Leap of faith: Progressive Judaism wants this

Ever since Seth Cohen made his adopted brother Ryan a ‘yamaclaus’ for ‘chrismakah’ during season two of The OC, I knew he was destined to be a rabbi.

What Adam Brody’s character in the iconic early noughties teen show and the one he plays in this year’s Netflix sensation Nobody Wants This have in common is a reality shared with a growing proportion of the Jewish community – navigating Jewish identity in mixed-heritage homes and relationships.

For Rabbi Noah in the hit show, his choice is set out as binary (no spoilers here) – either to pursue a relationship with his non-Jewish girlfriend Joanne or to his progress his career. To have a future together, she must convert.

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However, there are many more shades of grey than a TV show has time for.

According to JPR data from earlier this year, one in three of all British Jews who married between 2010 and 2022 wed a non-Jewish partner.

Conversion is an enriching choice for many, but it is also no longer the only option for couples wanting to build a home together that is true to their beliefs and enables a commitment to Jewish life.

The antiquated language of ‘marrying out’ has, in many parts of our community, been replaced with the understanding that many of these relationships involve a partner who has ‘married in’, and chosen to build a Jewish or Jew-ish home with a partner who wants to share their culture and traditions with them and the next generation too.

I am continually humbled by the way that non-Jewish parents take such care of and responsibility for their child’s Jewish upbringing. Bringing them to religion school and services, volunteering on the security rota, or in other parts of synagogue life.

Conversion is deeply personal, and it has limitations. It’s a religious choice – you can’t convert to secular Judaism, but this is what many people in mixed heritage relationships tell me they wish they could do.

I cringed as I listened to the language on Nobody Wants This, as characters used the derogatory term ‘shiksa’ to refer to Joanne. I’m not naive, I know that this is still language that is used, but I am glad that in many parts of the Jewish world it is rightly deemed unacceptable to talk this way anymore.

It is so important that we call out its use on TV just as I hope people might call it out over the Shabbat table or over a kiddush conversation.

Non-Jewish partners are valued and loved members of our Progressive communities, and it’s the open-hearted welcome that people receive from family and community that often makes all the difference as to whether a couple feel able to continue to engage in communal life.

Interfaith and mixed-heritage families are a vital part of the fabric of our Jewish community, and I am hopeful of a second season of the show that celebrates love, and Jewish households, in all their beautiful forms.