Resources

InterfaithFamily.com empowers people in interfaith relationships -- individuals, couples, families and their children -- to make Jewish choices, and encourages Jewish communities to welcome them. We believe that maximizing the number of interfaith families who find fulfillment in Jewish life and raise their children as Jews is essential to the future strength and vitality of the Jewish community. Through our website and other programs, we provide useful educational information and resources, connect interfaith families to each other and to local Jewish communities, and advocate for inclusive attitudes, policies and practices.

InterfaithFamily.com is the online resource for interfaith families exploring Jewish life and the grass-roots advocate for more welcoming Jewish communities. This resource is for everyone touched by interfaith relationships where one partner is Jewish, on every topic of interest to them, and for everyone who works with and cares about them.

Education. Connection. Advocacy.

Education

InterfaithFamily.com is the leading producer of Jewish resources and content, either online or in print, that reach out directly to interfaith families. We deliver helpful, non-judgmental information and a warm welcome that can be accessed privately, at any time convenient to the user. Prior to November 2007, when we started publishing content on a daily basis, we published nearly 200 issues of a bi-weekly web magazine. Our content is organized by topics of interest to people in interfaith relationships, with more than 1,900 articles. We also offer downloadable Resource Guides to Jewish holidays and life-cycle ceremonies, tips, blogs (including our Wedding Blog), and other resources. InterfaithFamily.com also produced the first-of-its-kind anthology, The Guide to Jewish Interfaith Family Life: An InterfaithFamily.com Handbook (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2001), to offer much-needed resources for interfaith families seeking to explore Jewish life.

Connection

InterfaithFamily.com makes connections among people in interfaith relationships, and between them and local Jewish organizations, professionals, and events, in a variety of ways. Our Network facilitates connections with other Members, with Groups, with Organizations, with Professionals, and with Events. As of July 2009 our Network has over 620 organizations in local Jewish communities throughout North America that welcome the participation of interfaith families. Our online discussions allow readers to support and inform each other by sharing their experiences. Our Jewish Clergy Officiation Referral Service is a free, high-quality service that as of July 2009 is helping more than 100 interfaith couples a month find a rabbi or cantor to officiate or co-officiate at their weddings.

Advocacy

InterfaithFamily.com advocates for attitudes, policies and practices that Jewish organizations and leaders can use to engage and include interfaith families within Jewish communities. We conduct surveys, speak and write in favor of outreach, provide resources for rabbis and cantors through our Resource Center for Jewish Clergy, and provide resources for outreach professionals through our Resource Center for Program Providers.

Contact: 617-581-6860, network@interfaithfamily.com

http://www.interfaithfamily.com

The Jewish Outreach Institute honors Jewish values by promoting a more welcoming and inclusive North American Jewish community that embraces intermarried families and unengaged Jews, and encourages their increased participation in Jewish life.

The Jewish Outreach Institute (JOI) is an independent, national, trans-denominational organization reaching out to unaffiliated and intermarried families, and helping the organized Jewish community better welcome them in.

Since 1987, JOI has created innovative programs, conducted groundbreaking research, and served as a national training institution for Jewish communal professionals and volunteer leaders.

We have travelled from Maine to Miami, Vancouver to Van Nuys, and many communities in between to share our vision of a more meaningful, accessible, and inclusive Jewish community. JOI’s advocacy efforts include books, op-eds in both the Jewish and secular press, and public presentations and training seminars.

Goals:

1. To persuade the North American Jewish community that welcoming intermarried families strengthens Jewish life and enriches the community.
2. To leverage JOI’s work by promoting a new methodology for outreach among Jewish communal professionals and lay leaders, focusing on bringing the Jewish community out to where people are.
3. To encourage Jewish life among the intermarried and unengaged.
4. To make the Jewish community more accessible through low barrier entry points to Jewish engagement.
5. To provide guidance and support for intermarried families.
6. To become the central address for innovative outreach programming.
7. To create a discipline of outreach through the training, education, and networking of inclusive Jewish communal professionals and lay leaders.
8. To improve outreach programs and methodology.
9. To identify, conduct, and bring to the communal agenda research on important statistics, data, and sociological issues pertaining to intermarriage and disaffiliation.

Contact: (212) 760-1440, info@joi.org

http://joi.org/

Clal - The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership is committed to bringing Jewish wisdom to the American spiritual landscape. Bringing Jewish insight to a broad audience, Clal helps people on their own spiritual journeys, as it builds communities deeply engaged in the intellectual and ethical questions of the wider world.

Clal is the Hebrew word for Inclusive. Founded in 1974, Clal-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership is a leadership training institute, think tank and resource center. A leader of religious pluralism, Clal links Jewish wisdom with innovative scholarship to deepen civic and spiritual participation in American life. Clal's faculty, with its reputation for excellence, provides cutting-edge teaching, programs, lectures, seminars, and consulting nationwide. Working with religious leaders, professionals, scholars, and opinion makers, Clal has earned a reputation for compelling programs embodying the principles of openness and diversity, while offering new perspectives on contemporary challenges.

Contact: 212.779.3300, info@clal.org

http://www.clal.org