Director's Letter
October 26, 2016
Fern Chertok and I are in Philadelphia taking part in the Interfaith Opportunity Summit. We are here to discuss our ongoing studies of millennial children of intermarriage and of intermarried young couples. We will also be sharing the findings of our newest report, Under the Chuppah: Rabbinic Officiation and Intermarriage.
This report is an extension of our analytic work for the Jewish Futures Project. We compare the Jewish engagement of inmarried couples with that of intermarried couples who either had a sole Jewish officiant or did not. The findings indicate that intermarried couples whose weddings were officiated by a rabbi or cantor are more similar to inmarried couples than to others who intermarry. The vast majority (85%) of intermarried couples married by a sole Jewish officiant who have children, are raising the children as Jews. The synagogue affiliation rate among couples married by a sole Jewish officiant is more than 30%.
On a different front, as announced last week, we released our 2016 study Hotspots of Antisemitism and Anti-Israel Sentiment on US Campuses. The debate on this topic continues to grow. Included in this issue of Constructs are some of the articles that discuss our research in light of these controversies.
I hope that the holidays were joyous and meaningful. Thank you for your ongoing interest in our work.
Best regards,
Leonard Saxe, PhD
Klutznick Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies
Director Steinhardt Social Research Institute, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis University