A FATHER'S PLEA AGAINST INTERMARRIAGE

A Jewish father's plea (JPost)
Dear Sean, I know this might sound strange coming from a father who's far from an observant Jew, but now that you're dating, there's something I need you to understand.

The single most important decision you'll ever make in life will not be about your education or career but about whom you'll marry.

Because who your wife is will determine, more than anything else in your adult life, the person you become, the family you'll raise, what you'll leave on earth when it will be time to go.

I know the end of life isn't something you probably give much thought to. Not many of us do, at least not until we became sick or old enough to see it hovering on the horizon. But a final day does arrive, sooner or later, for each of us. And when it comes, very few of the things we thought made such a big difference will seem to matter at all anymore. And other things we never gave much thought to will suddenly be very important. We'll want to look back at our lives and feel that, in those areas, we pretty much did the right thing.

Sean, the right thing for a Jewish person is to marry another Jew.

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NEW STUDY: INTERMARRIAGE LEADS TO FEWER KIDS RAISED AS JEWS

Latest salvo in intermarriage debate suggests a split in Jewish community
By Sue Fishkoff
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 6 (JTA) -- Steven M. Cohen, a prominent Jewish sociologist, has fired the latest salvo in what is becoming an increasingly vituperative debate about outreach to the intermarried.

In his newest paper, "A Tale of Two Jewries: The `Inconvenient Truth' for American Jews," Cohen uses his own research and data from the 2001 National Jewish Population Study to argue that inmarried and intermarried Jews form two distinct halves of the Jewish community. And the Jewish future, he argues, rests with the inmarried, who are more Jewishly engaged and much more likely to raise their children as Jews.

Jewish leaders better face up to this, even if it's unpleasant, Cohen told JTA.