Jewish on Their Own Terms: How Intermarried Couples are Changing American Judaism

Notes

nOTes InTrOduCTIOn 1. According to Hebrew Union College sociologist Bruce Phillips’s calculations based on the National Jewish Population Study of 2000, 64 percent of American Jewish children are being raised in households with one Jewish parent and one non-Jewish parent. Personal communication, January 16, 2013. 2. This comment was made in response to my article on Interfaithfamily.com, “Because Their Children Are Jewish” (Thompson 2010). CHApTer 1 defInIng JudAIsm By deBATIng InTermArrIAge 1. For example, among the studies I describe are Kosmin et al. (1991), Tobin (1999), Tobin and Simon (1999), Fishman (2004), Phillips (2005), and Dashefsky and Heller (2008). Among the popular and self-help literature I describe are Hertzberg (1989), Kugel (1990), Lamm ([1980] 1991), Reuben (1992), Cantor (1994), Gordis (1994), McClain (1995), Silverstein (1995a, 1995b), Abramowitz and Silverman (1997), Dershowitz (1997), Luxner (1999), Jaffe (2000), Weiss and Block (2000), Friedman (2002), and Tugend (2003). Because discourses about intermarriage taking place in nonprint media, such as television, have been discussed by historians and sociologists such as Staub (2002), Fishman (2004), Goldstein (2006), and Berman (2009), I do not include them here. 2. For a discussion of the gender dynamics and assumptions behind the patrilineal descent discussion, see McGinity (2009, 174–175). 3. See ibid., chaps. 3 and 4, for an analysis of how exactly these factors affected Jewish women’s intermarriages. CHApTer 2 AmerICAn COnTrAdICTIOns: COnversATIOns ABOuT seLf And COmmunITy 1. Names have been changed. 2. In the 1990s, the recurring sketch “Coffee Talk” featured cast member Mike Myers as Linda Richman, a New York Jewish character based on his mother-in-law. The sketch frequently addressed Jewish-Christian relationships. One running joke was Richman’s creative merger of the word Jew with Christian descriptors—for example, Episcopalian plus Jew to produce EpisciJew, Methodist plus Jew to produce Mooshew, Catholic plus Jew to produce Cashew (Witchel 2001). 181 182 nOTes CHApTer 4 TrAnsLATIng JewIsH experIenCe 1. This question came from me, so it may not be the best indicator of what the rest of the audience was thinking because I was there in my capacity as a researcher. ...