March 30, 2026

Whereas communal realities and attitudes toward intermarriage vary considerably within the United States and even more so when comparing American Jewish communities to the Jewish communities of Rabbinical Assembly members living in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay; and

Whereas in public settings, members of the Rabbinical Assembly are communal leaders entrusted with setting, modeling, and upholding communal standards in all domains of Jewish life – including marriage – and not value-neutral facilitators of others’ informed individual autonomy; and

Whereas human dignity, rooted in B’tzelem Elohim, requires respect for individuals’ right to make personal decisions, while also affirming the right – and at times the rabbinic obligation – to refrain from ritual affirmation or public blessing of those decisions; and

Whereas gratitude is due to those who have spent countless hours finding ways to support Jewish life in families with a non-Jewish partner; and

Whereas from the Torah through today, for reasons of both halakhah and aggadah, Jewish texts warn against,1 condemn,2 and prohibit3 marriages between a Jew and a non-Jew, while celebrating endogamy, as the prescribed Jewish marital pathway;4 and

Whereas even as the legal situation around intermarriage could be complex, there has always existed “a rabbinic belief (a priori assumption) that intermarriage should have been highly transgressive and clearly, consistently and effectively prohibited,”5 and

Whereas the Rabbinical Assembly’s Code of Professional Conduct (2024) states “Clergy of the Conservative/Masorti Movement may officiate at weddings only if both parties are Jewish. Officiation means signing documents or verbal participation of any kind,” and change from this standard that includes any public participation, especially of a ritual nature, in an intermarriage will be perceived by many Jews and non-Jews alike as endorsing that which our faith has forbidden for millennia;

Whereas the maintenance of clear communal boundaries strengthens the Jewish commitment of many Conservative/Masorti Jews, even as certain past approaches to intermarriage have led some individuals to disengage from Conservative/Masorti Judaism; and

Whereas the integrity of our rabbinate and the seriousness our mission depend upon maintaining clarity, trust, and rigor in matters of Jewish status, commitment, and conversion; and

Whereas halakhah, to which our movement is committed, is both normative and aspirational, even as it develops across time and space; 

Therefore be it resolved that the Rabbinical Assembly reaffirms Jewish endogamy as a value in the lives of Conservative/Masorti Jews; and

Be it further resolved that the Rabbinical Assembly reaffirms conversion to Judaism as the normative covenantal pathway for non-Jewish partners who seek full participation in Jewish marriage and communal life, and affirms that converts must be welcomed as full and complete Jews, while also maintaining the seriousness, accessibility, and rigor of the conversion process; and

Be it further resolved that the Rabbinical Assembly affirms the inherent dignity of non-Jewish partners and family members, created in the image of God, and recognizes that such individuals can and do play meaningful, constructive, and supportive roles in the creation and sustenance of Jewish homes and Jewish lives; and

Be it further resolved that the Rabbinical Assembly encourages Jewish home-building, irrespective of constituent individuals’ Jewish status, emphasizing inspiration, education, and aspiration rather than shame or coercion.

[1] (Gen 24:2-4; Ex 34:16; Deut 7:3-4)

[2] (Mal 2:11; Ezra 9-10; Neh 13:23-27)

[3] (mKiddushin 3:12; mYevamot 8:3; bAZ 36b; bYevamot 23a, 44b, 76b; bKiddushin 68b; Sifrei Devarim 7:3-4; MT Issurei Bi’ah 12:1-2; SA YD 112; The Observant Life pg. 263)

[4] (bKid 29b; GenR 17:2; GenR 68:4; PR 15:32; Ruth Zuta 4:11)

[5] Clenman, Laliv. “Is She Forbidden or Permitted” (bSanhedrin 82a): A Legal Study of Intermarriage in Classical Jewish Sources. Doctoral Thesis. 2009. pg 304. Available at https://share.google/Qoyqv8zp2hjSmk6Am

Comments

Submitted by Jfine1126 on Wed, 03/04/2026 - 15:22

I support this

Submitted by jskl257 on Wed, 03/04/2026 - 15:54

As a past CJLS member and a rabbi working with in-married and intermarried individuals and families, I support this,resolution categorically.

Submitted by sablustin on Wed, 03/04/2026 - 16:09

While this is worded as thoughtfully as I think one can word something like this, I don't see the point. In a time when many of our families are already feeling alienated from our Conservative communities because of their choice of who to marry (and don't care about our opinions on it in any way), what does putting another resolution out like this achieve? You've got countless t'shuvot, and not mention a strong standard. While it might change at some point in the future, it's quite clear to the world where our current position is. Why push people further away with unnecessary statements that don't actually add to the conversation in any meaningful way?

Submitted by David Baum on Wed, 03/04/2026 - 16:34

I want to explain why I support this resolution. It recognizes an important shift in our communal reality. For most of Jewish history, endogamy was assumed; today it is no longer a given. If we believe Jewish endogamy is a value within Conservative/Masorti Judaism, then it must be articulated explicitly and taught intentionally. Considering that the movement's interfaith working group's statement mentions the word only three times total, I think this statement is a fair counterbalance.

