Interfaith marriages: Rabbis for hire

NEW YORK — Rabbi Barry Tuchman has no congregation, no ties to a recognized Jewish movement and an ordination that was far outside the norm for American Jewish clergy.

But the interfaith couples who contact him do not want to see his diploma. They want to know whether he is willing to marry them. And Rabbi Barry, as he calls himself, is ready to oblige.

He officiates anywhere: in churches, alongside Christian clergy, on the Jewish Sabbath and at Roman Catholic weddings. A student of Shamanism, he can perform American Indian rituals, too.

“What I do,” Tuchman said, “is throw the liturgy out the window.”

Interfaith couples whose rabbis will not marry them are going to the fringes of American Judaism to find someone who will. And there are plenty of rabbis for hire.

Rabbis with unconventional, even dubious, credentials will create ceremonies that can look Jewish, even if they are not. Fees can run into the thousands of dollars, but business is booming. The rabbis have more work than they can handle.

“It’s religion in America for a new generation,” said Rabbi Richard Hirsh, executive director of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, which represents rabbis in his movement. “It’s pretty much an individual consumer culture of professional services. They are used to getting the services that they want.”

The intermarriage rate for U.S. Jews has been above 40 percent since at least the 1990s, according to researchers for the 2001 National Jewish Population Survey. As the rate has climbed, so too has pressure on pulpit rabbis to perform the ceremonies. Advocates for interfaith families say officiating at the weddings can increase the odds that couples will raise their children Jewish.

Most rabbis are not convinced.

The Conservative and Orthodox movements bar rabbis from performing the ceremonies. Even in the Reform and Reconstructionist branches, considered the most welcoming to interfaith families, leaders think most of their rabbis won’t marry the couples, either. And those who will officiate often set limits that couples consider deal-breakers: no church weddings or non-Jewish clergy.

“This is really the biggest issue in American Jewish life today,” said Rabbi Charles Kroloff, co-chairman of a new Reform movement task force on intermarriage. “Some rabbis feel if they officiate at the interfaith ceremony that’s like approving it, so they draw a line in the sand.”

Independent rabbis like Tuchman have been crossing that line in a big way.

Rabbi Roger Ross and his wife, the Rev. Deborah Steen Ross, run Loving Hearts Ceremonies in New York. They once performed a Jewish-Christian marriage that included Wiccan prayer, a Celtic apple-dunking, and a few words in Klingon for the groom _ a Star Trek fan.

“It’s your wedding,” said Ross, who says he has performed several hundred mixed-faith ceremonies. “As long as it’s legal and respectful, why shouldn’t you have things in it that you want?”

Rabbi Monte Sugarman generally does what the couples ask, as long as ministers who officiate with him don’t pray in the name of Jesus. His Web site is filled with photos of him in his tallit, or prayer shawl, flanked by smiling brides and grooms. One shot is of the rabbi at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest site.

“When I opened myself up to interfaith weddings, I decided that I was going to do everything because we were already outside of Jewish law,” said Sugarman, a hospital chaplain who lives near Saratoga Springs, N.Y. But he insists, “we’re totally Jewish. I don’t care what other people say. We’re just more interfaith about it.”

There are few legal risks for couples hiring rabbis they do not know. Most cities and states have loose, if any, regulation of marriage officiants. The government does not want to be in the role of deciding who is properly ordained.

The weddings range from $600 to $4,000.