Forum I: Intermarriage, Outreach and a New Agenda for Jewish Survival: a Perspective on the Contemporary American Jewish Community

Publication Date: January 1990

Publisher: Conference of Jewish Communal Service (U.S.)

Author(s): Egon Mayer

Research Area: Culture and religion; Social conditions

Keywords: Intermarriage; Jewish Identification; Community Relations

Type: Report

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

Intermarriage is an unanticipated consequence of a survival strategy in which Jews gained the benefits of tolerance and civil rights in exchange for social invisibility. The challenge to the American Jewish community posed by intermarriage can only be met if it articulates a new vision of Jewish survival based on a rejection of Jewish social invisibility. Effective Jewish outreach must take Judaism as a religion and Jewishness as a culture and civilization public, staking its claim to a fair share of the public's attention.