I'm Josh Cross and I'm Rabbi Diana Fersko. So what's on the document?

I'm Josh Cross and I'm Rabbi Diana Fersko. So what's on the docket for today?

Today I think is our most personal episode because we are talking about the issue of

interfaith marriage and interfaith families, something I've encountered

countless times in the past decade, decade and a half that I've been a rabbi.

Why do you say this is the most personal? Well it's something I've heard

so much about from congregants. I've heard from grandparents worried will my

grandchild be Jewish. I've heard from parents of people getting married very very

deeply upset that their child is marrying somebody non-Jewish and I've heard the

complete other side which is like a lot of anger and frustration

with rabbis who won't officiate interfaith marriages and a lot of confusion, I think, about how the reform movement welcomes interfaith families,

what our stances on interfaith marriage in general, and I think it's just a really sensitive but incredibly

like urgent topic for us to reckon with.

Now there's a running joke in my family that we have in intermarriage because my wife is Sephardi and that's

about as far as I get from here but I have not married a non-Jew and I assume you haven't

either and it's been very interesting to see how this conversation plays out.

Last time when we spoke about inclusivity, I felt like that was a pretty easy conversation

in a lot of ways. And not just easy for us but easy for

therefore movement like this is an obvious value there's not a lot of

controversy about it you know maybe we can talk on the edges about how we're

being inclusive but the bottom line is of course we are

inclusive it's the core of who we are it's the right thing to do it's it's obvious

...