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Last Wednesday over 40 students went to hear Doron Kornbluth, author of Why Marry Jewish, give a slightly altered talk about the importance of dating Jewish or slightly anyone from your own faith.
He started off his talk by saying that these were his ideas, and it was not a judgment on anyone and their background.
He also clarified the fact that interrdating or intermarriage refers only to a relationship where one of the partners did not convert religions.
His messages were all intertwined and quite simple. People should marry people of their same faith because it will be better for the marriage in terms of increased happiness and bonding and that it is better for the children. He said that people come up to me after each talk to tell me how hard it was to be raised "both."
The main example he gave was from the previous night at CU-Boulder where a person had been raised in a home with a Protestant and a Catholic said, "it just didn't work."
But the main focus of the talk was why dating your faith leads to marrying someone in your faith.
Kornbluth cited the fact that it is a known pattern for people's religiosity is to start relatively high in childhood, drop down during high school, college and through the low twenties and increase again in their thirties.
"The problem is that we are making the decisions in the wrong time of our lives," said Kornbluth. Dating someone in your own faith sets-up a pattern of dating that leads people to marry within their faith.
Kornbluth said while dating people can be fine, it is hard to determine the line between serious and not serious.
"So, I am 24 and not serious; now I am 25, I am serious and I want to get married. It doesn't work," said Kornbluth.
He asked the crowd for pros and cons for dating outside their faith. The pros discussed were more diverse group available, getting to know different people and experiences. To this, he responded he was the only identifiable Jew at a Catholic school and he got all the experiences and made wonderful and lasting friends without dating anyone. Friendships, he says, usually take on a similar role.
The cons involved in interdating were the mixed feelings or unequal feelings in the relationships.
He put this question to the audience: how would it feel to date someone and for them to say, 'Well, we can date, but I will never marry you.'
Kornbluth was born in Montreal, and moved to Israel in 1991. He has given this lecture to over 20,000 college students around the country.
Kornbluth was brought to DU by Chabad of South Denver. He also spoke at CU-Boulder and CSU.
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