Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky’s wedding was a fairytale ceremony wrapped in modern-day think: Bride, groom, rabbi and minister.
But the highly publicized nuptials have some speaking out against interfaith weddings that happen inside the national spotlight, claiming that their popularity could spur more Jews to marry outside the faith.
A recent New York Times article describes a worry among the Jewish community that such attention-laden interfaith relationships may lead to more and more Jews to marry out of the faith, a threat to further dilute a group that comprises only 2% of the U.S. population. Liberal Jewish newspaper The Forward wrote in a column that marriages like those of Mezvinsky, a Jew, and Clinton, a Methodist, are redefining the U.S. Jewish community. “This nuptial is also representative of an increasingly vexing challenge within American Jewish life because we know that — apart from the celebrity and the Secret Service — the Clinton-Mezvinsky union is fast becoming the new normal.”
But are these celebrity weddings are actually driving the single Jewish population to seek partners outside of their faith? Or, do they simply prove that interfaith unions are now a part of the American cultural landscape? The marriage of Caroline Kennedy (Catholic) to Edwin A. Schlossberg (Jewish) raised similar questions in 1986. It still remains to be seen whether we can blame this eclipse of religious boundaries on Chelsea or Caroline, or if we may be able to point fingers at cultural progression a la Bob Dylan. Either way, the times they are a’changin.