From Generation to Generation: A Story of Intermarriage and Jewish Continuity

In this spirited memoir, Larkin, a columnist for he Jewish Daily Forward, presents a personal challenge to the idea that intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews spells doom for the Jewish people. Through the example of her own family and others where the children are raised as Jews, and with her citations of recent demographic and ancestry studies on the Jewish population, Larkin demonstrates convincingly that the key to continuity, intermarried or not, is active engagement with Jewish tradition. By contrast, inmarried families where engagement is low and Judaism is taken for granted often fare worse in transmitting Judaism’s core values. Beyond describing a model for other interfaith families, the book includes a call for greater welcome and outreach to intermarried families, and for abandoning the notion that a relatively high level of intermarriage—a natural consequence of living in an open society—should be seen as either a symptom of, or the reason for, modern Judaism’s “failure.” Engaging, bloglike, and conversational, the book unfortunately has gratuitous detail and grammatical errors that good editing could have eliminated. Yet Larkin’s disarming informality should not be mistaken for lack of substance. She is clearly an important voice in the current discussion of intermarriage and Jewish continuity. (BookLife)