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To welcome interfaith couples, this Conservative synagogue hired a rabbi who’s allowed to wed them
(Jewish Journal of Greater Boston via JTA) — Sarah Freudenberger has spent a lot of time being told “no.”
A year and a half out of college, the “no” came from cantorial schools when she applied for ordination. Months later, when she got engaged, it came from the three rabbis she had worked with at a Reform synagogue in Florida, when she asked if they would officiate her wedding.
Both refusals were because – like 42% of married American Jews, according to a 2020 Pew study – Freudenberger’s spouse is not a Jew. Peter, her husband and the father of her three children, is Buddhist.
It took time to find a cantorial program that would allow her to get ordained with a non-Jewish spouse — just as it had taken time before she found a rabbi who would officiate at her interfaith wedding, which took place in 2010.
“It was such a gift to us,” she said. “Looking back, I didn’t realize how much it would have affected me personally, how much regret I would have felt, if I hadn’t had a rabbi at my wedding.”
She added, “I can’t untangle my personal experience from my officiant experience. It is the main reason why I know — firsthand — how much of a blessing it is to be able to do that for people.”
Now, Freudenberger says she is passing on this gift to other Jews like her by offering interfaith wedding officiation as the cantor of Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott, Massachusetts.
She can’t preside over the ceremonies inside Shirat Hayam’s building, because the congregation is part of the Conservative movement of Judaism, which bars its member communities from hosting interfaith wedding ceremonies. But because Freudenberger did not attend a Conservative seminary and is not part of its rabbinic association, she is free to officiate the weddings elsewhere.
The arrangement illuminates how a changing rabbinic marketplace is opening doors for interfaith families at Conservative synagogues, where the movement’s prohibitions around interfaith weddings have imposed barriers to welcoming intermarried couples.
“Intermarriage and the inclusion of intermarried couples and families are among the most important issues the Conservative-Masorti movement is addressing,” said Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Rabbinical Assembly, two leading organizations of the Conservative-Masorti movement. (Masorti is the name of the Conservative movement in Israel/outside of North America.)
“Conservative-Masorti rabbis who are members of the Rabbinical Assembly are not authorized to officiate at interfaith wedding ceremonies,” he said. “But rather than focusing on intermarriage as a ‘threat’ to Jewish survival – as we did in the mid-20th century – today we are instead exploring ways to engage all couples and families with a Jewish partner in the beauty and meaning of Jewish community and practice.”
In recent years, the movement’s standards on intermarriage have shifted. In 2017, Conservative institutions voted to allow non-Jews to become members of synagogues. The following year, it removed a ban on its rabbis attending interfaith weddings.
In 2020, the USCJ hired Keren McGinity as interfaith specialist; like Freudenberger, her spouse is not Jewish. She recently produced a handbook on interfaith inclusion that Blumenthal says is a vital step in shifting the status of interfaith families within the movement while holding firm on matters of traditional Jewish law, or halacha, which forbids Jews from marrying non-Jews.
Blumenthal said the movement has established a task force that will recommend further steps for welcoming intermarried couples. He said the task force, composed of clergy and lay leaders, will aim to “balance tradition and modernity within the framework of halacha.”
Shirat Hayam has been striving to find ways to include and welcome interfaith families in its community for years. In 2018, Rabbi Michael Ragozin founded an Interfaith Task Force to address an issue challenging many in the community at that time – non-Jewish spouses of Jewish congregants could not serve on the board of directors. Ultimately, the congregation voted to extend full membership privileges to non-Jewish spouses.
“A couple of generations back, intermarriage was a different phenomenon. Intermarriage may have been more likely to walk away from Jewish tradition, Jewish community, raising Jewish kids,” said Ragozin. He noted that today, the data says otherwise.
The 2020 Pew survey of American Jews found that Jews married to other Jews are far more likely than intermarried couples to say they are raising their minor children as “Jewish by religion.” But it also found that the adult children of intermarried couples are “increasingly likely” to identify as Jewish — and that two-thirds of intermarried couples today say they are raising their children with a Jewish identity.
As that data was emerging, long-standing patterns in rabbinic hiring were changing rapidly. In recent years, the number of people seeking to attend denominational seminaries, including the ones operated by the Conservative movement, has fallen sharply, creating a gap between the number of synagogues seeking rabbis and cantors and the number of applicants on the job market. Meanwhile, non-traditional, often low-residency programs have grown — including the Aleph Ordination Program where Freudenberger was ordained in 2022.
Aleph is affiliated with the Jewish Renewal movement but its graduates work in all kinds of synagogues. And when Freudenberger emerged as a leading candidate in Shirat Hayam’s cantor search, Ragozin saw an opportunity.
