those sins that the Koran specifically singles out for punishment.

The comment I would like to make is that, as a blog devoted to fostering interfaith dialogue and unity, it strikes me that "honor" killing is an extreme form of the type of violence that occurs when people of different faith traditions and beliefs cling too tightly to said traditions and beliefs. Name any faith tradition or religion under the sun, and each one is populated with a wealth of adherents who take a hard line on their particular beliefs and forms of worship. It's this exclusive mindset that leads the Catholic Church to declare that it, and only it, is the one and true right way to know and worship God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), the one and only path to eternal salvation. It is this mindset that sets off Hindu riots against Muslims in India. It is this mindset that fuels the violence between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. It is this mindset that pits the better part of the Arab world against the State of Israel and all of its supporters.

What are we doing? What is any of us doing when we have convinced ourselves that it is God who requires and sanctions any form of violence between and against other human beings? How convinced can any religion be that it holds the ultimate and complete truth about who God is and what God wants when this exceptionalist stance results in any form of violence and hatred perpetrated against people of different beliefs? How does any religion materially improve the lives of all of God's children if it is only intended to sanctify those who profess its specific beliefs? After thousands of years of bloodshed and violence committed in God's name, might it not be time for each of us to step back and examine those beliefs and traditions that facilitate peace and justice vs. those that perpetuate separation and violence?

Thankfully, religious differences do not always lead to violence and separation. In fact, harmony between different faiths and the resulting blossoming of love can occur in the midst of violent bloodshed and deprivation. Case in point: Sarajevo: if you can make it there you can make it anywhere! Actually, this might only be true in more recent times. In the period before the war, inter-ethnic and interfaith relationships were common and mainly not remarked upon. Would that it was so around the world in every culture and society.

To couples of different faith backgrounds who struggle to maintain loving relationships in the face of pressure, even violence, from family, friends, and faith, I say, God bless you. To the victims of violence, to those murdered (mostly women) for daring to love someone of a different religion than your family's, my prayer for you is that you would know peace with God despite having been murdered by those proclaiming to believe in God. Shalom.

- Doug L.

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:

International Campaign Against Honor Killings

"Thousands of Women Killed for Family 'Honor.'" National Geographic News, February 12, 2002.

Reclaiming Honor in Jordan, by Ellen R. Sheeley (Amazon.com)

"The Death of a Muslim Woman: 'The Whore Lived Like a German.'" Der Spiegel, March 2, 2005.

"The girl who was stoned to death for falling in love." Daily Mail (London), May 17, 2007.

"Father in honor killing found guilty of murder."
MSNBC.com, June 11, 2007.

"God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule." The Onion, September 26, 2001.