Why Marry Outside of the Fold? : Couples: Jews are marrying non-Jews in record numbers, experts say. One reason may be that men and women are accepting Jewish stereotypes.

Stuart Markowitz and Ann Kelsey of “L.A. Law” share at least one thing with Michael and Hope Steadman of “thirtysomething”: The television couples live with the consequences of marriage between Jews and non-Jews.

The highly visible characters reflect the fact that off the TV screen, Jews are wedding non-Jews in record numbers. A survey of about 6,000 Jews in nine cities, taken over a five-year period (1982-87), showed that they married non-Jews in 14% of first marriages and 40% of second marriages. The survey, by the North American Jewish Data Bank at City University of New York, also found increasing rates of intermarriage among young people, indicating the trend would grow.

So while addressing such weighty political matters as Jews in the post-Cold War world and strategies for Middle Eastern peace, the Southern California Conference of Liberal and Progressive Jewish Intellectuals at UCLA last weekend included a panel on “Difficulties in Relationships Between Jewish Men and Women.”

And panelists at the conference sponsored by Tikkun, a liberal Jewish magazine, gave the crowd of 125 packed into a Dodd Hall auditorium some unsettling news:

Some Jews enter relationships outside their faith because they accept stereotypes of Jews. Men look upon women as demanding, controlling and yet dependent, while women may regard Jewish men as passive and unsexy.

“I see a strong tendency among Jewish men to find non-Jewish partners,” said panelist Stuart Ende, a West Los Angeles psychoanalyst who counsels Jewish couples.

“I think it is because they expect non-Jewish women to relate to them differently. They (non-Jewish women) do not require that he be as successful. Some of them have broader views of relationships, and I think they make these men feel more valued--not for their performance but for themselves.”

The Jewish woman seeking a non-Jewish partner “is looking for what she perceives as strength. She is hoping to find someone who will not put her into a stereotypical role as a Jewish mother,” said Janet Hadda, another West Los Angeles psychoanalyst.

The non-Jewish man “might be comfortable with her adopting options of her own choice--not having children, not cooking dinner at night or not pursuing traditionally acceptable pastimes. Maybe she wants to go rock climbing.”

Hadda, who holds doctorates in psychoanalysis and Yiddish, said the stereotypes that prompt some Jews to seek non-Jewish partners are derived from a culture in which, until the mid-19th Century, “the major source of satisfaction and self-esteem” to a woman was “running the home, raising the children, being a good wife to the husband.”

“And a fine home could include material possessions or the hope of them. The husband’s role was predominantly outside the home in his work and to be the authority figure in the home.”

Because the world does not run that way any more, Hadda said, the stereotypes may cause problems for some Jews.

“One example of what can go wrong is if a female child is raised with a stereotype that in order to be acceptable she must be the kind of woman who stays in a home, raises a family and sets her sights on a husband. If she doesn’t want to do that, or for some reason feels she’s incapable of doing that, she may flee from a relationship with a Jewish man.

“Similarly, if a Jewish man believes that it’s up to him to oversee the home and succeed in business or be professionally successful, and if he doesn’t want to do that, or for some reason feels he’s incapable of doing that, he may flee from a relationship with a Jewish woman.”

The crowd, ranging from students to grandparents, offered abundant examples of flight from Jewish relationships.

Pete Pearlman of Los Angeles, first to speak after introductions by Ende and Hadda, told of attending a Jewish singles gathering at a bar where Jewish women “focused their attention on the bar population outside our group and in a very snobby way avoided relating to the Jewish men.”

“It was a clear phenomenon,” Pearlman said. “It wasn’t a distorted perception.”

Nicole Treves, a professor from Canada, reported attending an academic conference “where most of the people were Jewish writers and they were talking of the importance of keeping a Jewish identity.”

“And then we had lunch and I noticed that four of the speakers who spoke so much about the importance of a Jewish identity were married to non-Jews. So I asked them, ‘How come?’

“And I got two answers that were really amazing. One of them said, ‘I respect the Jewish woman too much to marry her.’ And the other said, ‘I would never give a Jewish mother to my children.’ ”

Ellen Jaffe McClain of West Hollywood, a junior high school English teacher, recalled attending the predominantly Jewish Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., between the ages of 17 and 20 and wanting to go out with Jewish men.

“My experience with them was utter, total, monolithic rejection,” she said. “I was every guy’s good pal and no one’s date. . . . You’ll have to trust me when I tell you I was not the largest or homeliest woman walking around. There were other women and they had dates.

“I don’t think it’s an accident that my significant adult relationships have been with non-Jewish men. . . . They looked at Jewish women and saw someone who was smart and motivated to succeed and that was attractive to them.”

A 21-year-old college junior said her situation seems equally difficult. She said her Jewish male friends on campus sometimes speak disparagingly of Jewish women, and date non-Jewish women.

“Is there a trend where this will die out?” she asked. “Or how do women fight this?”

For Jews who marry Jews, there may be solace in divorce statistics. The CUNY study showed that where both partners are Jewish, the divorce rate is 17%. Where the couple is of mixed faith, it is 32%.

“Although (Jews marrying non-Jews) find what they had been looking for, they also find they were not receiving the recognition they wanted from someone who shared their community of meaning and their sense of what was important in the world,” Tikkun editor Michael Lerner said in an interview. Lerner, a clinical psychologist, organized the conference.

That was good news for Pearlman. As the discussion ended, he leaped to his feet and declared he’d gladly exchange phone numbers with women in the audience.

Later, note pad in hand, he was surrounded by several women.

“Did you exchange numbers?” he was asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, nodding at a brunette in front of him. “It’s her agenda.”

They left the conference together.