“The lightbulb went off in my head,” he said. “This is how we’re going to signal to the broader Jewish community that’s on the North Shore, that’s looking at Shirat Hayam for the North Shore – we’re going to signal to intermarried families that this is a place in which you belong.”
Before moving ahead with the plan – for a Renewal-ordained cantor to officiate interfaith weddings for the community – Shirat Hayam leaders checked in with the USCJ. The response they got was that that scenario would not require the synagogue to disaffiliate from the movement, as long as the service wasn’t held on the congregation’s property.
Blumenthal said the new task force is examining cases like Shirat Hayam’s, and putting together a report that will “help us frame important questions like the ones that are raised by the practice in Swampscott.”
During the interview process, the search committee asked Freudenberger if she would be willing to officiate interfaith weddings.
“That sent me a clear message that the synagogue was interested,” she said. “They not only wanted to allow it, but were interested in me doing them for the congregation.”
She was hired in 2021.
“We don’t want to be ‘backroom’ about it,” she said. “We want to be open about it, we want to tell people about it. We want to say ‘You’re welcome here, you’re welcome with us, we want you to be a part of our community.’”
Since her ordination, Freudenberger has officiated at four weddings – two between Jews, and two interfaith.
“People that are coming looking for a Jewish wedding want a Jewish wedding,” she said. “If their answer is no, what does that tell them about being Jewish? What does that tell them about being Jewish as a family?”
A version of this story originally appeared in the Jewish Journal of Greater Boston and is reprinted with permission.
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The post To welcome interfaith couples, this Conservative synagogue hired a rabbi who’s allowed to wed them appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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International Muaythai Federation Bans Israeli Representation at All Competitions
People stand next to flags on the day the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages, Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, are handed over under the terms of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
The International Federation of Muaythai Associations (IFMA) has banned all representation of Israel at its events and said Israeli athletes must compete under neutral status, following the alleged death of a Palestinian boy who was a member of the Palestinian national Muaythai team.
Ammar Mutaz Hamayel, 13, was allegedly shot in the back by an Israeli soldier near Ramallah in the West Bank, Palestinian media claimed. Soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were also accused of detaining Hamayel for two hours before handing him over to a Palestinian ambulance that took him to the hospital, where he was allegedly pronounced dead. Israel has not verified or commented on Hamayel’s death.
The IFMA published a tribute to Hamayel after his alleged death, saluting him as a “young warrior” and saying that “his passion for Muaythai was matched only by the warmth and kindness he shared with all who knew him.” In honor of Hamayel, the IFMA flew its flags at half-mast, its social media profiles went dark, and a moment of silence was held for him at the final of the Asian Championships on June 25. Stephan Fox, the general secretary of IFMA, posted his own tribute to Hameyel on social media.
“When a child, a youth peace ambassador, is killed, silence is no longer an option,” said IFMA President Dr. Sakchye Tapsuwan. “This is not just a tragedy – it is a call to action. We cannot stand by when the innocent pay the price of conflict,” he added. “Sport is meant to protect, empower, and unite – especially for the young. Ammar believed in that. We honor his memory not with silence, but with a stand for justice.”
The IFMA, which is the world governing body for the Thai martial arts and combat sport, published a policy report on July 18 announcing that effective immediately, Israeli national symbols – including the flag, anthem, and emblems – will be “strictly prohibited” at all IFMA-organized and IFMA-sanctioned events. Israeli athletes, team officials, coaches, and delegation members must participate under the status of Authorized Individual Neutrals (AIN), a designation also applied to individuals from Russia and Belarus. “They must not represent their country in any capacity,” according to the new policy. Also, no IFMA or IFMA-affiliated events will be hosted in or supported within Israel until further notice.
The new policy will remain in place until repealed or amended by the IFMA Executive Committee. “The policy reflects IFMA’s commitment to fair play, neutrality, and the protection of the values and integrity of sport in the current complex geopolitical landscape and recent developments,” the organization stated.
The IFMA added that the new policy will not impact the 2025 Youth World Championships in Abu Dhabi set for September. Israeli delegations may compete in the championships with Israeli representation but “all subsequent events will enforce the full neutrality conditions set forth in this policy.”
Muaythai originated hundreds of years ago in Thailand, a Southeast Asian country whose citizens have been constantly impacted by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. During the Hamas-led deadly massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, terrorists killed more than 40 Thais and kidnapped 31 Thai laborers, some of whom died in captivity, according to the Thai government. Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists abducted more than 250 people in total, including Israelis and foreign nationals.
In June, Israeli military forces retrieved the body of a Thai hostage, Nattapong Pinta, who had been held in Gaza since the attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Pinta was abducted alive from Kibbutz Nir Oz, and was killed during captivity. Last year, four Thai nationals were killed and one was injured in northern Israel by rockets fired from the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah.
