Primrose Road

Aish HaTorah, an orthodox Jewish kiruv (outreach) organization, offers a critique of a NY Times Magazine article published last summer, in which Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman discussed how he was ostracized by the Orthodox Jewish community because he married a non-Jew. Aish's article asks some uncomfortable questions that seem to suggest that Jews who intermarry should be loved-yet-ostracized:

"Is there ever any line that is crossed that calls for communal condemnation? Does tolerance have its limits? Even if as Jews we strongly believe in the potential for every Jew, no matter how far removed, to become proactively engaged in Judaism, is there not a time that we have to make clear we abhor the act although we still love the sinner?"

Aish's response to the Feldman article then gets into the rhetoric of preservation, a sentiment also expressed in the following statement from the organization: "The Jewish people are currently experiencing a spiritual Holocaust. That is why Aish HaTorah stands at the front of the battle against rampant assimilation and intermarriage."

Meanwhile, in an essay on Chabad.org, Sarah Esther Crispe (editor of Chabad's TheJewishWoman.org, who incidentally has a lovely writing style) recounts her thoughts upon receiving an invitation to a cousin's wedding; though she is close with this cousin, she chooses not to attend because Jewish bride's groom is Catholic. The way in which Crispe invokes the Holocaust in justifying her decision to snub this friend and relative is actually heartbreaking.

Heartbreaking, because Jewish assimilation and intermarriage neither caused nor perpetuated the Holocaust. The Holocaust was caused by (1) fascism, and (2) racism.

I'll leave it at that.