Basic HTML Version
88
JEWISH BOOK ANNUAL
SCIENTIFIC STUDIES
Mayer is perhaps the best-known Jewish sociologist who has
studied intermarriage and conversion. His statistical findings
are widely noted. The American Jewish Committee has pub
lished a number of his important studies on the subject. These
include, among many others, a pamphlet co-written with Amy
Avgar titled
Conversion Among the Intermarried: Choosing to Become
Jewish
(1987) and
Children of Intermarriage: A Study in Patterns
of Identification and Family Life
(1983). Mayer has also edited two
important books:
Jewish Intermarriage, Conversion, and Outreach
(New York: The Center for Jewish Studies, 1990), and
The Im
peratives ofJewish Outreach: Responding to Intermarriage in the 1990s
and Beyond
(New York: Jewish Outreach Institute/Center for
Jewish Studies, 1991). Both books contain important contem
porary articles. Although some of the articles are less scholarly
than others, the unevenness is overridden by the clarity of most
of the writing.
Susan Weidman Schneider, editor of
Lilith,
provides very solid
advice for those in an intermarriage. Her book,
Intermarriage:
The Challenge o f Living With Differences Between Christians and Jews
(New York: Free Press, 1989) is particularly useful in dealing
with practical emotional and family problems, and the chapter
on conversion is characteristically sensitive.
There are other books on intermarriage which briefly discuss
conversion but which are less important from a Jewish perspec
tive. They include: Lee F. Gruzen’s
Raising your Jewish!Christian
Child
(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1987); Judy Petsonk’s and Jim
Remsen’s
The Intermarriage Handbook: A Guide fo r Jews and Chris
tians
(New York: Arbor House, 1988); Steven Carr Reuben’s
But How Will You Raise the Children?
(New York: Pocket Books,
1987); and Rabbi Roy A. Rosenberg’s, Father Peter Meehan’s,
and Rev. John Wade Payne’s
Happily Intermarried: Authoritative
Advice For a Joyous Jewish-Christian Marriage
(New York:
Macmillan, 1988).
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism has recently
come out with a series of important brief materials on the sub
ject. These include the excellent
Intermarriage: Our Grounds fo r
Concern
by Rabbi Alan Silverstein (1992), as well as
Interdating
—
Intermarriage: Intervention
by Edward Edelstein, and
Intermar
riage: What Can We Do? What Should We Do?
by United Syn