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Most New York City Jewish Voters Oppose Mamdani but Are Divided Among Other Candidates, Poll Finds
Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
Most Jewish voters in New York City oppose Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, but he still enjoys a plurality of their support as their collective vote is too divided among other the other candidates in the race, according to new polling released by the New York Solidarity Network.
Jewish support in the upcoming New York City mayoral race is fractured among other candidates, with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (21 percent), incumbent Mayor Eric Adams (25 percent), and Republican challenger Curtis Sliwa (14 percent) all drawing significant backing.
The July survey of 800 registered Jewish voters found that just 37 percent said they would back Mamdani in a general election matchup. The fragmented opposition for the rest of the Jewish electorate underscores the challenge Mamdani’s critics face in consolidating around an alternative.
However, Jewish voters, who overwhelmingly identify as Democrats, are still breaking with the party’s nominee. Even among Democratic-leaning and progressive Jewish communities, many are turning away from Mamdani due to his record on Israel and antisemitism.
The sharpest divides emerge along religious lines, according to the poll. Orthodox Jews, both Hasidic and Modern, overwhelmingly reject Mamdani, with just 3 percent supporting him. They instead lean heavily toward Adams (61 percent) and to a lesser extent Cuomo (14 percent) and Sliwa (18 percent). Conservative Jews also favor Cuomo (35 percent) over Mamdani (31 percent). In contrast, Reform Jews and those without a denominational affiliation are more likely to support Mamdani, 54 percent and 48 percent, respectively.
At the core of the opposition is Mamdani’s stance on Israel. Two-thirds of respondents identified as “pro-Israel,” and over 70 percent described antisemitism in New York as a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem. Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada,” which 62 percent of surveyed voters described as antisemitic, has been particularly controversial.
The survey presented voters with a statement detailing Mamdani’s support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, his reluctance to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and his past efforts in the State Assembly to limit cooperation between Jewish-American and Israeli charities. After hearing this description, 66 percent of Jewish voters said it raised either “very serious” or “somewhat serious” concerns about his candidacy.
In fact, about half of all respondents (51 percent) said they believe Mamdani is antisemitic. Among his supporters, however, that number dropped sharply to just 3 percent, revealing a stark divide in perception.
While Mamdani does find support among younger, less observant Jews, the polling shows that Jewish concerns over safety and antisemitism remain potent political issues. Among voters aged 50 and older, more than 60 percent said they are concerned that Mamdani’s election would make the city less safe for Jews.
Mamdani, the 33‑year‑old state assemblymember and proud democratic socialist, defeated Cuomo and other candidates in a lopsided first‑round win in the city’s Democratic primary for mayor, notching approximately 43.5 percent of first‑choice votes compared to Cuomo’s 36.4 percent.
A little-known politician before this year’s primary campaign, Mamdani is an outspoken supporter of the BDS movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination.
Mamdani has also repeatedly refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, falsely suggesting the country does not offer “equal rights” for all its citizens, and promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York.
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Lithuanian Government Blasted for Plans to Convert Historic Jewish Cemetery Into Conference Center
Jevgenius Kevicius prays in front of the chapel of Vilna Gaon in a Jewish cemetery in Vilnius, Aug. 7, 2007. Photo: Reuters
The Lithuanian government has come under fire for its decision to move forward with construction on the historic Snipiskes (Piramónt) Jewish Cemetery in the country’s capital of Vilnius and to convert it into a conference center.
In 1971, when Lithuania was still part of the Soviet Union, the Soviets built the Vilnius Concert and Sports Palace on top of the Jewish cemetery after destroying the historic graveyard located in the neighborhood of Piromont, now known as Šnipiškės. The burial site dates back to the 15th century and was once the burial place for thousands of Lithuanian Jews, including revered rabbis, scholars, and community leaders, according to the Auschwitz Jewish Center Fourndation (AJCF). It is the oldest Jewish cemetery in Vilnius.
In 2004, the Sports Palace was closed and began to fall into disrepair. It has been vacant ever since and is often vandalized.
The Lithuanian government announced on July 28 that it will revive former plans, proposed more than a decade ago, to turn the now “unused and abandoned” concert and sports center into the Vilnius Congress Centre. “The territory of the former Vilnius Jewish Šnipiškės old cemetery located around the building will also be cleaned up and commemorated,” according to the announcement. The building also hosted the founding congress of the Lithuanian Reform Movement in October 1988 and a farewell ceremony for victims of Soviet violence in January 1991.
