What's a Non-Jewish Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? By Emily Matewell Friday, February 4, 2000

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in "Annie Hall," our stand-ins for all the Jewish-Gentile couples in the world. (United Artists)

What's not to like? He's just explained why I, an agnostic WASP, dig Jewish guys. And he hasn't even gotten to the cute and argumentative and funny part – oh, wait, there he goes. "If you weren't brought up Jewish, you don't have that thought process, not that it's a perfect thought process, it's full of neuroses, but it IS American comedy," Liebenson says.

I'm not the only shiksa I know whose love résumé is disproportionately Jewish. But when I bring up the idea of we Jew-lovers tracking our prey to their watering holes, even Jews who date outside the faith get a little testy. A newly single friend said he was going to check out a Jewish singles event and I asked if I could tag along. "I'm not going to help you play Fool the Jew," he replied, half-kidding, half-angry. (I offered to wear a crucifix, except that'd still be misrepresentation. Would a question mark pendant convey agnosticism?)

One reason to question the exclusivity of such events is the huge number of them – are there even enough Jews in Washington to attend all these dances and dinners and bike rides and book groups? A polite version of "we're open to the public, but we prefer to keep it Jewish" is the answer I got from the Jewish singles coordinators I spoke with. Talking with these organizers gave me a much better understanding of why: Our conversations revealed the blind spot I have about interfaith dating.

Jeff Krulik ran Bored, Single, and Jewish from 1992 to 1993. "I looked askance," he says, at non-Jews who attended his Friday night synagogue-n-cocktails events. Krulik, who is not religious, says the pressure to date within the faith comes partly from his parents. Amanda Chorowski, who runs singles events at the D.C. Jewish Community Center (www.dcjcc.org/adultsingles.htm ), also knows from parental pressure. "I get calls from mothers who tell me, 'my daughter isn't dating Jewish, can you do something?'" Chorowski often takes down an errant child's address and sends him or her the DCJCC's monthly newsletter.

Krulik, Chorowski and Liebenson all say that a Gentile who's willing to convert would be welcome at their events, though they'd personally prefer to date someone raised Jewish. One of Chorowski's programs is an interfaith workshop, in which a psychologist helps mixed-religion couples "explore their backgrounds, values, traditions and areas of conflict."

Why the obsession with having the same childhood rituals as your partner, especially among a people known for scholarship and curiosity? Though Chorowski cites "not having to explain yourself all the time," the bottom line seems to be preserving something that falls somewhere between a race and a belief. Chorowski says she wants someone to help her pass on "the oral traditions, which are more precious after the Holocaust. If I don't tell my children, how will they know that their grandfather and great-grandfather did these rituals?" Liebenson is more blunt: "I want more Jews, and there's a greater chance of kids being Jewish if both parents are. And the intermarriage rate is something like 52 percent."

Because I feel an intellectual and political kinship with Jews, I've underestimated the importance of carrying on Old Testament "tradition." I assumed most moderns agreed that religion is divisive and superstitious, and shared my vision of all peoples miscegenating into one big café-au-lait-colored family of peaceful secular humanists. After all, much of my distaste for tribalism is a response to the Nazis' insane racist theories.

My hippie dream of one world, however, is the nightmare of many practicing Jews, and that may not be the best starting point for a date. As Liebenson puts it, "There's 3,800 years of tradition since Abraham, and intermarriage is a great threat to that tradition."

Okay, so Jewish singles events and synagogues are no place for a shiksa. But Liebenson's list of "Jewish qualities" provides a clue to where the intermarrying Jews are. They're at the Noam Chomsky lecture, the pro-choice rally, the Ralph Nader for President headquarters, the Amnesty International meeting, the opera, book signings and the Jewish film festival.

Or at least that's my experience. Do others long to miscegenate and, if so, where do you go to do it? Or is it just a bad idea; will you get dumped in the end for someone in the tribe? Let me know. Here is a sampling of reader responses to date.