Rebecca:

You points are well taken.  One major limitation of email exchanges is that the provide just the written word without inflection and without benefit of body language – as I write this it seem to be the same challenge that rabbis and scholars have had for the past 1700 years, trying to understand what exactly Rebbe had in mind when he chose the words that he used redacted the Mishnah.

My post was an attempt to try to differentiate between what I see as three processes that are inextricably linked to any discussion about making mixed marriage couples feel welcome.  First is the process of actions and attitudes of the community in general.  Second there are the Teshuvot that our clergy make regarding non-Jewish spouse participation on the Bimah and Jewish spouse positions of community leadership.  Thirdly, there are the responses of the mixed marriage couple to the to the other two processes.  

The real question, is one of reasonable expectations.  Although I have my personal set of criteria for reasonableness, and recognize that each of us has their own tests of reasonableness.  I hope that we can all agree that we should through both obligation and preference make all you come into our community feel welcome, by show interest in them and being friendly.  I think that we can also agree that for any given community norm or policy, there will be families who do not subscribe to that norm.  This applies to synagogue attire, learning standards for our religious school children, facility use and virtually any synagogue policy.  

Having been a member and past Chair (the term “President” was deemed politically incorrect) of an Egalitarian Minyan that grew from a few close friends to a group of > 125 families, I’ve participated in the evolution of policies that were irrelevant when the group was small, but became indispensable as the community grew.  Setting norms and establishing policies is our primary mechanism for building community.  For better or worse, people who find those policies and norms untenable eventually leave the community and, God willing find another community whose norms are more in line with their own.  The Conservative Movement has a set of policies and norms and subtended to those, each congregation has its own policies and norms.  The latter are expected not to be outside the limits of the former. 

The greatest challenge we face today is that of constantly reviewing our norms and our understanding of Halakha so that we find the best balance between the realities of our time and our commitment to our tradition.  Our R.A. Law Committee is charged with that task.  

I feel that the Conservative Movement has, and continues to grapple with mixed marriage compassionately and sensitively.  Yet I also recognize that some mixed marriage couples will find the movement’s policies unfair and unwelcoming.  Perhaps some day, our rabbis will find ways to interpret Halakha is a way that broadens inclusiveness more than it does today.  I suspect there will still be folks, outside that extended pale who will resent whatever boundaries exist.  

Regarding leaders, we find another balancing act – more precarious within our movement than amongst those either of more liberal or less liberal “camps.”  From time to time, movement leaders have proposed that all synagogue officers met certain standards of observance.  In reality, at least at this time in our history, most Conservative synagogues would be unable to staff a board of trustees if only folks who were Shomer Shabbat, kept Kosher and attended services regularly could serve.  In the absence of rigorous standards, do we drop all standards?  I don’t know.  But I argue that it’s not unreasonable to seek leaders who exemplify the norms of the community. The balance here is between making our non-Jewish spouses feel welcome and sending a signal that we have no concerns about the issue of mixed marriage.  Again, our co-religionists of the Traditional, Orthodox and other less liberal camps take a clear stance.  They accept the fact that they won’t grow their communities with mixed marriage families and all that they can contribute to the community.  The Reform Movement and some Reconstructionist congregations have dropped many of the barriers that the Conservative movement has retained.  They are not afraid of losing those families who feel that mixed marriage represent a risk to our survival.  

So many discussions within the Conservative movement seem to be based on not losing anyone.  There is no way to provide a meaningful set of expectations without losing some people; some very good people.  We have to be willing to define (within our relatively broad and remarkable pluralistic range of options) our norms and let people choose whether they want to accept them or not.  As others have written, we won’t flourish as long as we let others define us by what we are not.  

A caveat:  I travel for business, and have an opportunity to visit quite a few congregations.  Within the Conservative Movement, there is a considerable range of what I call congregational personalities.  Even amongst congregations with nominally similar norms, I found substantial differences in the affect of different communities.  It would be arrogant for me to classify any of these better or worse than others.  But I do feel that it is legitimate for me to make a judgment as to whether or not I would want to be a member of a particular congregation, were I a resident of the area.  

Kol Tov,

Chevrei:

I appreciate the time, energy, effort, and thought that all participants on this list are putting into it--and specifically, the contributions of those who have recently been addressing the issues of welcoming/"unwelcoming" the intermarried and their families, whether or not we see eye to eye.