Submitted by dfine on Wed, 03/04/2026 - 16:55

The phrase in the Whereas section: "Jewish texts warn against,1 condemn,2 and prohibit3 marriages between a Jew and a non-Jew" is too strong and works against so much of the hard work we have done in keruv. The statement is surely correct, but the harshness of tone is unhelpful and perhaps harmful.

Submitted by andelman on Thu, 03/05/2026 - 14:49

The whereas clause with footnote 5 also seems very harsh as well as unnecessary given the rest of the resolution.

Submitted by rabnorth on Thu, 03/05/2026 - 10:42

Is there a way of supporting and encouraging Jews creating Jewish families without language which is so one-sided bordering on condemnatory? (see the comment above "too strong").

Submitted by misafra on Wed, 03/11/2026 - 12:56

I could imagine a resolution to support the Standard of Rabbinic Practice (although it sounds like passing a law to uphold the law), but this resolution as worded comes off as invalidating other keruv work we do every day. For those who feel welcome in their Conservative synagogues, let us pass a resolution explaining how the Rabbinical assembly actually condemns your life choices. I don't see how that makes us stronger.

Submitted by alexgmfriedman on Thu, 03/05/2026 - 10:47

I'm not sure what this accomplishes. Is it to counterbalance the working group statement? I'm not sure doing public statements in the other direction will do much good. Perhaps national orgs are actually not very helpful when it comes to such a deeply interpersonal issue like marriage. The teshuvot are there, the halakha is there, and the Rabbis are still the marei d'atra. If the real goal is as a rejoinder to the working group or as a note to the CJLS that they ought not attempt to codify intermarriage, what is the reason for doing such a thing in public, where it will only continue to hurt many of our members who are committed both as Jews and to their spouses and see no contradiction? Do we really believe someone will read this and say "ah yes, I was going to do that, but thank goodness the RA Resolution put me on the straight and narrow!"? I suppose my question for this is not "do I agree with what it says?" but "what is the goal it wants to accomplish and does it do so without overwhelming negative externalities?"

Submitted by misrael on Thu, 03/05/2026 - 11:06

I would suggest: REPLACE: Whereas from the Torah through today, for reasons of both halakhah and aggadah, Jewish texts warn against,1 condemn,2 and prohibit3 marriages between a Jew and a non-Jew, while celebrating endogamy, as the prescribed Jewish marital pathway;4 and WITH: Whereas Jewish text and tradition have consistently prescribed endogamous Jewish marriages and proscribed marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew; and This would state a fact without value-laden terms. In terms of questions re: the purpose of the resolution - while resolutions sometime do get publicity, they first and foremost are an internal document - an official statement of our values as an organization, meant to to guide the leadership of our RA and its members in our programming, publications, and public pronouncements.

Submitted by andelman on Thu, 03/05/2026 - 14:50

Can you explain why so many countries are listed out in the first clause, and why these specific countries? It seems confusing and distracting, especially in the very first clause of the resolution.

Submitted by andelman on Thu, 03/05/2026 - 14:56

While I, like others above, question whether we need a resolution like this right now, I wanted to say that I think most of it is very well written, careful, thoughtful, and sensitive to a whole host of very fraught concerns. Not easy with a topic this controversial and emotional—so kol hakavod.

Submitted by RobertRubin on Thu, 03/05/2026 - 15:19

Many thoughtful comments on a sensitive issue. One text edit to suggest: "Whereas the integrity of our rabbinate and the seriousness our mission depend upon maintaining ..." - add a second "of" to make "Whereas the integrity of our rabbinate and the seriousness of our mission depend upon maintaining ...."

Submitted by scg822 on Sun, 03/08/2026 - 12:44

I support this. We should all vote yes.

Submitted by mikie.goldstein on Mon, 03/09/2026 - 04:26

It is important for Our RA to publicise its stance regarding its rabbis performing a marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew. Nevertheless, as some of our colleagues have asked, what does this resolution hope to achieve? A change in language, to be worded around love and not halakhic dictate, would have more chance of being understood as drawing halakhic lines while still be as inviting as possible.

I see this resolution affecting two main groups: 1) congregants who are planning on marrying a non-Jew, and their families, and 2) our colleagues. Yes, there will be congregants - yea, even members - who will be put off my any restrictive language, but that is always going to happen when you take a stance. If we can't make it clear that officiating in any way at a marriage ceremony between a Jew and a non-Jew is not an acceptable practice for our clergy, then this will also lead to members eventually leaving.

As an RA member who does not wish to perform a marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew, I do not wish to be pushed out of Our RA, as I have no other rabbinic or Jewish home. Our strength is not in numbers, nor in financial stability, but in our capability to continue interpreting Torah in a way that is meaningful for our generation. This does not mean throwing out halakhah just to make life easier - for that there is a Reform Movement. And it does not mean that we should hide behind older halakhic ruling instead of searching for a halakhic way forward - for that there is Orthodoxy.

