{"id":1781267,"date":"2014-01-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.donate.jta.org\/2014\/01\/29\/default\/accepting-environment"},"modified":"2014-01-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T05:00:00","slug":"accepting-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/01\/29\/ny\/accepting-environment","title":{"rendered":"Accepting Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\tRabbi Rick Jacobs preaches that the Jewish people should not discourage interfaith marriage and should, in fact, view it as a positive, as a natural development of our having been accepted into an open-minded free society (\u201c\u2019Being Against Intermarriage Is Like Being Against Gravity,\u2019\u201d Jan. 17).<\/p>\n<p><!--break--><\/p>\n<p>\n\tI would like to first refer Rabbi Jacobs to a tried and true example of what that kind of philosophy can produce \u2014 Germany as a case in point. During Germany\u2019s enlightenment period, from around the 1850s to the outbreak of World War I, Jews were treated better, and became more accepted, than they had ever been before. It resulted in their assimilation and intermarriage. Within a few generations many Jewish families no longer identified as Jews. Of course, the Jews\u2019 abandonment of their religion two generations before Hitler did not stop him from marking them as Jews for extermination.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe Jewish community should be devoting every last drop of its energy and resources to work against the trend of intermarriage. It should be providing forums for young Jews of all denominations and backgrounds to meet and marry. It should be providing free or subsidized Jewish education, especially to those in the less observant and non-observant communities, so our youth will grow up with a Jewish identity. And we, as parents, should be discouraging intermarriage from our children\u2019s earliest age, and working to reinforce their Jewish identity.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p><html><div id=\"lightbox-inline-form-9fad5317-cc1f-4c75-869d-4249b53b851a\"><\/div>\r\n<div id=\"lightbox-inline-form-8eaf9ca1-0df5-46d3-b00e-5af82833377d\"><\/div>\r\n<div id=\"lightbox-inline-form-f7e91d8e-6381-4dc6-b7d7-09a05defdd2e\"><\/div>\r\n <div id=\"lightbox-inline-form-7ffa4c37-60be-4536-a0e6-68b4ac1c2d24\" style=\"text-align: center\"><\/div><\/html>\n<p>\n\tIntermarriage is a difficult trend to buck, but it is by no stretch of the imagination \u201clike being against gravity.\u201d That kind of attitude will certainly eliminate most of the Jewish population over time, so that all that will remain will be the Orthodox.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<em>Manhattan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rabbi Rick Jacobs preaches that the Jewish people should not discourage interfaith marriage and should, in fact, view it as a positive, as a natural development of our having been accepted into an open-minded free society (\u201c\u2019Being Against Intermarriage Is Like Being Against Gravity,\u2019\u201d Jan. 17). I would like to first refer Rabbi Jacobs to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"publish","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42362],"tags":[43133],"coauthors":[45391],"class_list":["post-1781267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ny","tag-nyjw-opinion","article_type-oped"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Accepting Environment - Jewish Telegraphic Agency<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/01\/29\/ny\/accepting-environment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Accepting Environment - Jewish Telegraphic Agency\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rabbi Rick Jacobs preaches that the Jewish people should not discourage interfaith marriage and should, in fact, view it as a positive, as a natural development of our having been accepted into an open-minded free society (\u201c\u2019Being Against Intermarriage Is Like Being Against Gravity,\u2019\u201d Jan. 17). I would like to first refer Rabbi Jacobs to [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/01\/29\/ny\/accepting-environment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jewish Telegraphic Agency\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-01-29T05:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/jta-long-logo-bw.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"315\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Firestone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Robert Firestone\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/01\/29\/ny\/accepting-environment#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/01\/29\/ny\/accepting-environment\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Staff\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/#\/schema\/person\/6f79cc7b4fd16710f26940aa1d7391e6\"},\"headline\":\"Accepting Environment\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-01-29T05:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-01-29T05:00:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/01\/29\/ny\/accepting-environment\"},\"wordCount\":282,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"NYJW Opinion\"],\"articleSection\":[\"New York\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"copyrightYear\":\"2014\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/01\/29\/ny\/accepting-environment\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/01\/29\/ny\/accepting-environment\",\"name\":\"Accepting Environment - Jewish Telegraphic Agency\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-01-29T05:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-01-29T05:00:00+00:00\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/01\/29\/ny\/accepting-environment\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/\",\"name\":\"Jewish Telegraphic Agency\",\"description\":\"The Global Jewish News Source\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Organization\",\"NewsMediaOrganization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Jewish Telegraphic Agency\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/jta-long-logo-bw.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/jta-long-logo-bw.jpg\",\"width\":600,\"height\":315,\"caption\":\"Jewish Telegraphic Agency\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/#\/schema\/person\/6f79cc7b4fd16710f26940aa1d7391e6\",\"name\":\"Robert Firestone\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/author\/robert-firestone\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Accepting Environment - Jewish Telegraphic Agency","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/01\/29\/ny\/accepting-environment","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Accepting Environment - Jewish Telegraphic Agency","og_description":"Rabbi Rick Jacobs preaches that the Jewish people should not discourage interfaith marriage and should, in fact, view it as a positive, as a natural development of our having been accepted into an open-minded free society (\u201c\u2019Being Against Intermarriage Is Like Being Against Gravity,\u2019\u201d Jan. 17). 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