Eric Woodward (JTS 2013) describes himself as a rabbi who grew up in a “non-normative family” (his father is not Jewish, but his mother is) and has drawn on this experience in creating “Eitzat Yitro”, a unique program at Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus, Ohio. Named for Moses’s father-in-law who has “an ambiguous identity” in the Torah, this informal group works on the principle that we can learn Torah from the non-Jews in our lives. The inspiration for the group began at JTS when Eric and his wife found themselves in conversations with Jews who had converted, Jews with a parent who had converted or with a non-Jewish parent, discussing issues such as, “What’s it like to experience Hanukkah with a Christmas tree in the house,” or “What does it mean to train as a rabbi or a cantor when my family feels non-normative?”
This experience led Eric, with the encouragement of Senior Rabbi Michael Ungar, to create this group for anyone at the synagogue who experiences the “multifaceted nature of Jewish identity”. The group is organized by lay people and meets for small group conversations. Defined very broadly, Eitzat Yitro is about teaching a serious relationship with Jewish texts and observance. Each meeting begins with a member offering a dvar Torah, followed by others taking turns sharing an experience or telling a story. The practice is for each to share but not to respond to the previous speaker; the group is open ended and non-judgmental.
Avoiding Assumptions about the Intermarried
This approach to interfaith couples or to members of the community who have an “interfaith component” in their background expresses something different from what is often assumed about interfaith families. Namely, the work here is in trying to give people a rich experience of Torah and Jewish pastoral care. Eric has come to understand that the interfaith relationship is “rarely the primary thing for these couples” in their lives. Rather, if they are coming to a synagogue it’s because they want something Jewish: “They want Torah if they come to us, but if we give them sociology we are failing them.” He believes that this approach can work for a rabbi regardless of where he/she stands on intermarriage issues because it responds to what the couple or family is expressing when they become involved with a congregation.
It’s easy for a rabbi to get hung up talking about interfaith families in terms of “what I will do or not do?” or “what I approve of and what I don’t.” Instead, we should focus on teaching deep Torah and promoting serious prayer. Often, he has seen rabbis paralyze themselves with fear about relating to an interfaith family when, in reality, this is a projection, and the interfaith family is not coming to the synagogue to worry about sociology, but to have a Torah experience. He has found that there are ways to talk with and about interfaith families and relationships that are informed by Torah concepts rather than focused on “how will I tell them I can’t do their wedding?” In fact he finds that these parts of our identity “where we are broken or differentiated or multifaceted are drivers for our Torah and tefilah lives.” The most important question is Torah and prayer in the life of this family, not intermarriage.
How to Be a Welcoming Congregation
Tifereth Israel, a congregation of 950, has built a reputation as a warm place; currently there are 20 people taking an Intro to Judaism class, more interfaith couples coming to shul and 30 new members have joined since July, almost all of them young people. The Tifereth Israel website is clear about the congregation’s commitment to conversion and to working with those who are in an interfaith relationship in its descriptions of Eitzat Yitro, led by “Rabbi Eric”:
Eitzat Yitro is a group for people who have an interfaith component in their Jewish identities. Perhaps you are a Jew-by-choice, or are married to one; or perhaps you are in an interfaith relationship. We would love to meet you! We are part support, part social, part education. Eitzat Yitro has received some wonderful press in the national media, which you can check out here.
Also found on the Tifereth Israel website is an entirely unambiguous endorsement of welcoming non-Jews into the covenant between God and Israel: “Eitzat Yitro is also about affirming the deep religious value of conversion to Judaism. Jews-by-choice find Tifereth Israel to be an exceptionally warm and embracing community.” And to strengthen this point about conversion, Eric – the product of a non-normative family! - points out that Jews by Choice often come to take important leadership positions in shuls and that the experience of conversion can tells us about our spiritual lives, experience of Judaism, Jewish identity.
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