For a long time, Milwaukee was one of the few sizable Jewish communities in the country in which no rabbi was willing to officiate at a marriage ceremony between a Jew and a non-Jew who intend to create a Jewish home and raise Jewish children. But that recently has changed.
On Nov. 20, Rabbi Ronald Shapiro, spiritual leader of Congregation Shalom (Reform), sent a letter to the members of his synagogue announcing, “I intend to officiate at a wedding ceremony between a Jewish and non-Jewish person under specific circumstances.” These circumstances include:
• The couple has committed to creating a Jewish home and to raising their children “in the Jewish faith alone.”
• The couple agrees to join Congregation Shalom or another Reform congregation outside of Milwaukee.
• The couple will meet with Shapiro for pre-marital discussion and instruction about Judaism and creating a Jewish home."
• The couple will agree that Shapiro will be the only officiating clergy at the ceremony.
In a telephone interview, Shapiro told The Chronicle that he had been “meeting for years” with interfaith couples who belong to Shalom. These couples told him that “they felt the Jewish community has closed the door on them” when a rabbi told them that he or she would not officiate, and “nobody can imagine how intensely they felt hurt.”
This nearly “universal” reaction made Shapiro wonder if his previous policy of not officiating “opens the door for people to come in and feel comfortable in the synagogue or doesn’t,” he said. Even though couples may feel welcomed at Shalom after their wedding, some “always felt not sure how much they were really wanted here.”
Expecting, having faith
Moreover, Shapiro has noticed that larger proportions of people are marrying later in life or a second time. These more mature people have more settled senses of their religious identities, and a more adult understanding of what it takes to make a Jewish home, he said.
“Many argue, ‘How can [making a Jewish home] occur when one member is non-Jewish?’ But I see it happening in my synagogue,” said Shapiro.
Shapiro concluded that the ideal remains marriage between two Jews, “but if that can’t be, for whatever reason, and a couple in harmony with one another wants to maintain a Jewish home and raise Jewish children, do I not have a responsibility to accept that reality and believe in them and assist them? If I expect them to have faith in Judaism, then I have an obligation to have faith in their sincere quest to do so.”
He said that while some Shalom members “feel uncomfortable with the decision,” he has received many expressions of support, including some 50 letters in the first week, some of which were hand-delivered to his house.
Shapiro’s decision only affects his synagogue and its members. Not only do no Orthodox or Conservative rabbis officiate at intermarriages, but neither do the other two Reform rabbis in Milwaukee.
Rabbi Marc Berkson of Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun said it was “understood before I came” to the synagogue that he would not do so.
“The words that constitute a Jewish wedding — ‘According to the laws of Moses and Israel’ — you can’t ask someone who is not Jewish to say that,” he said. “You have to find a way to reach out to an intermarried couple, welcome them to the Jewish community, but distinguish between that and my ability to function as a rabbi at a wedding ceremony.”
Rabbi David Cohen of Congregation Sinai, and current president of the Wisconsin Council of Rabbis, said he has attended ceremonies conducted by others and then “offered a concluding blessing for the couple once the officient has pronounced them married under Wisconsin law. It’s not a perfect solution, but it allows me to offer a personal mazel tov.”
Milwaukee’s one Reconstructionist rabbi, David Brusin of Congregation Shir Hadash, has performed intermarriages, but only for members of his congregation or people willing to join a synagogue elsewhere, only if he has a chance to meet and talk with the couple, and only as sole officiant.
Brusin said his movement forbids co-officiating with non-Jewish clergy, and “I agree” because a wedding ceremony has “implications for the lifestyle a couple has been leading and is going to lead…. You have to decide what kind of home you are creating.”
But a Madison Reconstructionist rabbi, hospital chaplain Brian Field, has sent letters to various members and organizations in Milwaukee’s Jewish community saying he will perform intermarriages for couples who don’t necessarily want to join a synagogue.
However, in his Nov. 14 letter to the Interfaith Connection, a local resource for interfaith couples, Field also said he will do this for couples who intend to create a Jewish home and that he won’t co-officiate with non-Jewish clergy.
In the past, this has been a divisive issue in the Wisconsin Council of Rabbis, which includes rabbis of all four movements. The council once had a rule forbidding membership to rabbis who performed intermarriages.
When Rabbi Dena Feingold of Beth Hillel Temple in Kenosha (and former assistant rabbi at Shalom) announced in the late 1980s that she would perform intermarriages for members of her synagogue and their families (with similar conditions to those Shapiro recently announced), she had to leave the council.
However, the council has since redefined its purpose and rules. Today, Feingold and other rabbis from other parts of the state who perform intermarriages are members.
Does Shapiro’s decision reflect a trend within the Reform movement in Wisconsin and throughout the country? Testimony appears mixed.
Cohen for one said he hasn’t “felt an increase” in members of his synagogue asking him to officiate at such weddings. Berkson, who sits on the Union for Reform Judaism’s outreach committee, said, “I don’t see this as a primary concern at all” nationally.
Even so, Berkson cited the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ 1973 resolution discouraging Reform rabbis from performing mixed marriages. Berkson said if this resolution were brought to a vote today, “it probably would not pass by as large a number of votes as it did then.”
Moreover, the rabbis who perform such marriages believe doing so is valuable. “What I see is that it brings people to Judaism,” said Feingold. “It actually helps Jews to stay in their own faith and bring others with them. It creates a Jewish home and family where otherwise there might not be.”
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