I grew up in a large suburban Conservative synagogue in the 1980s. It was there that I learned what it meant to be a Jew. I attended religious school three times a week, absorbing Jewish history, ritual, Hebrew, and values. I loved being Jewish - until I became a bar mitzvah.
Around that time, I realized that I was gay. I quickly thought that finding another Jewish man to marry may be impossible and that an interfaith relationship might be my future. Shortly thereafter, our synagogue’s education director told my peers and me that if we married outside the faith, there would be no place for us in the Jewish community. At 13, I felt faced with an impossible choice: Do I choose to be gay and leave Judaism, or reject who I am in order to remain Jewish?
I left Judaism behind, finding my way back several years later, but never to the Conservative movement.
That experience defines how I read the movement’s Joint Intermarriage Working Group’s report, released last month. The report, in my view, represents a meaningful and overdue evolution in tone within the Conservative/Masorti movement. Its public acknowledgment of harm, and its clear shift away from disapproval toward engagement, matters deeply to the many Conservative Jews like me and our loved ones who have long felt judged, sidelined, or pushed out.
What struck me most powerfully was not its nuance when it comes to halacha, or Jewish law, or its procedural recommendations, important as those are, but its pursuit of teshuvah: not abstract regret, but responsibility for repair.
Teshuvah requires courage. In Jewish tradition, teshuvah is not complete until harm is acknowledged and relationships are repaired. It demands honesty about harm and humility about impact. The report acknowledges that decades of categorical disapproval of interfaith relationships caused pain, alienation, and disconnection - and offers a public apology. That matters.
Psychoanalyst Judith Herman reminds us that apology without change is another form of injury. The working group seems to understand this. It calls for centering harmed voices, hosting community conversations, revising policies, and creating new rituals and curricula. These are not small steps. They are necessary ones.
Interfaith families tolerated, not yet embraced
And yet the report also reveals where the movement still hesitates.
Several pages after apologizing for decades of harm, the report recommends a curriculum that affirms endogamy as a “desirable goal,” even as it insists it is not the only path. For families who have lived for generations under the weight of being told their lives are “less than,” this language undermines the repair the report seeks.
The message remains that interfaith and multi-heritage families are suboptimal - tolerated, perhaps even welcomed, but never fully embraced (Conservative clergy still cannot officiate at an interfaith wedding). That message, however carefully worded, lands as judgment, not invitation.
Belonging does not work that way.
At 18Doors - a nonprofit dedicated to empowering multi-heritage individuals, couples and families and training the professionals who serve them - we work every day with clergy, educators and communal leaders to turn belonging from aspiration to practice. We center our work on the concept of belonging, understanding that it is not a “nice-to-have,” but is directly linked to positive health outcomes. Everyone seeks to belong somewhere and unfortunately, the former position of the Conservative/Masorti movement forced interfaith individuals, couples and families to leave either the movement or the Jewish community, to seek out belonging elsewhere.
The implications of this report, and the pursuit of belonging, extend beyond those in interfaith relationships and families.
In 2021, the Pew Research Center found that Jews with other marginalized identities - Jews of color, gay, lesbian, and bisexual Jews - are almost twice as likely to be in interfaith relationships as Jews without those identities. That means the stakes of this report are intersectional and widespread.
By “acknowledging and healing hurt,” the movement has set a new course toward belonging for not just interfaith couples. The work will be hard, but they are heading in the right direction. Having worked closely with Conservative rabbis and synagogues through 18Doors’ Rukin Rabbinic Fellowship and B’Yachad, I know the talented, trained and passionate Conservative rabbis, Jewish educators and lay leaders who will lead that change.
I am optimistic.
Behavior does not change simply because policy does. Culture shifts when leaders are trained, supported and held accountable. Families experience belonging not when statements are issued, but when their lives are consistently affirmed - at the bimah, in the classroom, in the lifecycle moment, and in the quiet pastoral conversation.
At 18Doors, we see this report as an invitation, not a conclusion. The next chapter must include clear implementation strategies, measurable outcomes, scalable education and coaching for clergy and couples, and philanthropic investment to sustain the work. Most importantly, it must center interfaith families not just as recipients of care, but as co-creators of the Jewish future. And our organization is here to support the movement as it turns its recommendations into reality.
The Conservative movement has taken an important step. Now comes the harder work of earning trust again through action.
Belonging is not declared. It is rebuilt and demonstrated, slowly, through consistency, humility, and courage. If the movement is willing to do that work, genuine repair is possible. I know this not only as a professional, but as someone who once walked away - and found his way back.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.