Definitions of Jewish identity are at the heart of the battle over J Street’s conference. The haters of J Street fear a universalist Jewish identity that won’t ask first, Is it good for the Jews? In an interview with Jeremy Ben-Ami, Jeffrey Goldberg, the most important Jewish journalist in America, alas, notwithstanding the rise of Roger Cohen, brings up the intermarriage issue, and the two get "seriously diverted," Goldberg says. And why? Because Goldberg is upset about intermarriage. Emphasis below mine. Ben-Ami is granting this interview for the same reason that Barack Obama granted Goldberg an interview, and Netanyahu, and Tarantino too: because Goldberg is the royal road to the Jewish unconscious:
JG: Let me ask you something about something that you said to James Traub in The New York Times Magazine. You said that all of the people who work for you are intermarried and I was wondering —
JB: No, I never said that. I asked The Times for a retraction but they wouldn’t give it. I never said that. What I said is that the young generation of Jews is a different generation, and all that. No one is intermarried in my office! No one on my staff is intermarried.
JG: So it’s an inaccurate quote.
JB: An inaccurate quotation. Our staff is not intermarried. Not that that’s a bad thing. There’s nothing wrong with being intermarried.
JG: This is getting Seinfeldian here.
JB: There’s nothing wrong with intermarriage. What’s wrong with intermarriage?
JG: We’re a small people–
JB: Right, but you know what I find? I find that most of my friends, and we’re talking mid-to-late forties at this point, most of my friends who intermarried, their spouses either converted, or they’re kids are being raised Jewish. What I find so fascinating about my intermarried friends is that they’re searching for welcoming Jewish communities. So let’s make ourselves a welcoming community.
JG: Look, I have that sadness of ‘Oh, why are you leaving?’ but I also recognize that you may as well just open up the door and say, "Come on in."
JB: The fastest answer to the shrinking Jewish population is to welcome in all of these spouses.
JG: It’s good for the gene pool, too.
JB: It’s incredibly good for the whole community. I think to put forward the notion that intermarriage is bad is exactly the kind of unwelcoming feeling that this community gives off to this generation.
JG: I don’t think it should be phrased as bad or good. I think that marrying someone Jewish should be considered a positive thing, and we should be able to say that we’d like you to marry Jewish people or marry someone who wants to be Jewish and join the Jewish community.
