My partner's not Jewish, but our children are: Meet the supportive spouses keeping kids in the tribe

You could say it is the Jewish community that has been lucky. Jacqueline is one foot soldier in an army of non-Jewish parents in Britain who are raising the next generation of Jews.

Mothers and fathers who weren’t born Jewish but who love and value Jewish civilization — our literature, our music, our humour, our food — and who want their children to enjoy these treasures too, to feel part of the Jewish family into which they were born.

Too often, though, their efforts aren’t acknowledged, or even really seen. The conversation about intermarriage in the community is so centred on the corrosive effect it has on Jewish identity, that we ignore the men and women among us who, for whatever reason, have not converted to Judaism, but who are nonetheless committed to raising Jewish children.

Yes, most children of in-married Jewish couples are raised as Jews. But according to a 2016 study from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, one in three of the children born to the 26 per cent of intermarried couples are too. These parents are our community’s unsung heroes. They sometimes do more to ensure Jewish continuity than parents who are 100 per cent Jewish but who have no interest in either Judaism or Jewishness.

Fran Kurlansky, 26, knows this dichotomy well. Her mother Christina grew up in a Catholic family in Birkenhead, her father is a South African Jew. They separated when she was nine, after which Fran and her two sisters were mostly raised by their mother.

“Mum always encouraged us to connect with our Jewish heritage. Some of her closest friends are Jewish and maybe because of this she really understands the value of Judaism. We call her Jewish-adjacent. She’s always done all the Jewish holidays with us and during the Chanukah after my graduation, I came in late one evening to find she’d lit the candles and was saying the prayers by herself."

With her dad, it’s a different story. “He’s never identified that strongly and is not really interested in Jewish custom and practice.

“I’ll run a Seder, having spent ages going through multiple haggadot to make it special, and he’ll grimace that it’s taking a long time. You could say I’m Jewish despite him.”

And Jewish because of Christina. When Fran announced aged 13 that she wanted to go on Liberal Judaism’s summer camp Kadimah, her mum was supportive. After this Fran joined the South London Liberal Synagogue and is now a member of Kehilla North London. She has a Jewish girlfriend — “I’ve always been drawn to Jewish partners, there’s a shared understanding” — and is doing a Master’s in Jewish Studies at University College London.

Right now, she is training to become a social worker, but a future career in the rabbinate is also a possibility, she says. And if she has children one day, “I’ll 100 percent raise them Jewish.”

And joyously, she adds. “I often feel that people engage with their Jewishness out of what I describe as anxiety. They marry in because they feel they should. The Jewish man and Jewish woman thing doesn’t apply to my life, anyway, but the point is I’m passionate about being Jewish and I have my non-Jewish mum to thank for that.”

There’s every chance Andy Denham’s son Natan, nine, will express similar gratitude to his non-Jewish father in years to come. The little boy is a pupil at Clore Tikvah, in Ilford, where he often sees Andy, who works for the CST, on security duty at the school gate. “I have a security background so I’m perfect for this particular job, but I get involved in the Chigwell community in lots of other ways too. I do odd jobs for our local rabbi Rafi Goodwin, help people build their succahs, and am generally on hand. I see myself as an affiliate member of the community, and I like it when friends joke that I’m more Jewish than they are.”

Andy is from a working-class Church of England family in the Wirral, and before he met Karen at a rock festival in 2011, had only met a handful of Jews. “There were a couple at my school and all I really remember about them is that they’d be given pork pies on April Fool’s Day.” Now the couple keeps a kosher home and Andy has an abiding interest in Jewish history, and empathy with the Jewish experience. Some years ago, he and Karen visited the Nazi Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands where her father was born. And last year, it was Andy who rushed to Rabbi Goodwin’s aid after the minister was, in a widely reported assault, punched several times in the face and struck over the head with a concrete bar.

“I was at the rabbi’s house when his wife Chaya received the call. I rushed her there, performed first aid and sat holding him until the paramedics arrived.”

Like Jacqueline and Christina, Andy has never felt the need to formally convert to Judaism, mainly because he has always felt unconditionally accepted for who he is. “Karen’s family was super supportive from the outset. And although you get the odd sniffy person, the community in Chigwell has, overall, been very welcoming, too.”

This has also been the experience of Tony Collinson, a hairdresser from what he describes as a traditional, Church of England family. “When I met Rachel’s family for the first time it was snowing, and I arrived at their home cold and wet. Her dad’s first words were: ‘Come in my son and have my slippers’. He then took them off his feet and handed them to me. I was blown away by the welcome, the warmth.”

It’s been a similar experience outside the family, too. “I’ve always had lots of Jewish clients and they have also been very loyal. I love this community, its sense of humour, food, and hospitality. I feel Jewish by stealth, by attitude, if you like. So I’m very happy to be part of my stepson Harrison’s Jewish upbringing in any way I can.”

To this end, Tony was a keen participant in Harrison’s bar mitzvah last year. “I didn’t make a speech and generally made sure I stayed in the background because his dad was there and I know how important a son’s relationship is with his father. But I financially contributed to the simchah — of course, I did.” And he is also, he adds, a big advocate of the Friday night dinner. “It’s a wonderful tradition. The three of us don’t do it as often as I’d like.”

Sam Fennessy’s two daughters aren’t school-age yet, but his Jewish mother-in-law is already teaching his first-born Hebrew, and Sam is happy about it. He and wife, Renna, plan to send the children to Jewish primary schools and the Jewish festivals are already a part of their family life. “Being Jewish is a big part of the woman I fell in love with and married so it feels inevitable, and in a good way, that we are raising a Jewish family.”

Raising Jewish children felt natural to Jacqueline Duvall too. “My parents weren’t particularly loving people, and I was never that close to them. By contrast Malcolm’s parents were sweet and kind from the moment we met. They became my family and were brilliant grandparents to my children who they always saw as Jewish.”

Her parents-in-laws’ open hearts and minds have led to more good things. Their grandson Max has now been with his Jewish girlfriend for almost two years. “He had a non-Jewish girlfriend before and told me he thinks it serious with this young woman because she really gets him,” says Jacqueline. “When I asked him what he meant, he said: My Jewishness, Mum. She gets it.”