One family, one faith

Conversions create family unity

JENNIFER GOLDBERG
Staff Writer

Diane and Sean Lille are remarried in an Orthodox ceremony on Aug. 10. The couple was originally married in a Reform ceremony in 1996. Photo by Jennifer Goldberg

Related story: Marriage 101

At a seminar at the recent national Hadassah convention in Phoenix, Dr. Sylvia Barack Fishman laid out the problem for the crowd.

"Double or Nothing: Love, Sex and Marriage" was a forum for experts to discuss the mixed-marriage question and the impact of the high rate of Jewish intermarriage on Jewish continuity.

Fishman recounted that according to a 2000-01 National Jewish Population Survey, about 40 percent of Jews ages 25-49 are married to non-Jews, and about 80 percent of people with mixed-marriage parents married non-Jews themselves. Conversely, only about 28 percent of people with two Jewish parents married a non-Jew.

Clearly, children of a Jewishly endogamous (one-faith) household are more likely to marry another Jew. However, if intermarriage rates continue to rise, the Jewish continuity question becomes increasingly critical.

In Fishman's book, "Double or Nothing: Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage" (Brandeis University Press, $24.95 hardcover), she suggests that conversion of the non-Jewish spouse is the best outcome of a mixed marriage.

She writes, "The often-documented fact that conversionary households have more and deeper Jewish connections than mixed-married households - and than some inmarried households - suggests to many observers that conversion is also a significant strategy for facilitating Jewish cultural transmission, especially in the current environment where numbers of marriages between Jews and non-Jews seem likely to remain high for the foreseeable future."

Preparing for marriage

As a family life educator for the Bureau of Jewish Education and its Jewish Marriage University program (see sidebar), Linda Feldman sees interfaith couples in every JMU class and believes that mixed-marriage issues, including conversion, are best discussed before a couple marries.

"Oftentimes, people are afraid to ask the other person to convert or to bring up the subject, but it cannot be brushed under the rug," Feldman says. "And it may be that a person may consider conversion once they realize A, it's an option, or B, the spouse would want that. It's the optimal way for raising children, with one religion in the home."

Fonda and Scott Christopher of Gilbert began marriage as an interfaith couple. Scott was raised Catholic, but stopped practicing as a teenager. Fonda was raised Jewish, but had a crisis of faith when her Jewish fianc‚ died of cancer in his early 20s.

"I thought I was going to marry somebody Jewish," says Fonda. "But nobody knows until things happen to them. Then there was this guy, and he happened to be named Scott Christopher and not Scott Goldstein, and I fell in love with him."

When the issue of conversion came up before they married, Scott said he did not want to convert but agreed to raise their children Jewish.

The couple wanted to meet some people when they moved to the Valley in the late 1980s, and Scott wanted to know about Judaism for their future children, so the Christophers enrolled in the Discovering Judaism class co-sponsored by Temple Emanuel of Tempe and Temple Beth Sholom of Chandler.

Rabbi Andrew Straus of Temple Emanuel says that he always encourages the interfaith couples he counsels to take the Discovering Judaism class, especially if they have committed to raising Jewish children.

"Obviously, ideally, I would love to see a conversion happen, because in general we know when a conversion has happened, the family ends up becoming much more involved," Straus says.

The Christophers' daughter Michaela was born in 1990, and it was around that time that Scott began privately considering converting to Judaism. A year later, he told his wife he wanted to convert.

"He surprised me on a Friday night right after we had lit candles," Fonda recalls. "Our daughter was a year old and was sitting in her high chair. It was a very emotional evening."

Since Scott's conversion, the Christophers have become heavily involved with Temple Emanuel. Scott is on the personnel committee, sings in the choir and has held workshops for parents and teens on relationships and sexuality (he is a professor of family studies). Fonda has been on the temple's board since 1992; she has been chairwoman of the outreach committee, vice president of membership and is now vice president of education. She also leads the New Beginnings support group for conversion students.

"When (Scott) converted, I felt this connection, a closer connection to the religion I was born into," Fonda says. "I have gotten so involved in the Reform movement and working with conversion students, and I don't think it would have happened to this degree if not for my husband's converting."

