Livre d'Or

Yay, thank you, I'm glad it's about what you wanted when you suggested the topic.

You are right that rabbinical careers are not unique in being degraded compared to how they were historically. There is a partial difference from creative jobs in that smicha is a 5-year post-graduate qualification, that's really a lot of time and money to invest if you don't get a traditionally "professional" career at the end of it. Also the implications for the community are huge; I think it's pretty likely that the future is that we'll have to move away from the Christianized rabbi-as-pastor model.

I can imagine that a traditional British school would look shockingly Christian to someone brought up in the US with the strong prohibition against religion in public schools. My counter to that is that British life is pretty much default-Christian too. Everybody's year is structured around Christmas and Easter, everybody is swimming in Christian-influenced references. My experience is that being educated in the dominant culture has been pretty valuable to me. And going to school with people from various ethnic and national origins as well as a range of different religions was really valuable. It's definitely worth being part of a small minority of non-Christians if the alternative is that you never meet a Muslim, Hindu or anyone who has an atheist or non-religious identity.

My theory about the influence of Israeli attitudes to Jewish status is purely anecdotal. But whenever I've asked Prog people why they care so much about Ortho rules they always say "Israel", and whenever people talk about their fears around their kids having mixed social lives they say "intermarriage" and "Israel" too.

I think the thing about throwing out mixed couples is based on two faulty assumptions, really. One is that people will value the community enough that the threat of being excluded will be enough to influence their choice of partner. Which pretty much all of literature should show to be fallacious; nobody gives up the partner they're in love with to win the approval of their community! The other unintended consequence is that there's a bunch of people who never marry because they never find a suitable Jewish partner; those people don't exactly have more Jewish kids than the people in mixed relationships! The other is that intermarriage causes assimilation, which is easier to see where it comes from, but I'm pretty sure it's more the other way round.

More thoughts always welcome, thank you.