“When implementing the project, attention will be maintained both to the significance of this place for the history of Lithuania and to the memory of the events that marked it,” said since-resigned Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas. He announced his decision to step down as prime minister on Friday.
The goal of the new construction is to promote business and conference tourism to Lithuania, while also addressing the fact that country still does not have an A-class conference center, according to the government. It added that according to preliminary estimates from the Ministry of Economy and Innovation, the proposed Vilnius Congress Centre could generate up to €133 million annually and create up to 1,200 jobs in sectors ranging from tourism, logistics, and event organizing.
Proposals to convert the site into a convention venue started in 2015, but they have always been met with backlash from Jewish groups because of the historic Jewish cemetery located on the land.
The decision to convert the site into a convention center is a “painful betrayal of Lithuania’s own past commitments and a desecration to the interned deceased,” said Pinchas Goldschmidt, the former chief rabbi of Moscow and the current President of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER). The rabbinical alliance represents more than 700 religious leaders across Europe.
Goldschmidt noted in a statement that a special committee, established by the previous Lithuanian government in 2023, concluded that the site of the historic Jewish cemetery should not be developed further, and drafted proposals on how it should be commemorated with a memorial site within the Vilnius Concert and Sports Palace. “We now urge the current government to honor those conclusions, which were reached through serious consultation and international engagement,” he said.
“This is not a matter of politics, but of moral and historical responsibility. Thousands of Jewish graves lie beneath that site,” Goldschmidt added. “Turning it into a venue for entertainment and gatherings is a profound desecration to their dignity. We call on the Lithuanian authorities, particularly the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to reverse this decision and recommit to protecting Jewish heritage and faith, as they have previously pledged.”
Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, said the local Jewish community was not consulted regarding the construction and that it could cause disrespect to those buried at the site. “I fear this project will attract Jews from around the world – not for conferences, but to witness how a civilized democratic country desecrates Jewish graves,” Kukliansky told Lithuania’s LRT RADIO.
The American Jewish Committee expressed “shock at the Lithuanian government’s surprise announcement.”
“We urge the Lithuanian government to immediately reverse course,” the AJC said in a statement. The move “reverses an internationally endorsed decision of the previous government, which rightly committed to transforming the site into a place of Jewish remembrance and education. The Jewish group added that the “abrupt nature of this decision raises serious questions and casts a shadow over Lithuania’s stated commitment to Holocaust memory and Jewish heritage.”
“The decision by Lithuania to desecrate what is among the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Europe is a grave insult to the memory of the dead and to the conscience of the living,” said AJCF Chairman Simon Bergson. “Cemeteries are eternal places of rest, and this betrayal reverberates far beyond Lithuania. It undermines the universal promise to preserve Jewish memory and respect for the sanctity of the dead.”
“Lithuania once vowed to protect the Vilnius cemetery and honor it as a place of remembrance,” added AJCF Director General Jack Simony. “To renege on that promise now is a profound breach of trust — not only with the Jewish community but with all who believe in the integrity of Holocaust memory. This is not about stones and soil; it is about the eternal dignity of human beings whose remains lie there.”
“Vilnius must decide whether it will be remembered as a guardian of memory or as a force of its destruction,” added Simony. “We cannot allow silence to pave over sacred ground. This is not only a Jewish issue. It is a human issue. History is watching.”
The AJCF has urged the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to designate the Jewish cemetery as a protected heritage site under international law, and called on the European Union “to hold Lithuania accountable to its previous pledges and its responsibility to preserve cultural and historical memory.” The AJCF also called on the United States government, which has a statutory obligation to safeguard Jewish cemeteries abroad, to get involved and ensure the preservation of the Jewish site.
Vilnius Mayor Valdas Benkunskas criticized the government for not consulting with city officials before making the decision. He told LRT RADIO that the city was already making progress on developing an alternative site for a A-class conference center, near the parliament building.
“The government announced – without any discussion – that the space would become a conference center. We weren’t sitting idly by; we were moving ahead with our own plans. Learning about this from a press release was unexpected,” Benkunskas said. The mayor noted that Paluckas reassured him, early in his term as prime minister, that there would be no changes regarding the Vilnius Concert and Sports Palace on top of the old Jewish cemetery, and any moves regarding the building would include conversations with city officials.
Vice Minister of Economy Agila Barzdienė insisted that the government followed necessary protocol before announcing the construction plans, according to LRT. He said the site is already not being “treated as sacred or supervised.”
“It’s a central location that is now neither respected nor secured, it brings no benefit for the country. The ministry’s suggestion is to exploit conference tourism which is one of the most profitable and useful sectors for any city,” Barzdienė said. The minster added that the city’s plans to build a conference center at an alternate location are too costly and not something either the city or state can afford.