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June 2007
New Grant Funds to Provide Outreach and Programs for Interfaith Families
Before marrying, Jeff Zlot, who is Jewish, and his wife-to-be Connie, who is not, participated in a unique program which, he says, got the couple “involved in thinking about the issue of interfaith relationships and potential challenges when raising a family.” Today, with two sons and another child on the way, Zlot is so sold on the importance of the process that he headed a committee to raise $250,000 to provide programs for interfaith families, successfully matching a challenge grant from the Royce Philanthropic Fund to the Jewish Community Endowment Fund’s Interfaith Outreach Endowment Fund (IOEF). The Zlots were a part of a workshop sponsored by Interfaith Connection, a San Francisco-based program that provides a range of seminars for interfaith couples about issues faced by intermarried couples. It was founded in the mid-1980s by Rosanne Levitt, who today heads the committee that will determine how the funds raised will be allocated. Levitt cited a study that found a strong correlation between interfaith families in Boston who are raising their children as Jews and attendance at Jewish community-sponsored programs for them. The Boston Federation, she notes, commits nearly $300,000 in funding to such programs each year and as a result, 60 percent of intermarried families are raising their children in the Jewish tradition. In the greater Bay Area, where 53 percent of marriages are interfaith, only 47 percent are raising Jewish children. However, in the city of San Francisco, where Interfaith Connection has served as a central resource for programs, counseling and referrals, the 2004 Jewish Community Study found that, like Boston, 60 percent of interfaith families have chosen to raise Jewish children. For committee member Betty Schafer, the numbers made so much sense that she convinced her family foundation, the Boston-based Aaron Foundation, to grant $60,000 to IOEF. The funds are designated to create for the non-Jewish woman spouse a program that provides the nuts and bolts of Jewish life along with a support group. It will replicate a successful Boston program called Ikkarim. “Jewish continuity is very important to me,” says Schafer, who has two children who are intermarried. Programs like Interfaith Connection start the process, she believes, then once children arrive, “you give them tools to practice a Jewish life and introduce them to the possibility of pre-school at a Jewish Community Center, and it’s like dropping a pebble into a pool.” Jeff Zlot concurs that early childhood Jewish education programs are a key ingredient in developing Jewish families. “Not getting young families involved from the get-go is a missed opportunity. But, there are few spots available and it’s also expensive,” he says. Some 17 individuals and families, 10 foundations, and 15 philanthropic and restricted funds stepped up to match the original $250,000 Royce Fund grant. The next step is to distribute funds to programs that meet guidelines and priorities set by the IOEF committee after in-depth review of the Jewish Community Study overlaid with information about all interfaith programs currently in existence in the Bay Area. Among its first priorities are expanding the reach and content relevance of the e-newsletter, Bridges; replicating successful San Francisco-based Interfaith Connection programs in other regions; engaging in Interfaith Outreach on the Peninsula and Marin/Sonoma Counties; training synagogue rabbis, boards and employees to be welcoming to interfaith families; and developing programs specifically for interfaith parents raising Jewish children. Today, with $500,000 in grant money providing a base for funding, the outlook for interfaith programming is promising.
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