On The Issue Of Intermarriage Of The American Jewish In The Second Half Of The 20th Century

In the past, Jewish intermarriage was a taboo. However, from the second half of the 20th century, due to the openness of American society, American Jews were increasingly assimilated and mixed, and the mixed marriage between Jews and non-Jews became quite common. This paper starts with the situation of intermarriage families in order to explore the Jewish attitudes towards mixed marriage as well as effect and influence of intermarriage on Jews.The first part of this paper introduces the background of intermarriage, it mainly includes the requirements of Jewish marriage according to the Judaism classic"Torah"and"Talmud", in order to explain why mixed marriage in Jews is a taboo.The second part analyses the characteristics and reasons of American Jewish intermarriage based on the figures from National Jewish Population Survey of 1970,1990 and 2000 respectively. And then the conversion of the non-Jewish spouse and children's religious identity in the intermarriage families were analyzed. From the analysis, we found that Jewish intermarriage in the United States caused the loss of Jewish population and the weakness of Jewish identity, which may be a serious threat to the future of American Jews. In the final of this part, the stability of the intermarriage families was discussed according to the comparison of the divorce rate between intermarriage and in-married families.Part III and Part IV mainly explores the attitudes of American Jews towards intermarriage and the consequences and implications of it. Finally, what American Jews should do when they are facing the "silent holocaust" were mentioned from an objective perspective so that Jewish life can thrive in American society.Conclusions: The Jewish intermarriage in American not only has brought about unprecedented challenges, but also has brought opportunities that allow Jews to change themselves. American jewish may be entering a golden age if they can change the way they think, and act, about Jewish survival. If they refuse to change, if they accept the current demographic trends as intractable, then Jewish life in America may indeed be doomed. The challenge is to move the Jewish state of mind beyond its past obsession with victimization, pain, and point it in a new, more positive direction, capable of thriving in an open society.