The Jewish fear of intermarriage!

[O.R.I.O.N]

BBC News - The Jewish fear of intermarriage

Oh VEY!

 

[Delta4Embassy]

It's not a fear so much as a commandment. The commandment cited mentions the 7 nations in Israel the Exodus Jews are arriving in G-d commanded them to remove and slaughter and not intermarry with:

7 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— 2 and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.[a] Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
- Deuteronomy 7

Concern with interfaith marriage is that children wont be raised Jewish but some hybridization or not-religious at all. With so few Jews left in the world, any tendency to interfaith marriages runs this risk and projections foward aren't very optimistic. But the interfaith taboo isn't limited to Judaism. See it in Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, and other stricter faiths as well. And for the same reason.

But ultimately it's just 1 of 613+ commandments. If you're serious about your religious faith it's not an issue, if you're not, whether you intermarry or not chances are your kids aren't going to be raised religious anyway so it's moot.

 

[DGS49]

As with other religions, there is a very broad range of personal investment in being a "religious" Jew, and when you toss in the ethnic aspect of it, it becomes very clouded.

Certainly, if you intermarry with a non-Jew, the likelihood that your grandchildren will give a shit about going to Synagogue is slim, at best.