Opening the Tent

February 26, 2026 Alan Feiler, Editor-in-Chief

(Photo by Lainie Berger on Unsplash)

Growing up, I attended a modern Orthodox synagogue’s religious school in the Liberty Road corridor, even though my family wasn’t terribly observant. My parents sent me there because it was the closest shul to our neighborhood.

Today, I can daven pretty much anywhere, from the most Chasidishe-style minyan to a Reform temple with a guitar or organ player. I’m an equal-opportunity Jew.

But when pressed on which branch of Judaism I feel most comfortable with, I usually say the Conservative movement. When I go to shul — which admittedly isn’t often enough — that’s where I feel my need for tradition and modernity is best fulfilled. I’m a middle-of-the-road kind of guy.

But sometimes, the movement doesn’t make things easy.

Recently, the Conservative movement released a report on the complex subject of outreach to interfaith couples and families. The report was released by a group representing the movement’s three major arms: the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the Cantors Assembly and the Rabbinical Assembly.

In the report, the authors note that for much of its history, the movement treated intermarriage as a threat to the community. It recognizes that interfaith families often felt like pariahs.

“For decades, our movement’s approach … was rooted in disapproval and shaped by fears about Jewish continuity,” the leaders wrote in a statement accompanying the report. “But today … we are committed to welcoming people as they are.”

The report formally issues an apology for discouraging intermarriage and commits the movement to engagement with interfaith families.

In addition, the report calls on the movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards to reexamine how its rules are interpreted while recommending new educational, pastoral and ritualistic approaches toward interfaith families.

That, of course, is all well and good. We all know alienating families doesn’t serve anyone’s needs, particularly in a community where the reality is that the intermarriage rate rises higher and higher.

But the movement still maintains its long-standing ban against clergy officiating at interfaith weddings. At the same time, the report calls on Conservative Judaism to provide “expansive, creative” outreach to interfaith families.

Sorry, but with all due respect, isn’t that like being half-pregnant?

I don’t happen to be intermarried, but I have interfaith relatives and friends, and I know what they’ve gone through to locate their comfort zone in the Jewish community.

In the 1990s, I wrote an article about intermarriage in the Jewish community. At that time, many studies found that accommodating interfaith couples and families didn’t necessarily sway their decision-making process in what faith system to adopt.

There are no guarantees, but times do change. We all know interfaith families where the non-Jew tends to be the guardian of the Jewish flame. Obviously with dwindling numbers among non-Orthodox Jews, we need to stop erecting roadblocks to prevent interfaith families from feeling welcome and included.

Apologies are swell, but actions speak louder than words.

In a recent column, Rabbi Ari Y. Saks of Philadelphia wrote about why he’s resigned from the Rabbinical Assembly. He called the report “well-intentioned” but keeping interfaith families “at arm’s length.”

“Unless we as Conservative Jews can build a robust [Jewish legal] foundation for this change and believe it is the right and holy thing to do, our so-called engagement rings hollow,” he wrote. “We risk turning sacred unions into problems to be managed, rather than gifts to be celebrated. … The future of Judaism in America does not reside in drawing smaller circles, but in opening the tent — and doing so with confidence, integrity, and love.”

Amen, Rabbi.

Sincerely,

Alan Feiler, Editor-in-Chief