Decide Children’s Faith, Parents Urged
Parents should decide one faith for children of Christian-Jewish marriages, according to the director of an outreach program for intermarried couples of the Reform Jewish movement.
The tendency among parents in interfaith marriages is “to choose everything for their children except their religion,” Lydia Kukoff of Los Angeles said at a recent panel discussion sponsored by the American Psychological Assn.
“The reluctance of mixed couples to decide on one faith for their child, or their announcement that they will ‘expose the child to both faiths and let the child decide,’ masks a dangerous ambivalence,” said Kukoff, director of the Joint Commission on Outreach of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
“And it places the child in the extremely difficult position of choosing one parent over the other, something to be avoided wherever possible.”
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