Opening the Gates

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The Jewish community is hysterical about Jews marrying non-Jews. With the exception of Israel, no other issue captures as much attention, discussion, and debate in Jewish life. Organizations are scrambling to solve this "crisis" but they are doomed to fail because there is no intermarriage crisis in the United States today. But we do have a problem: we have not yet formulated a set of beliefs, behaviors, and institutional structures that define what it means to be a Jew in a pluralistic society. Our challenge is to envision a community within the context of an America where ethnic and religious walls are permeable. Judaism must become attractive both to those who are born Jews, or they will choose to leave, and to those who were not born Jews, so that they will choose to join."— Gary Tobin In Opening the Gates, Gary Tobin challenges his fellow American Jews to avoid the process of entropy that could take a devastating toll in the Jewish community. "This should be our primary task, " Tobin passionately argues. Tobin confronts his community with the eye-opening reality that "in order to rebuild and revitalize Judaism in this country we must rethink our religion as something both born Jews and converts must actively choose and stop blaming intermarriage for Judaism's decline." He implores the Jewish community to shift its focus from preventing intermarriage to embracing an open, positive, accessible, and joyful process of encouraging non-Jews to become Jews. As Tobin bluntly puts it, "We must abandon the paradigm that our children and grandchildren may become Gentiles and promote the thought that America is filled with millions of potential Jews." Opening the Gates examinesthe role conversion should play in the Jewish future. It looks at the way the Jewish community currently handles issues of intermarriage and conversion and recommends strategies to incorporate conversion into a larger vision of building the next Jewish civilization. Tobin su