Emanuel’s Rabbi Black changes policy on performing intermarriages

Joe Black of Temple Emanuel, the Rocky Mountain region’s largest Reform congregation, will now officiate at intermarriages for couples committed to creating a Jewish home. Prior to his congregational announcement in May, Black had refused to conduct intermarriages for 31 years. “I was very comfortable in my reasoning for not officiating as I am in my reasons for officiating,” he told the Intermountain Jewish News last week. Black, who became senior rabbi at Emanuel in 2010, says his “sudden” reversal actually resulted from a decade-long evolutionary process. “I never said never” to officiating at interfaith ceremonies, he says, “nor would I. We don’t know how the world is going to change, or how our understanding of community is going to change.” According to the 2013 […]