The revelation this summer that the mother of the late Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor was Jewish—indeed, that his grandfather was a rabbi—is a reminder that throughout history men and women have (either by force or voluntarily) left Judaism. Cardinal O'Connor's mother turns out to have been among them. Conversion to Judaism has been much less common, meanwhile, in part because the tradition has often not done much to encourage it. That must change. Why? Because Judaism needs more Jews, and has a lot to offer them.
For decades Jews have been vexed by the question of intermarriage. According to a report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released last year, almost half of married Jews in America have a non-Jewish spouse, a trend of intermarriage in line with that of the larger society. At the same time, according to earlier Pew reports, religious switching and the movement away from religion altogether are both at an all time-high in the U.S. Forty-four percent of Americans do not currently belong to the faith in which they were raised, the Pew Research Center reported in 2009. As of 2012, the fastest-growing faith community by far was "none."
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