Delivering the fifth annual Jack Morgenstern memorial lecture, Dr. Sinclair warned that the survival of worldwide Jewry was threatened by intermarriage and a low birthrate.

Fund-raising had to be aimed at combating this “cultural and religious genocide”. “If we don’t, we can close the door and turn out the light and it will be the end of our community…”

He said the only solution was to intensify Jewish life and to educate every child to see Israel as the centre of that life…

A Jew may not live with a non-Jew as husband or wife, whether after a civil – or other – ceremony or not (Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 36b; Maimonides, Mishnah Torah, Hilchot Isurei Biyah 12:1; Shulchan Aruch, Even Ha’ezer 16:1). And a person is Jewish if – and only if – he or she was born to a Jewish mother or has been converted (Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 68b; Maimonides, Mishnah Torah, Hilchot Isurei Biyah 15:4; Shulchan Aruch, Even Ha’ezer 4:5).

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) discusses the rationale for the prohibition against intermarriage, and concludes as follows: “… It is not therefore from hostility against members of other faiths that you should not intermarry with any non-Jews, but out of anxiety for the people of Israel’s welfare, for the people of Israel’s teaching and life, the sole treasure of your people.

“You should avoid mixed marriages on account of the obligation which God has laid upon you to transmit His law – and life according to His law – to your descendants, and help to continue the people of Israel’s mission through them” (Horeb, 77:500)

Both, the prohibition against intermarriage and the reason for it are thus clear …

An underlying approach is easy to establish. Marrying out is to be condemned as a breach of halachah which damages the future of the Jewish mission …

The principal example is the settled halachah that a non-Jew may not be buried in a Jewish graveyard (Rahsi on Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 16a, codified in the Arba Turim and the Shulchan Aruch, both at Yoreh Deah 367:1).

The most serious practical consequences of intermarriage concern children. Quite simply, if the mother is Jewish, so are the children; and if she is not, they are not …

The most bitter aspect of intermarriage is that the children suffer most, through no choice or fault of their own. When the Torah says that God “visits the sins of the fathers on the children” (Exodus 20:5), it is not a threat of arbitrary punishment, but simply a reminder that we have unrestricted free will in all aspects of behaviour, and that the consequences of our choices will often be felt, wholly or principally, by future generations …

The revelation on Mount Sinai gave us the defining purpose not merely of surviving as a social or racial entity, but of applying Torah values to the task of perfecting the world.

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