Home

In a journey from vastly different Jewish communities in Pittsburgh and St. Petersberg, Fla., to the pulpit, and to Highland Park Conservative Temple-Congregation Anshe Emeth this week, Rabbi Kerry Olitzky said every step prepared him for teaching Judaism to interfaith families and the unaffiliated.

Olitzky, director of the New York-based Jewish Outreach Institute (JOI) and author of more than 70 books, spoke on his career path and the challenge of intermarriage in the Jewish community at HPCT-CAE on Monday.

At age 8, Olitzky moved from the heavily Jewish borough of Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh to St. Petersberg, where he was one of two Jewish students in a high school class of 1,000. The "Florida wilderness" taught Olitzky how to empathize with those who feel left out, and attending a racially segregated high school forced him to write about the value of more inclusive cultures, he said.

Roles as a pulpit rabbi in West Hartford, Conn., a faculty member a Hebrew Union College, and a vice president at the Wexner Heritage Foundation adult Jewish learning program gave Olitzky more preparation for his current role, in addition to an ironic twist after he joined JOI -- both of his daughters-in-law were raised in interfaith families.

'It all, in one way or another, got me to this particular place," Olitzky said.

While much of Olitzky's talk focused on his childhood and the motivation behind his writings, the audience of about 70 people was particularly interested in his views on intermarriage. There is virtually no Jewish family in North America that isn't impacted by the challenge of intermarriage, Olitzky said, making it the community's greatest contemporary challenge.

Olitzky said that Jews and their institutions should give interfaith couples a reason to enter the community due to the moral imperative of reaching out to strangers, and the demographic imperative of the Jewish population's declining growth rate. Asked how intermarriage can be curtailed when outreach might make it seem more acceptable, Olitzky responded that prevention isn't realistic anymore because the current average marrying age is 29, when adults are far removed from their home environments.

Intermarriage is about "marrying in," Olitzky said, not "marrying out." That's because intermarriage is a sign of American Jewish success, not failure, because Americans' desire to marry Jews shows how we are now fully American, he said.

The nanosecond parents have to react when meeting a child's non-Jewish partner goes a long way in determining if that interfaith couple will raise their family Jewish, Olitzky said. Therefore, the community needs to be welcoming because the end of Jewish continuity is when interfaith families stop raising Jewish children, not when interfaith couples marry, he said.

"I think that we have to move the conversation away from who you are marrying to how you are raising your children," Olitzky said.

To honor the Eastern European tradition of not counting your children, Olitzky said he tries not to count the number of books he has written.

"I just have stories to tell and things to do, and I just keep at it, and as long as I'm blessed with the ability to do so, I continue to do so," he said.

Olitzky said his goal as a writer is to act as a conduit, moving people from a large body of Jewish literature to their particular needs. He said he motivates himself by learning about things he doesn't know and becoming an expert in those areas, such as when he wrote "Sparks Beneath the Surface," about Hassidic commentaries on Torah, because Hassidic teachings were "anathema" when he studied for his ordination at Hebrew Union College.

Olitzky divided his writings into three areas: the rhythm of Jewish life, ritual, and Jewish renewal. Illustrating his concept of rhythm, Olitzky said that when somebody buys a secular calendar, its pages are practically empty, but a Jewish calendar is almost entirely filled up before anyone marks it up.

"I believe that it's very difficult for people on the outside, whether that outside is literal or figurative, to access Judaism and get in the rhythm of Jewish life," he said.

The goal of ritual is to make the abstract more concrete, and close the gap between the individual and God, Olitzky said. Giving one example of how his take on rituals differs from traditional views, Olitzky said most rabbis argue that there are specific principles of kashrut, but that he believes those principles are on a continuum -- meaning that removing pepperoni from Domino's pizza is actually a step in the right direction.

"It's a step toward, it's a step of where we are going," Olitzky said. "We are always on a journey, trying to find out what works for us, what works for our family," he added.

Jewish renewal, Olitzky said, is what it will take to renew Jewish communities and institutions through reaching out to the intermarried and unaffiliated.

After the lecture, Olitzky signed six of his books for attendees, including "Life's Daily Blessings," "Sacred Intentions," "Restful Reflections," "100 Blessings Every Day," "Jewish Paths Toward Healing and Wholeness," and "Jewish Ritual: A Brief Introduction for Christians." Since Olitzky lives in North Brunswick and is a member of HPCT-CAE, Rabbi Eliot Malomet, the synagogue's leader, joked that "we should get a commission and royalties" from his book sales.

"It's a special evening because it allows us to highlight one of our own," Malomet said.

Roxanne Croft, one of the many attendees who lined up for Olitzky's signature, said the lecture was personal for her because she didn't find out she was Jewish until age 40. Croft's mother died without telling her, but her great aunt revealed the family secret and Croft immediately embraced her new religious identity, sending her daughter to a Chabad Hebrew school and celebrating a bat mitzvah of her own six years ago at HPCT-CAE.

Croft noted Olitzky's courage in discussing intermarriage at HPCT-CAE, which she said has a mostly "Conservadox" membership, straddling the line between Conservative and Orthodox styles.

"He wasn't preaching to the choir here," Croft said.