From time to time, I take a look at how "being both" interfaith families are being viewed by Jewish institutions. My point is that multiple religious practice is a statistically significant phenomenon in interfaith families that cannot be ignored or marginalized. And the statistics make the point for me, year after year.
Every year, a few new Jewish community studies come out, with demographics on Jewish families from particular cities or geographic regions. Most of the studies are done by the same research groups, and archived together in the Berman Jewish DataBank. These studies are funded primarily by local Jewish organization, in order to understand the communities they are serving. For an analysis of how the funding and the questions being asked skew the data, read my previous post on this topic.
Counting the Jammers
The good news is that there has been a slow evolution over time in these studies, towards recognizing that families and individuals are choosing more than one religion. For instance, recent studies have surveyed adults that researchers are now calling Jews of multiple religions (JMRs). JMRs identify as both Jewish and another religion. In my mind, and in my talks, I've started calling this group "Jammers." (And then immediately, I start humming " and I hope you like jamming too "). The researchers who conduct these Jewish community studies now count JMRs as Jews, in addition to those who are "Jewish by religion" (JBRs) and "Jews of no religions" (JNRs), otherwise known as cultural or secular Jews.
This spring, a new community study of the Ann Arbor metropolitan area (Washtenaw County, Michigan) came out from the Brandeis University research group. They found that, of adult Jews in the Washtenaw study, 9% identified as Jews of multiple religions (JMRs). That's an estimated 1500 people-a small but significant number.
And a whopping 23% of all Jewish children is the Ann Arbor study were being raised with two religions (1000 children). Of Jews in interfaith marriages, 42% are raising children only Jewish, and 39% are raising them with Judaism and a second religion. As the pie chart makes clear, in Ann Arbor area interfaith families, raising children with two religions (most likely, both family religions) is almost as popular as raising them with Judaism alone.
We're Here
Below, I selected a number of the community studies released in the past five years. This table demonstrates some of the locations where more families are choosing two religions over just Jewish (Louisville, Toronto, Twin Cities), or almost as many are choosing both religions (Ann Arbor, western Massachusetts).
Yes, for this table I did cherry-pick the recent studies with a high percentages of "doing both" families. But the point I am making is that in many geographic locations, choosing both is a common and very significant choice. And religious institutions have yet to acknowledge, or try to understand, or engage with, this choice. Nevertheless, we're here.
Berman Jewish DataBank & Brandeis University
Journalist Susan Katz Miller is an interfaith families speaker, consultant, coach, educator and activist. She's the author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019).