I also realize that it can be frustrating to be misunderstood, or to feel that you can scarcely speak because you are trying so hard to watch what you say. As a participant in this discussion _and_ as someone who works with words for a living, I want to say a few things about why it's worthwhile and how it matters--why it's worth having your say but _really_ getting it right!

On Friday, June 24, 2005, at 02:23 PM, Derek Fields wrote:

I have started to give a measured response three times today only to find that no matter how I put it, what I say will be perceived as offensive and off-putting.

All I can say to Derek and to others who have been commenting recently is that although I may criticize certain choices of terms or of rhetoric as inaccurate, or unhelpfully broad, or misleading--or, at times, even as offensive or insulting to me or my family members, I do not intend by that critique to address anything other than the _effect_ of your words (not the intent behind them), or to invalidate the content of your comments, or to encourage you to silence yourselves. What I hope you will do--what I strive to do, though I know I do not always succeed--is to work as hard as you can to choose the words that will ring in my ears as they did in your own heads, whose effect on the hearer will convey your intent and not be lost in translation. If you feel that what you've written will be perceived as offensive and off-putting, find the way to say it that has the least chance of being misperceived!

To that end, I will continue to explain when necessary (when these terms are used!) why I object to, e.g, language that labels my father as a "spectator" in synagogue life, or Wendy and myself as "statistical anomalies," or policies that permit greater participation by the intermarried as "choreograph[ing] the community’s liturgy to meet their personal needs."

So I will just say again what I said earlier: remember that you are speaking to me, as well as to all the other Jews on the list. You are speaking about my family, as well as about all other kinds of intermarried families. If that makes you think twice about what you're saying and how to say it, that's not a bad thing--that's a good thing. Because if what you were going to say was _intended_ to speak to and for the whole community, but has the potential _effect_ of creating an "us" in which you participate and a "them" in which others, whom you meant to include as part of that whole community, do not -- then you haven't spoken clearly and carefully enough. (Examples of "us" and "them" here might include: intramarried Jews vs. intermarried Jews, married Jews vs. unmarried Jews, born Jews vs. Jews by choice, heterosexual Jews vs. GLBT Jews, Jewish children of two Jewish parents vs. Jewish children of one Jewish parent, etc.)

I'm afraid I have a lot to say on this topic, because it matters a great deal to me both personally (in terms of my investment & involvement in this particular issue) and professionally (because inaccurate language or difficulties in communication hurt us all--and I hope we will all go read or re-read Orwell's great essay "Politics and the English Language" on this point!--but are often the particular province of English teachers/profs to worry over). So you can see me have my say below, edited and at times adjusted from what I've written off-list to particular people: I invite you all to read it, or to skip over it if you feel you've absorbed the gist and don't care for specific illustrations.

I once again thank those who have been having their say, whether I agree with it or not, and hope we can all move forward in discussing these topics in language that conveys the writer's intent successfully and encourages productive discussion for us all!

B'shalom,
Becca

• On Fred Passman's recent post:

(I have not commented on it on-list beforehand, so let me say that I feel that I understand the position that is being put forth; agree with some and disagree with others of its specifics, on grounds that can be discussed later [but can pretty much be inferred from my earlier response to Derek re: why I don't reject having non-Jews on the bimah in roles that are not halakhically prohibited to them, e.g., reading appropriate non-denominational prayer in English]; but, as I explain below, find some of its rhetoric unnecessarily and unhelpfully dismissive of the opposing possibilities which in fact constitute the policy & practice of many other Conservative shuls, including those in which my family has or has had membership.)

Not banning my mother from synagogue office is not tantamount to giving her "permi[ssion] to choreograph the community's liturgy to meet [her] personal needs." [...] Her being on the synagogue board hasn't made my father eligible for minyan or leyning, so I sincerely wish that others wouldn't discuss halakhic requirements of chiuv in the same breath with synagogue policy specifications that have no direct bearing on those matters. (I already voiced this objection to Derek's earlier posts, and I'm repeating it here with regard to several passages in Fred's.) I _am_ listening to what people are saying, but I don't think that such commentators truly remember that they're talking to me as well as to everyone else.