Submitted by mjknopf on Wed, 03/11/2026 - 10:43

I write as a proud Conservative rabbi who loves this movement — and precisely because I love it, I write in respectful but earnest disagreement with what this resolution implies, and what it conspicuously omits. Several colleagues have asked what this resolution hopes to accomplish. I share that question, but I want to push it further. The deeper problem is not tone or timing. It is that a resolution reaffirming the ban on rabbinic officiation — even implicitly, by gesturing at the 2024 Code of Professional Conduct without reopening it — actively harms the Jewish families we are called to serve, and does so in the name of a strategy that the evidence has thoroughly discredited. There is much here I can affirm. Endogamy is a value. Conversion is a sacred and normative pathway. Non-Jewish partners and family members bear the full dignity of b'tzelem Elohim, and they can and do build beautiful Jewish homes. On all of this, I stand with the resolution fully. But I cannot stand with the resolution's implicit reaffirmation of the prohibition on officiation — and the movement deserves to hear why. On the halakhah: The biblical source most frequently cited for the intermarriage prohibition — Deuteronomy 7:3-4 — is concerned not with ethnic purity, but with theological fidelity: "they will turn your children away from Me." The prohibition, on its own terms, is rationale-driven. Where the rationale does not obtain — where a couple is building an exclusively Jewish household and raising Jewish children — the prohibition cannot be straightforwardly invoked. Our movement has long held both the authority and the responsibility to invoke hora'at sha'ah when circumstances demand it. I believe they demand it now. The resolution cites the complexity of the legal situation, but then declines to do the halakhic work that complexity requires. On the strategy: A growing body of research has reached a striking and consistent finding: intermarried couples officiated solely by a Jewish clergy member are measurably more Jewishly engaged than those who are not — more likely to raise Jewish children, more likely to affiliate with synagogues, more likely to maintain robust Jewish identity across generations. Our ban on officiation does not protect Jewish continuity. It undermines it. The strategy has failed on its own terms. The resolution calls for "inspiration, education, and aspiration rather than shame or coercion." I agree with those words. But a prohibition communicated to a couple at the most vulnerable and significant threshold of their lives is experienced as exactly that — shame. It tells a Jewish person that their love places them beyond the reach of their rabbi and their community at the very moment they most need both. I am not asking the Rabbinical Assembly to require its members to officiate intermarriages. I deeply respect colleagues who, for legitimate reasons, decline. I am asking the RA to trust its rabbis — as it does in virtually every other domain of halakhic and pastoral discernment — to exercise their own judgment about whether and under what conditions officiating advances Jewish flourishing. Our movement's genius has always been that we do not outsource rabbinic authority to blanket prohibitions when circumstances call for wisdom and discernment. The Jewish families we serve — Jews in love with partners from different backgrounds, parents whose children are intermarrying, non-Jewish spouses who are quietly falling in love with Jewish life — deserve more than a resolution that thanks them for their efforts while reaffirming their exclusion. They deserve rabbis empowered to meet them where they are. I urge the RA not to adopt this resolution in its current form, and instead to convene a serious, evidence-grounded halakhic conversation about whether the moment demands a new approach — not to the values the resolution affirms, but to the strategy it perpetuates.

Submitted by noah_arnow on Wed, 03/11/2026 - 12:13

My understanding, per https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/social-justice/resolutions/resolution-procedure (the RA's resolutions procedure), "The resolutions covered by this procedure are limited to matters of public policy and general good and welfare. Consistent with our Constitution, this procedure does not include resolutions related to RA governance or organizational policy." This resolution is deeply about RA governance and organizational policy, and thus should be ruled out of order, regardless of what we might think about the specific issues involved.

Submitted by jsacks on Wed, 03/11/2026 - 12:59

The Resolution says much with which most of us agree, and much of the resolution is so well-crafted and well-written. That said, in agreement with many comments, 1) The inference I draw from the first "Whereas" clause is that the Resolution applies only to those living in the United States. Based on the rest of the resolution, that does not seem to be the case. Another inference from the listing of so many countries is that there is no intermarriage in those countries at all or, that if there is, they do not occur in Masorti communities there. I am not sure what the point of, or what we gain, by comparing Jews and Jewish life in one country to Jews and Jewish life in another. Finally, a resolution celebrating endogamy might begin with something more positive than dumping on Jewish life in the United States. 2) With "Whereas" clause #5, I agree with colleagues who suggest this be removed altogether or rewritten. It does feel unduly harsh, which is not the tone of the rest of the resolution. The inference I take from this clause is that for all our public wordsmithing and efforts at keiruv, we still have not entirely divested ourselves of the harsh judgments of the past. 3) I agree with comments asking for the reasons for this resolution. What need, concern, or problem is this addressing? It is hard to imagine that this resolution arose merely because "communal realities and attitudes toward intermarriage vary considerably within the United States." Respectfully submitted.

Submitted by michaelgilboa on Sun, 03/15/2026 - 18:53

This resolution will do only two things. One, it will make some rabbis feel good that they reaffirmed what is already our policy. Two, it will generate a JTA article that will make life harder for those of us trying to engage with interfaith families. I know the first effect will be very pleasant to some of you, but it isn't worth the cost.