Interfaith Marriages

I want to dispel an impression left by Russell Chandler’s article on interfaith marriage (Dec. 21). As a rabbi my concern with this topic is not that couples in interfaith marriages find a way for them to work; on the contrary, my concern is for them to become Jewish marriages. It should be self-evident that neither I nor Temple Menorah’s Shalom Club endorses in any manner either intermarriage or apostasy from Judaism.

It distressed me, and many members of my community, that of the five couples featured three had chosen to leave Judaism formally through baptism. It is my understanding that these couples are statistically the exception, not the rule.

The Shalom Club, which begins on Jan. 12, is an attempt to reach out creatively and compassionately to interfaith couples who have not yet made a decision as to how to raise their children. The Shalom Club is our effort to hold on to such families so that, like the Levitt children mentioned in the article, they will be formally brought into the Jewish faith.

In my rabbinate I do not, under any circumstances, perform intermarriages, nor do I agree to name any child in the Jewish faith who has or will be baptized. It is my strong conviction that to do so is to perpetuate the type of confused self-identity that the young man at the article’s conclusion seemed to embody.

RABBI STEVEN L. SILVER

Temple Menorah, Redondo Beach