DENNIS PRAGER
DENNIS PRAGER Prager's Thirteen Principles of Intermarriage With intermarriage rates running at about 50 percent, intermarriage has become the most discussed topic in American Jewish life. After...
...The problem with that solution is that it places preventing intermarriage on a higher plane than affecting the world...
...The danger is that the Jewish people will become so small and isolated that we will become irrelevant...
...If Judaism isn't important, no arguments against intermarriage are effective...
...Ideally, nonjews convert to Judaism because they are overwhelmed by its truth and beauty...
...Loving a Jew is a beautiful way to come to love Judaism—provided, of course, that the born-Jew helps cultivate this love...
...The danger posed by intermarriage is not that the Jewish people will die out...
...If Judaism is important, no arguments against intermarriage are necessary...
...Jewish life, from Orthodox to secular, rarely does this...
...5. Intermarriage is a risk we take by living among decent and tolerant non-Jews...
...The Orthodox rely on faith, and most others rely on ethnicity or emotions...
...And it is relatively easy to do so...
...He did not want to convert, but he was not active in any other religion, and he wanted her to continue her Jewish commitment...
...The issue is whether or not Judaism is important to the Jew...
...Outside of Israel there is only one way to ensure that your child will marry ajew—lead a fully Orthodox life in an Orthodox ghetto...
...Only Judaism— i.e., only a religious commitment—will keep Jews Jewish...
...I am thinking, in particular, of single Jewish women over childbearing age...
...2. Organized Jewish life has for too long depended upon ethnic identity to keep Jews Jewish...
...7. Jews who intermarry and think that their children will be Jewish are usually fooling themselves...
...Better, therefore, that some of our children intermarry, while the majority lives Jewish lives in the world, than keep every Jew Jewish by hiding from nonjews...
...10...
...Many Jews correctly perceive their parents' objections to intermarriage as racist...
...After a recent lecture in Texas, I was approached by a 55-year-old Jewish woman who told me her story...
...A non-Jew adopting Judaism out of love for a Jew is little different from an irreligious Jew adopting Judaism out of love for a committed Jew—and that happens all the time...
...If your child wants to marry a non-Jew, find out if the non-Jew would consider converting to Judaism...
...Jews should therefore not dismiss conversions that were motivated by a person's love for a Jew...
...Finally, she found a non-Jewish man whom she loved and who loved her...
...9. In our desire to combat intermarriage, we should not overlook Jews' humanity and pain...
...We will never die out...
...8. Conversion prompted by love for a Jew is fine...
...What did I have to say to her...
...And nothing is more valuable...
...When Jewish parents who have never been concerned with preserving distinctive Jewish values become obsessed with preserving Jewish blood, it is racism...
...3. To keep Jews Jewish, modern Jews must be given rationally convincing reasons to be Jews...
...Intermarriage cannot be stopped, only prevented...
...6. Intermarriage is the marriage of a Jew to a non-Jew, not a Jew to a new Jew...
...Only objections to intermarriage based on Judaism as a distinctive religious/moral value system are not racist...
...Judaism desires and loves converts, and the Jewish people needs more members...
...But influencing the world—"repairing the world under God's kingdom"—is the raison d'etre of the Jewish people...
...However, since few Jews communicate the truth and beauty of Judaism to nonjews, few non-Jews are given an opportunity to experience Judaism...
...make Jewish homes and build Jewish schools...
...1. The issue is not intermarriage...
...Love is more powerful than ethnicity (but it is not more powerful than religious commitment...
...Jews who intermarry and think that they can give their children no religion or two religions are cheating their children of an authentic religious experience...
...If it doesn't, there will be very few Jews to help Israel in the next generation...
...After 20 years of dealing with the topic and working to bring Jews to Judaism, I have developed Prager's Thirteen Principles of Intermarriage...
...With the exception of specialized Jewish groups such as defense agencies, all of Jewish life must make outreach to Jews its primary activity— even taking precedence over funding for Israel...
...That "God doesn't want you 'to be alone for the rest of your life...
...Dennis Prager unites and publishes Ultimate Issues, his quarterly thoughts about life and Judaism, and is a nightly talk show host on KABC Radio in Los Angeles...
...It is therefore racism to equate Judaism with liberalism, tolerance or some other value, and then object to a child marrying a non-Jew who holds that value...
...And if we become irrelevant, our survival won't matter...
...We are Jewish, not Amish...
...4. With rare exceptions, once a Jew is romantically involved with a non-Jew, it is too late to convince him or her not to intermarry...
...She was a widow for 20 years, and in her quest not to be alone for the rest of her life, she "dated every eligible Jewish man in the city...
Vol. 18 • February 1993 • No. 1
