Book Review: Marrying Out: Jewish Men, Intermarriage, and Fatherhood
Samira K. Mehta
Keren McGinity. Marrying Out: Jewish Men, Intermarriage, and Fatherhood. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014)

Throughout the monograph, McGinity tests and ultimately
refutes what she frames as many common stereotypes about intermarriage,
including the widely-held perceptions that Jewish men marry Christians at a
higher rate than Jewish women, that intermarriage leads to divorce, and the
cultural trope that Jewish men are “lured” away by the increased sex appeal
specifically of non-Jewish women Instead, she contrasts studies demonstrating
equivalent rates of intermarriage with the overwhelming popular culture depictions
of Jewish men and (blonde) Christian women and teases out statistics on intermarriage
and divorce.
Most importantly, however, she explores the relationship of
Jewish men to the topic of intermarriage and their own Jewish heritage. She points
to sex and sexual attraction as far more important elements than Judaism in the
dating patterns of Jewish men. Further, she argues that Jewish men often have a
contentious relationship to communal Jewish life for two key reasons: first, post-war Judaism has not adapted to the
changing needs of American men, and second, Jewish men are more likely than
women to break with organized Judaism over a single negative experience. She
points to fatherhood, more than marriage, as a moment that heightens the importance
of Jewish identity to intermarried men.
At the same time, her interviews with both intermarried men and women illustrate
that the men continue to perform less than half of the labor involved in
childrearing (including the fostering of Jewish identity) than do the
children’s “not-born” Jewish mothers. Other interesting dimensions of McGinity’s
work include treatments of intermarried Jewish men in popular culture and the
impact of divorce on Jewish men’s responsibility for childrearing generally and
the inculcation of Jewish identity in their children specifically.
Significantly, her conclusion addresses the similarities and differences
between the experiences of intermarried Jewish men and women, an important
contribution on how gender shapes the Jewish experience of intermarriage.
McGinity draws her sample from those who entered interfaith
marriages in the post-War years, focusing on two primary cohorts: those born
between 1922 and 1945 and those born between 1946 and 1964, using similar dates
for the women in her study. While delineating these cohorts demonstrates her
attention to differences in their generational experiences, her actual analysis
does not draw sharp distinctions between the two groups, nor does she
adequately address the dramatically different historical contexts of the eras
in which they married To that end, she at times situates the experiences of
those who married in the early 1960s alongside those who married in the early
2000s. Because the landscape of marriage more broadly changed dramatically over
those intervening decades, as did conversations about intermarriage, the lack
of clear analytic demarcation can make it hard for the reader to plot the
impact of key issues on her conclusions. For example, the rise of second-wave
feminism, the increase of dual-career households, and the dramatic increase of
intermarriage (and resulting shifts in communal responses to those changes) individually
and collectively impact the ways in which these couples navigate their
relationships, their families, and their perceived place within communal life.
McGinity is aware of these cultural forces and notes them at various points in
her analysis; however, the import and force of these significant changes are
sometimes lost in an argument that does not overtly engage changes in Jewish
articulations of identity, American gender dynamics, or changing rates of
interfaith marriage over the course of the approximately fifty years of
marriage she describes. Overall, however, McGinity’s characterization of Jewish
men and their behavior provides a valuable intervention into an ongoing
conversation in both Jewish Studies and Jewish communities about the formation
of interfaith families, while also addressing the question of who bears the
responsibility for nurturing Jewish identity within these family units.
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