JewishGentileCouples.com

The recent wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky is a perfect opportunity to make observations and consider the implications of Jewish intermarriage in America today.

Analysis has begun as varying perspectives are reported.  Some observed that Mezvinsky, a banker and son of two Jewish politicians, married out.  Others see significance in that the daughter of a former U.S. president and the current Secretary of State has married in.

Steven Cohen, Hebrew Union College sociologist, remarked that the marriage is indicative of the "full acceptance of Jews by the larger society."1.  

Culture change doesn’t come easily.  It is slow and almost imperceptible.  But it can be seen, especially by people who have been observing for a long time.

Manhattan, New York, has long been a fount of American Jewish culture.  I use the word “culture” to mean all the stuff we learn, especially while growing up, about how to be and do and think about what we define as “us.”  

It was art imitating life, when the January 10 episode of The Simpsons featured a Jewish-Gentile couple wedding. The storyline focused on the marriage of Krusty the Klown (aka Herschel Krustofski) and his Gentile princess bride.

Some in the American Jewish community didn’t see the humor. Perhaps it was because it just happened to air around the same time that the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia released findings from the "2009 Jewish Population Study of Greater Philadelphia." The demographic realities of that study did not give community leaders cause to smile.

The Hebrew month of Nisan begins March 16 and concludes on April 14.  In the middle of the month, at the first site of the full moon on March 30, begins the first night of Passover, or Pesach.

From generation to generation, this night is set apart to memorialize God's deliverance of our ancestors from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 12:14).  Everyone who comes to the table is welcome to take part in the meal and the joyous celebration.