Straus agrees that a conversion within the family frequently brings about a renaissance of Judaism in the home.

"Very often, when there has been a conversion, the Jewish-born partner ends up being more involved with synagogue life than if they married somebody who's Jewish. (It's) because the new Jew by choice is excited and enthralled by Judaism, and he or she wants to get involved and brings that born Jew much more actively into Jewish life," he says.

Stronger advocacy

Feldman says that despite the obvious benefits of the conversion of a non-Jewish spouse, not enough is being said about it to interfaith couples.

"From what I understand in the Jewish world, conversion is sort of on the downswing," she says. She attributes the lack of emphasis on conversion to "multiculturalism, if you want to call it that."

Fishman writes, "Exogamy (two-faith marriages) is an accepted fact of life, and those who advocate on behalf of endogamy are often derided as reactionary and even racist."

Diane Lille of Scottsdale (she now goes by her Hebrew name, Michalya) has undergone two conversions: she converted to Reform Judaism before her 1996 marriage to her husband Sean, and July 18 the entire family (now including 7-year-old Jacob and 3-year-old Eva) converted to Orthodox Judaism. A comment from a friend inspired her to start working toward her Orthodox conversion, but she says that discussion of conversion needs to be both open and tactful.

"I think probably more could be said," she says. But "I think your heart has to be into it. If I had met someone who was very religious and they said, 'You need to do this,' I don't know if I would have done it. Because who wants to be approached that way?"

Feldman suggests that a non-Jewish spouse should hear about conversion from a variety of sources.

"The more people hear about it, the more they know what it will mean to the cohesiveness of the family," she says. "The subject does need to be broached. The spouse is the obvious person. It's really important to have the clergy also bring it up, the rabbis working with the couples."

Whatever a non-Jewish spouse's decision, Straus says, it is important to foster a nurturing environment for interfaith couples.

"The general approach is that we are a congregational community that welcomes couples wherever they are," he says.

Reaping the benefits

The benefits of conversion within the family manifest themselves in a variety of ways.

For Fonda her husband's conversion process has led her to the New Beginnings support group and years of meaningful work with conversion students. The program covers psychological and emotional concerns, such as telling the convert's parents of the decision and dealing with anti-Semitism, as well as exposing conversion students to Jewish culture, food and history.

"When conversion day comes, that is so spiritual for me, because I've worked with these people, gotten to know them and helped them through figuring out how to deal with different issues. They want to be Jewish. It's so uplifting."

Lille says that her family's journey to Orthodox Judaism was full of challenges and blessings.

After they married, her husband was initially uninvolved with her newfound Judaism, and agreed to be shomer Shabbat on a temporary basis during the conversion process.

Now that the family has embarked on a Torah-observant life, "he can't ever imagine not observing Shabbat now. If we didn't have this process, he thinks he probably would have never done it," she says. "My husband thinks that's the reason we were meant for each other. Because without this process, he'd never be where he's at, and if he never got to where he's at, I don't think he'd ever feel totally at peace."

The children of conversionary families also reap the benefits of a one-faith home. Michaela Christopher celebrated her bat mitzvah last October with two Jewish parents.

Scott says that would-be interfaith couples must discuss fully what their children's religious upbringing, because previously agreed upon plans can change once children arrive.

"All of a sudden you're a parent, and you've got this child you're responsible for raising, and you oftentimes fall back on the values you were raised with. And those values may not be as important to you as a young adult, but now you're a young adult with a child who you want to raise properly," he says. "So can there be interfaith couples who raise children successfully? Absolutely. But it's easier within families where both (parents) are of the same faith."

Lille and her husband were remarried in an Orthodox ceremony on Aug. 10 and says that their conversion and their plan to raise their children in a home with two Torah-observant parents is something special she wanted to do for them. The family currently attends Shirat David of the Scottsdale Sepharadic Synagogue.

She says, "Once I really learned about (Judaism), I felt like to pass on that heritage, I had to make Judaism a central part of my life. I think that when you do observe Shabbat, it's a gift you give your children, and it's something that adds to their life."

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