Programs

Rabbi White - Q & A -- October 18, 2009

IFFP's own Rabbi Harold White shared with the members highlights of his spiritual journey.

Rabbi White's Background

The Rabbi grew up in Hartford, Connecticut. His father had immigrated to the United States from Belarus at age 17, and his mother was a third generation Bostonian. Although his parents were both members of the Conservative Jewish Movement, his extended family was interfaith. His mother's cousin had married a non-Jewish Italian, and relatives on his mother's side included Unitarians and Christian Scientists. His family kept kosher and attended weekly Shabbat services.

As a teenager, Rabbi White was tutored by a Holocaust survivor. He gave tours of synagogues and had an opportunity to present Judaism to Protestants. Rabbi White entered the Yale School of Architecture at age 16 but left shortly thereafter.

He took one year off then enrolled at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he took courses on Christianity. Young Harold developed an interest in psychiatry, and he began volunteering at the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane. His exposure to the practices of psychiatry in the 1950s, however -- electroshock treatment, lobotomies and other harsh treatment -- turned him off of that profession and led him back to religious studies. He graduated with a theology minor and a major in philosophy.

The Rabbi then enrolled in Union Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York City, where he studied under Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. While attending JTS, he took additional classes across the street at Union Theological Seminary (UTS), a Protestant seminary Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich had helped make the center of both liberal and neo-orthodox Protestantism in the post-War period. (Wikipedia) Rabbi White also studied under noted Jewish philosopher Martin Buber.

White acknowledges his Jewish training was highly unusual for the 1950s because of his considerable exposure to Christians and Christian teaching. After receiving his Rabbinical Ordination from JTS, he served as a U.S. Navy Chaplain at Parris Island, S.C., and with the 7th Fleet in the Pacific. While on board the carrier Coral Sea, the Rabbi had the experience of ministering to Jews and non-Jews.

After the Navy, he served as a congregational rabbi at the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation in Dublin, Ireland, and later at Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a Conservative synagogue.

He was the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation Director at the American University in Washington, DC for nine years prior to being appointed Jewish Chaplain of Georgetown University. Rabbi White also was the associate rabbi of Temple Sinai in Washington, D.C. from 1980 -1985. He now teaches in the Theology Department of Georgetown. He also serves as scholar-in-residence at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, VA and at Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg, PA.

Q & A and Open Discussion

In response to a question about how his teaching and views on interfaith marriage affected his relationship with his parents, Rabbi White said his parents are now dead, but it was always their view that an interfaith approach was better than no religion at all.

He mentioned that 85 percent of Reform rabbis are encouraged to perform interfaith marriage, and that many Georgetown students are children of interfaith marriage. There are also non-Jewish spouses of interfaith couples on the Board of Temple Sinai with which Rabbi White is still affiliated.

Rabbi White was an early supporter of interfaith teaching, dialogue and relationships, but the road was not always easy. When he became the Jewish Chaplain at Georgetown, Rabbi White was the first rabbi to be appointed to a full time campus ministry position at a Catholic university. When he arrived at Georgetown, the study population was less one percent Jewish. The president of the university said he wanted a rabbi on staff to teach Christians about Jewish morality. An early indicator of the president's support for White came when a rabbi of a wealthy donor to the university attempted to pressure the president into firing Rabbi White because White had agreed to perform an interfaith wedding. The president called Rabbi White into his office and advised him that he would be fired if he did not perform the service. Another example of opposition to interfaith marriage Rabbi White remembers was his encounter with another rabbi who had been approached by an interfaith couple. The other Rabbi told the Jewish woman, upon learning of her plans to marry a non-Jew, What Hitler did not accomplish, your marriage will.

He described his affiliation with IFFP starting five years ago as a great leap. He joined the Reformed and Reconstructionist Movements but acknowledges he was shunned by some in the Jewish community for his interfaith work. He said there is also often a hidden agenda by Jews who do accept interfaith marriage that the non-Jew will convert to Judaism. He mentioned he is also affiliated with the Interfaith Family Connection (in Newton Upper Falls, MA; see interfaithfamily.com).

Rabbi White said he sees the Jewish Conservative Movement as dying, in part because of its views on interfaith marriage and gay marriage. He believes its membership is moving into either more liberal or more orthodox camps: When you're in trouble, there are two ways you can go -- you can become more liberal, or you can become a strict constructionist. He predicts there eventually will be only Reform and Orthodox Jewish movements.