I want to say to them:
"I haven't asked to choreograph the community's liturgy to meet my personal needs, so please don't talk as though that's what I'm doing [if/when I object to the types of shul policies that are discussed in his post].
In my own community, other people's personal needs _and_ halakhic obligations get met because my husband and I are up there, Shabbat after Shabbat, chag after chag, leading the davening and doing the leyning and organizing to make sure that minyan happens and that things are done right. Because my mother and father raised me to be a good Conservative Jew, and my husband decided to be one too.
But if I'd grown up hearing some of the things people are saying on the list, in the way that they're saying them, maybe I too would have decided that I didn't need Conservative Judaism if _that's_ what it thought of my mother, my father, my family."
They need to think about those consequences, too.

• On Derek's post, re: "statistical anomaly" ("You and Rebecca and the hundreds of other committed Jews whose parents are not both Jewish are statistical anomalies."):

American Heritage dictionary gives 2 main meanings (before a 3rd one relevant to astronomy, which is not what we're talking about here!)--you [Derek] may be right in sense 1, and I may be right in sense 2:

1. Deviation or departure from the normal or common order, form, or rule.
2. One that is peculiar, irregular, abnormal, or difficult to classify: “Both men are anomalies: they have . . . likable personalities but each has made his reputation as a heavy” (David Pauly).
3. Astronomy The angular deviation, as observed from the sun, of a planet from its perihelion.
(http://www.bartleby.com/61/8/A0320800.html)

My issue with your use of the term basically boils down to a potential conflict between meaning 1 and meaning 2:
meaning 1 can be a matter of fact, but meaning 2 is almost necessarily a matter of opinion:
what is "peculiar, irregular, abnormal, or difficult to classify" (even in the realm of data & the phrase "statistical anomaly") depends on what you define as usual, regular, normal, or easy to classify.

I agree that Wendy and I may be anomalies in sense 1, but not _always_ in sense 2: one of the things I'm interested in is what classifications (factors in background, education, experiences, etc.) might allow us to understand what might distinguish Wendy and me and others like us, who are committed Conservative Jews from intermarried families, from the larger group of children of intermarriage who are not commited Conservative Jews. Once we're looking from within a given explanatory context, we might not be anomalous in sense 2 at all!
(Note the final bit forwarded below--assuming the image comes though (apologies it it doesn't)--re: "statistical flukes or anomalies" in data sets, using the 2 terms as synonymous. I concede that I may be an anomaly in dictionary meaning 1, but I deny that I + Wendy + others like us are "statistical flukes or anomalies." The problem of how to construe such a term is precisely why I was advocating for a less ambiguous one, like "minority," or for #s when we have them... But again: the current focus of the discussion was not how anomalous we are or aren't, but how best to deal with intermarried families in Conservative Jewish life to achieve the aims that are stated as the goal of the Shefa list. If we keep focused on that matter, even if we know we are going to disagree about the specifics, then we won't get as sidetracked into things like, er, this business of semantics that I've taken up here, if/when the statistical issues are not immediately germane to the matters "bein ish l'khaveiro" & "bein ish l'ishto"--matters of human relations, including in synagogue settings--that are what constitute the main focus of my remarks and, as I understand them, Wendy's & Robert's...)
[I then included my stats-minded dad's e-mails to me in response to my query to him on use of the term "anomaly," which I will excerpt only part of here:]

One other thought -- An "anomaly" is not just intrinsically rare, but rare out of proportion to what we would think would happen.

If you choose one person, that person will be an "anomaly" in some sense -- it's not implausible that he will be a minority, even a small minority in some way.

It's when , as noted above, you get things happening repeatedly at way above expected frequencies (maybe 3-4 SDs

[Standard Deviations]

out??)


Thus, 30 years ago, to have a Jewish mother with an adopted Chinese Baby would be a real anomaly -- today. it would only be , (making up numbers)
3% of adopted babies by Jews, only .x% of all new baby families -- but, It's no longer really "anomalous" -- we understand how and why it is happening, and can assign reasonable probabilities to it.

Another example -- every lottery winner is a minority -- yet it is not "anomalous" for SOMEONE to win the lottery.

If 3 straight national winners were sold in Louisville, THAT would be "anomalous"

 

A quick another thought -- an anomaly is something that needs explaining, beyond the explanations you already know about.

It would be an anomaly
for people from Wyoming to win spelling bees -- until you know that they are all from one family of nerds

A world-class Black tennis player was once an anomaly, until you started to get inner-city programs, Richard Williams, etc.

They are still rare, but not "an anomaly" in common parlance.

A quote