Is Intermarriage a Taboo Topic for Liberal Jews?

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, speaking at an event sponsored by the South Florida Jewish Federation, addressed the “problem” of intermarriage and assimilation. Her remarks were met with criticism by segments of the Jewish press offended that a prominent Jewish politician objected to intermarriage, and she later retreated from her comments. The episode, writes Jonathan Tobin, is symptomatic of a growing trend within Jewish institutions:

[Conservative and Reform] leaders as well as the heads of major Jewish organizations have decided that it is no longer possible to advocate in-marriage or steps that are aimed at encouraging Jews to marry other Jews. . . .

The reason for this shortsighted decision is obvious. Intermarriage is so prevalent that the intermarried and their loved ones are now so ubiquitous throughout Jewish life that they form a powerful interest group. Since many if not most of them have now come to regard advocacy of endogamy as an insult, it has become next to impossible for communal organizations, especially those umbrella groups like federations that revolve around fundraising, to broach the issue. Instead, they prefer to speak of [intermarriage] as an opportunity rather than a dilemma, a foolish position that ignores the stark statistical evidence . . . that shows the children of intermarriage are far less likely to get a Jewish education or raise a Jewish family than those who marry other Jews.

Read more at Commentary

More about: American Jewry, Assimilation, Intermarriage, Jewish World, Pew Survey

 

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF