Programs, rabbis help grandparents cope

BARBARA PASH
Baltimore Jewish Times

"This is Rabbi X," she said. "What," asked her grandson, innocently enough, "is a rabbi?"

A tense family situation has led these grandparents to avoid any mention of religion with their daughter, who is married to a non-Jew, and their grandson, who is being raised without any religious education. Their grandson does not even know they are Jewish, much less what that means. But other grandparents are more outspoken.

"Grandparents," said Beth Land Hecht, "are a force to be reckoned with."

The Council of Jewish Federations' most current data pegs the intermarriage rate at 52 percent nationwide, according to Hecht, director of the Jewish Family Network, a joint program of Baltimore's Jewish Family Services and the Board of Rabbis.

Because of the rising intermarriage rate and as part of the Jewish community's outreach efforts to the intermarried, "grandparents are a growing part of the issue," said Hecht, who gets a sizable grandparent turnout for such programs as the Board of Rabbis' annual Adult Institute course on the history and issues of intermarriage, and for holiday workshops.

Rabbi David Greenspoon of Nevey Shalom, a 150-family Conservative congregation in Bowie, Md., takes a pro-active approach to the issue.

Last month, Nevey Shalom and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Wash-ington's Interfaith Outreach Department initiated a six-session monthly discussion group specifically for grandparents. It's the first such program in the area, said the rabbi,who hopes it develops into an ongoing program.

So far, eight couples have signed up for the group, which costs $10 per session and is led by a social worker. The goal is to encourage grandparents to talk to their adult children about setting boundaries, if they haven't already, and then to involve their grandchildren in Judaism within those boundaries.

Rabbi Greenspoon isn't aware of any organized attempt by rabbinic groups to address the grandparenting issue. But he said he has noticed a shift in thinking.

"Instead of 'oy vey'," he said, throwing up his hands in the classic Jewish gesture of despair, "the focus is, how do we deal with this? The problem won't go away but the challenge is redefined. Just because people intermarry, just because the kids are not being raised Jewish" doesn't mean the children are lost to the religion.

Rather, said the rabbi - who often sees Jewish grandparents bring their "non-Jewish" grandchildren to family Shabbat services, Hanukkah and Purim parties and second-night Passover seders -- "these Jewish grandparents represent a deep emotional attachment that could keep open the door to Judaism." How much influence grandparents have on their grandchildren depends on the relationship that exists between the parents and the adult child, say the experts.

Fern Weiner, director of family programming at Beth El Schools, part of the Conservative Beth El congregation in Baltimore, said, "The problems are greater in dysfunctional than healthy families. In healthy families, these issues can be worked out. In dysfunctional families, it becomes another issue to fight over."

Also important is in what religion will the children be raised? Christian? A mixture of Christian and Jewish? Nothing?

"Most common is the notion that it is appropriate and possible to raise children as both and then they'll decide," said Rabbi Joel Zaiman of the Conservative Chizuk Amuno Congregation in Stevenson, Md., who frowns on the practice. He said not only does this confuse the child but ultimately "it cheats him by not giving him a moral underpinning."

But whatever the situation, that doesn't preclude the grandparents from being Jewish role models - if, and only if, the parents agree.

"Grandparents represent the past, Jewish tradition, the family story. If they have permission to be the Jewish role model, then by all means they should," said Rabbi Zaiman.