Rosa Doherty: In defence of mixed marriage

The data does not agree, but I think that mixed marriages make Jewish identity stronger

IREAD JONATHAN Boyd’s column last week about marrying out with interest. He argued that it has become unacceptable in some circles to discuss the evidence, which suggests that marrying out is a one-way ticket on the train to lost Jewish identity. According to the latest national survey of American Jews, conducted by the Pew Research Center in Washington DC, “whereas 93 per cent of in-married Jews bring up their children as Jews, only 28 per cent of out-married Jews do likewise”.

I am not one to argue with the data. But as a second generation ‘inter-marryer’, and someone who feels strongly that marrying out needn’t mean a death of Jewish identity, I do see the dilemma.

I was brought up Jewish despite my parents being from mixed backgrounds. I consider myself to have a strong Jewish identity. But before I wrote this column, I called a rabbi just to double check.

Do you think I have a meaningful connection to my Jewish identity, I asked frankly? “Obviously your circumstances are unusual,” the rabbi said, “but yes, I think you do. But your situation is quite rare.”

Phew, I’d passed. I hung up before they could change their mind – and then started to think about it some more.

I called back. The rabbi argued it was unusual for someone like me, the daughter of Jewish woman who had married out to a very lapsed Irish Catholic, and who then went on to marry out herself, to have retained a strong connection to her Jewishness.

I’m aware in many senses that I’m not from the typical Jewish family… and am not expecting anyone traditional to recognise my Jewish experience as similar to theirs. But that is OK.

It doesn’t make me feel lesser than anyone else and I feel as closely connected to Jewish tradition as I want to be. In a community as small as ours is, I feel there is space for us all.

I would describe myself as secular, but I love the practice of Jewish festivals and the opportunities they present us as families and friends to come together, to eat, argue, think and laugh.

I adore the closeness of Shabbat. In fact, I wish it was a tradition I grew up with more, and it is one I would like to keep with my young family.

It might not be the bells and whistles Friday nights that other families do, but it will encourage the same principles. Switch off, connect with each other, think and talk about things that are bigger than ourselves and turn off outside interference.

It is important to me that my son grows up connected to his Jewish identity. I’m lucky in that my husband will be a champion of it.

The last bar mitzvah I attended was a first-generation product of intermarriage. It was lovely sitting in shul looking across the socially distanced room full of Jewish and non-Jewish family in strong and proud support of Jewish identity.

And I can think of public examples of intermarriage producing strong Jewish identity. “Sometimes it seems to make a stronger Jewish identity,” a colleague commented. “People think more about it.”

Take the singer Jessie Ware. Her mum is Jewish, her dad is not. She is married to a non-Jew and had a bat mitzvah in her 30s. She has three children. She talks about it on her podcast with her very Jewish mum.

Rachel Riley is another married to a nonJewish man, and has become a vocal campaigner against antisemitism in recent years after noticing how much her Jewish identity was under attack. I can’t imagine her daughter will grow up without a decent connection to her Jewishness.

I have always been very grateful for the way my parents encouraged and supported healthy connections to both my cultures and I’ve always felt lucky to have a mixed identity. It is rich and interesting and full of comedy.

Over the years, if anything I have become more not less connected to my Jewish identity. And as mother of a son, the importance of that is not lost on me.

I suppose the elephant in the room — the one Jonathan Boyd talks about us not talking about — is similar to the one posed by Lord Sacks in the 90s: Will we have Jewish grandchildren?

Will I mind if he marries out, the Rabbi asked me about my son? I paused. I want him to be happy, I answered, but that is not the question.

I would describe myself as secular, but I love the practice of Jewish festivals