by When Ava Friedmann and Michael Henein married, they used a tablecloth from Friedmann’s grandmother as a chuppah, or ritual canopy held over the couple at a Jewish wedding. Mr. Henein’s father, who is a Coptic Christian from Egypt, anointed them with holy oil.
That same intertwining of their cultural traditions has guided them for the past three months, as they talked about the war between Israel and Hamas. Both were horrified by the Hamas attack on October 7, but Henein instinctively worried about the Palestinian lives in Gaza that would be lost due to Israel’s military response. They decided to read identical news sources about the war to make sure they stayed on the same page.
“We needed to really listen to each other and share our perspectives, and make sure we were creating an environment that didn’t lead to conflict between the two of us,” Ms. Friedmann said.
Many American Jews have reconsidered how they feel about Israel and even their own Jewish identity since the Oct. 7 attack, in which Israeli officials say Hamas militants killed approximately 1,200 people. Israel’s retaliation, a bombing and invasion campaign, has killed more than 26,000 people, Palestinian officials say.
For Jews in interfaith couples, no matter what you believe about Israel, there is the added dimension of communicating with a partner who may not viscerally feel a connection to Israel or other Jews. Their non-Jewish partners sometimes have completely different feelings about the war and Israel, and even the most supportive spouses can have difficulty understanding their Jewish partners’ emotions.
Rates of Jewish intermarriage have increased in the United States. For decades, the trend has provoked anxiety among Jewish leaders in the United States, who fear it threatens the perpetuation of the Jewish people. A Pew Research study A study published in 2021 showed that in the United States, about 40 percent of Jews who married between 1980 and 1999 married non-Jewish partners. That number jumped to 61 percent between 2010 and 2020.
Those couples are in a unique position. Some partners among more than a dozen interfaith couples interviewed described facing new challenges around parenting and emotional distance in their relationships. Others said the issue of war had presented an obstacle, but ultimately brought them closer.
Jamie Smith, 48, who lives in Washington, D.C., has noticed how differently she and her husband, raised by Lutheran parents, think about anti-Semitic threats since the war began.
Concerned for the safety of her four children, Mrs. Smith, who is Jewish, encouraged her teenage son to cut his curly hair so he would look less Jewish. (He refused.) And she wore a cross when she traveled with her children to Morocco and Turkey in December and early January.
“I definitely feel a heightened and acute sense of danger of what it means to be Jewish right now,” he said. “I’ve talked to my husband about it and I don’t think he understands.” Her husband declined to comment.
“Marriage can be quite difficult,” he added. “When you also add a difference in religion, that adds another level of difficulty. “I hadn’t experienced that until now.”
Some couples described a renewed sense of trust and closeness in their relationships, as Jews leaned on non-Jewish partners and both took leaps to try to see the conflict through each other’s eyes.
“There is an opportunity here to connect and deepen the relationship by having meaningful conversations,” said Denise Handlarski, a rabbi who counsels many married couples and also wrote the book “The AZ of Intermarriage.” “You can see your partner’s pain or desire to be understood and try to be supportive.”
In Chicago, Friedmann, 36, and Henein, 33, began talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the complications of intermarriage well before October 7. Friedmann had many moments since they began dating when she turned to Mr. Henein and asked, “How do you feel about marrying a Jew?” At first, her relatives had mixed feelings about the relationship.
When the war began, they were grateful to be so used to having these frank conversations.
“Everything is clear to us,” Henein said, “which has definitely helped us navigate not only the wedding and the wedding ceremony, but also these attacks and our cultural differences.”
One obstacle, some Jewish partners in interfaith couples said, is trying to communicate the importance of Israel and solidarity among Jews.
Before meeting her future husband, Lindsay Schwartz, 34, had little contact with Judaism and grew up in a Methodist home in eastern Georgia. But she understood from the beginning of their relationship how important the connection to faith was to Jake Schwartz, 35, whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors.
“It was something you read in a book,” Schwartz said. “You hear about it, but I never in my life thought it would be: I’m going to have children who are a direct lineage of people who survived atrocities.”
The Schwartzes, who live in Atlanta, visited Israel in March on a trip sponsored by Honeymoon Israel, a cluster which specializes in cross-country tours for interfaith couples.
Since October 7, the Schwartzes have stood together, they said, mourning Israeli victims and supporting the country’s right to defend itself. Ms. Schwartz said she was considering going to a Jewish school for her future children because she, she said, she and Jake had been surprised by what they saw as a lack of interest in the attack on Israel. and in anti-Semitism.
Kevan Link, 36, understood from the beginning of his relationship with Mindy Isser that pro-Palestinian activism would be part of their life together. Ms. Isser, 33, is a Jewish union organizer and is involved with the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace.
Link, who was raised Catholic, also understood that not raising his children Jewish would be “a deal breaker” for his wife.
They have hosted Passover Seders, celebrate Shabbat most Friday nights, and are raising their young son, whose first birthday fell on October 7, in the faith. Link sees his role as a supportive partner, whether as a single father when Isser was arrested at a ceasefire protest or stepping back when members of Isser’s family speak favorably of Israel.
Link said that until recently he had not fully understood what it meant to be a member of the Jewish community while also being highly critical of Israel. In December, he attended a memorial service for Isser’s father at his childhood conservative congregation, where enthusiastic support for Israel, manifested in prayers for the country and its military, was at odds with his beliefs.
Link said he was surprised to see a young woman in the synagogue wearing a hoodie in support of the Israeli army.
“I have told him many times that the Israel issue is so intense and that it is part of Judaism, at least Conservative Judaism,” Mrs. Isser said of her husband, adding: “he didn’t really understand it until he saw it. “
For other couples, the war has raised new questions about the prospect of raising children in multi-religious homes.
Max Freedman, 35, and Morgan McGuire, 38, married in October in Brooklyn.
Freedman had felt alienated from the traditionally pro-Israel Jewish community since before the war began, but during the war that feeling was amplified. He realized that he sympathized more with the priest at Ms. McGuire’s church, who expressed concern about the death toll in Gaza, than with some of the rabbis he knows.
Now she wonders what it will be like to guide future children through the complexities of Jewish identity.
“Because we are in this multi-faith relationship, it is up to me to bring Judaism,” Freedman said. “It’s hard for me to be excited about that right now.”
Libby Shani, 42, and her partner, Lindsay Shani, 40, who was raised Catholic, were scheduled to take a honeymoon trip to Israel in November, but it was postponed because of the war. Instead, Libby, who was born in Tel Aviv and moved to the United States when she was a toddler, visited Israel in January on a trip sponsored by the Jewish National Fund, a pro-Israel nonprofit.
What was supposed to be a shared experience ended up being a solo trip; Lindsay was concerned about safety and she did not share Libby’s sentiment that this was an urgent time to volunteer for Israeli society.
But Libby said she had also felt closer to Lindsay in recent months, because of the efforts Lindsay had made to support her, such as reading books about Israel.
“There’s a level of rawness and openness that we haven’t experienced yet,” Lindsay said. “Now we have done it because of this.”
