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The largest branch in American Judaism now ordains rabbis in interfaith marriages

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, HOST:

Of the dominant branches of Judaism in the United States - Orthodox, Conservative and Reform - the Reform movement is the largest. It's also the only one of the three that performs interfaith marriages. But until earlier this summer, people in interfaith relationships were not allowed into the seminary to become Reform rabbis. Deena Prichep reports on how this policy changed, and what that means.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting in non-English language).

DEENA PRICHEP, BYLINE: It's a Friday night in Portland, Ore. Sara Epstein and Nathan Morelli are getting their kids ready for Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. The table is piled with summer salads and meatballs, and the house is filled with siblings and cousins.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: ...First 5-year-old Shabbat.

PRICHEP: These are the weekly rituals of Jewish life, the sort of thing that binds a family together. But Epstein say that when Morelli asked her to marry him...

SARA EPSTEIN: One of my first thoughts was, what have I done (laughter)? I was terrified.

PRICHEP: That's because Morelli isn't Jewish.

EPSTEIN: All of my grandparents are children of people who fled or fled themselves from Europe. And so I think that just - they held onto their identity so tightly.

PRICHEP: At the University of Colorado, Boulder, Samira Mehta directs the Jewish studies program and has written about intermarriage.

SAMIRA MEHTA: There's a lot of anxiety about interfaith marriage and what it's going to do to the survival of the Jewish people.

PRICHEP: And intermarriage really started to climb as the baby boom generation came of age.

MEHTA: The Reform movement has a massive debate in the 1970s about whether or not it's acceptable for rabbis to perform interfaith marriages.

PRICHEP: Mehta says it was technically allowed, but not common. Interfaith couples often had civil ceremonies, and then were sort of quietly allowed into congregations, but not really welcomed.

MEHTA: Over this 15-year transition that is the 1970s through the mid-'80s, more and more rabbis realize that if you slam the door on a couple looking to get married, they're not going to knock on your door when they have a baby.

PRICHEP: Now, over 40% of American Jews who are married have non-Jewish spouses. If you look at Jews who married in the past 15 years, it's more than half.

ANDREW REHFELD: We now have 40 years of experience that non-Jewish spouses can contribute wholeheartedly to the Jewish family and home.

PRICHEP: Andrew Rehfeld is the president of Hebrew Union College, which has been ordaining Reform rabbis for nearly 150 years. He says their decision to admit students in interfaith relationships was not unanimous. There aren't really the same existential worries about Jewish survival. But there are those who see intermarriage as not Jewish. But on the whole, this was celebrated.

REHFELD: I have never made a decision or announced something that has been met with such overwhelming positive response. I mean, if anything, the biggest negative that I have heard is anger that we didn't do it sooner.

PRICHEP: Hebrew Union still requires students have a Jewish home. They spell out the broad expectations...

REHFELD: Ritual practice, ethics, education of the next generation.

PRICHEP: ...But Rehfeld says the details are intentionally left open.

REHFELD: There are many different ways to achieve that that are valid, that are authentic, that look much different than they did before.

PRICHEP: The number of potential rabbis affected may be small. But the number of people impacted is huge. Because it signals that interfaith families aren't just tolerated. They can be exemplary.

LEX ROFEBERG: Being recognized as equally good, equally aspirational to other kinds of families is unbelievably important, and in my view, it's sacred and true.

PRICHEP: Rabbi Lex Rofeberg couldn't attend Hebrew Union College because of his interfaith relationship. Instead, he got ordained through a smaller denomination, but continued to push for the change within the Reform movement. And when the decision was announced, he and his now-wife celebrated.

ROFEBERG: Interfaith marriage isn't only not a big threat. This is a way for our people to live beautiful, joyous, spiritual and Jewish lives that are also imbued with connection to and love for other strains of human tradition.

PRICHEP: And that's being lived out across the country.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: You want some more (laughter)?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: No, he wants the one...

PRICHEP: As Sara Epstein says the Shabbat prayers with her interfaith family, she wishes her grandparents could see what their life is like.

EPSTEIN: I have such a mensch that I married. And I have a wonderful, beautiful family. And I'm raising them Jewish. And yes, it looks differently, but I still go to Temple (laughter). It's still happening.

PRICHEP: There are still those who see this as a loss. But as more and more American Jews grow up in a world with intermarriage, many see this as a gain of a rabbinate that reflects its congregation, of an expansion of what it means to be Jewish, and of a faith that is flexible enough to meet the world as it changes. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Deena Prichep