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Hebrew College changes policy on interfaith relationships for clergy

By Philissa Cramer

BOSTON — Hebrew College will begin admitting and ordaining rabbinical students in interfaith relationships, according to new admissions standards revealed on Jan. 31.

Hebrew College’s Newton Centre, Mass. campus, which it sold in 2018. (Courtesy)

The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College instituted the same policy in 2015.

Hebrew College’s decision comes as rabbinical schools compete over a shrinking pool of applicants.

Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, Hebrew College’s president, announced the policy change in an email to students and graduates.

The new guiding principles were published on the admissions page of Hebrew College’s website last week,
Said Jodi Bromberg, the CEO of 18Doors, which supports interfaith families: “We all will get to benefit from Jewish leaders in interfaith relationships who have been sidelined from major seminaries up to now.”

While nearly three-quarters of non-Orthodox Jews who married in the last decade did so to non-Jews, few traditional rabbinical schools have been willing to train or ordain rabbis in interfaith relationships.

The Hebrew Bible and Halachah, Jewish law, prohibit marriages between Jews and non-Jews.

At Hebrew College, which launched its rabbinical school 20 years ago, the prohibition against interfaith relationships had been the only admissions requirement rooted in Jewish law beyond the rule that applicants must be considered Jewish according to at least one Jewish movement.

There was no requirement that rabbinical students keep kosher or observe Shabbat.

The school’s leadership first solicited feedback from students a year ago.

“This is the one area of students’ halachic life where I am acutely aware that the school does not trust us, does not think we are capable of navigating our own personal lives, and does not believe that the choices we may make for ourselves have the capacity to expand and enrich our Jewish practice,” wrote one student, according to a collection of anonymous comments shared among students at the time.

Most of the 15 comments that students and graduates shared with their peers called for doing away with the ban on interfaith student relationships, often citing the benefits of having Hebrew College-ordained rabbis reflect the families they are likely to serve.

Several students and graduates wrote that the policy as it stood incentivized students to obscure their relationships.

At least one person argued against changing the policy, instead suggesting that the school strengthen enforcement and clarify expectations about other Jewish practices and values.

“By changing the policy Hebrew College is sending the message to the Jewish world that love-based marriages are more sacred than the covenant which we made at Sinai,” that student wrote.

With tensions high, an initial deadline to decide whether to keep the policy came and went last June.

The decision might exert pressure on other rabbinical schools amid steep competition for students.

Several non-traditional rabbinical schools that do not have a requirement about the identities of students’ spouses have grown in recent years, while Hebrew College, the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in the Conservative movement all shrunk.

Hebrew College recently completed a move to a shared campus after selling its building under financial duress.

“We continue to hear from folks who want to be rabbis and up until this moment had really limited choices,” said Bromberg.

“I can’t help but think that this will have a really positive impact on the enrollment in Hebrew College’s rabbinic program.”

The pressure could be especially acute for HUC, the Reform seminary with three campuses in the US. (Because of declining enrollment, the school is phasing out its Cincinnati program.)

HUC does not admit or ordain students in interfaith relationships, even though the Reform movement permits its rabbis to officiate at intermarriages and to be intermarried themselves.

That policy, which the movement reaffirmed after extensive debate in 2014, has drawn resentment from some who say it is the only thing holding them back from pursuing Reform ordination.

“All my life, my community had told me that no matter who you are or who you love, you are equal in our community and according to the Divine. But now it feels like I’ve been betrayed, lied to, misled,” wrote one potential student.

The Conservative movement, which bars rabbis from officiating at intermarriages and only recently began permitting members of its rabbinical association to attend intermarriages, is grappling with how to balance Jewish law and tradition against interfaith relationships.

The movement recently held a series of online meetings for members of its Rabbinical Assembly to discuss intermarriage, sparking rumors that the movement could be headed toward policy changes.

That’s not the case, according to movement leaders — though they say other shifts may be needed.

“There are no proposals at present to change our standard,” said Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, the CEO of the RA and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the movement’s congregational arm.

“But there is a conversation about what are the ways that we can provide more pastoral guidance to colleagues, especially around moments of marriage.”

Keren McGinity, the USCJ’s interfaith specialist, previously directed the Interfaith Families Jewish Engagement Program, a now-defunct part of Hebrew College’s education school.

She declined to comment on the internal conversations underway within the Conservative movement. But in 2015, she argued in an op-ed that the Jewish world would benefit from more rabbis who were intermarried.

“Seeing rabbis — who have committed their careers, indeed their lives to Judaism — intermarry, create Jewish homes and raise Jewish children should convincingly illustrate how intermarriage does not inhibit Jewish involvement,” she wrote.

Last week, McGinity said she was glad to hear that Hebrew College was dropping its partner requirement, which she said she knew had caused students to leave the program in the past.

“The decision to admit rabbinical students who have beloveds of other faith backgrounds is a tremendous way of leading in the 21st century, illustrating that inter-partnered Jews can be exemplars of Jewish leaders,” she said.



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