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According to Jewish law, a Jew should never marry or have children with a non-Jew.

There are people who have rabbinic ordination who will officiate at an interfaith ceremony. Of those who do this, most do this out of one of two motivations. The first is the feeling that if they don't, Judaism will look rigid and unaccepting of "where he's at right now," and that they will push the Jewish partner away from Judaism rather than encourage the non-Jewish partner to consider conversion. They reason that it is better to have a Jew retain some connection to the Jewish people than to have them get ticked off and leave altogether.

The second common motivation for officiating or co-officiating at an interfaith ceremony is money. Because it's hard to find a reputable rabbi who will officiate, a non-reputable rabbi can reasonably charge twice, or more, what normally would be charged for a wedding ceremony. They pad their pockets by encouraging the attitude that it's okay, Hashem is accepting, it's fine, after all it's all the same God, he surely cares about love more than about the details... The trouble is that that's incorrect. If Hashem didn't care about the details, he would never have given us the details in his Torah.

Marriage is stressful. It's hard to combine finances, blend dietary preferences ("I love to cook broccoli!" versus "Well, I hate broccoli!"), choose flatware/dishes/furniture, satisfy both parties with the choice of where to live, how much to spend on one's car versus one's clothing, how much to save for emergencies and/or retirement, how to raise the children (spanking/not, giving orders/explaining reasoning, wake up early and do chores all summer/enjoy sleeping in and then going to the pool), how to organize one's social and leisure time ("I'd love to have a really posh dinner party every week" versus "There've been people over here every bloody night, can't we just sit in our sweatpants and watch TV?")... There are a lot of pressures even in an ideal marriage, a lot of opportunities to argue, to become stressed, to misunderstand and have to apologize or compromise or make up.

And then you bring in religion. If the two of you share a religion, you still have to negotiate your level and type of observance, how often you want to attend communal religious events (every day, every week, every month, every holiday, once every few years when feeling sentimental or guilty), whether to send children to a religious school, a non-religious private school, or public school. That's hard too, and adds to the levels and types of stress. How much harder will it be for those who don't share a faith!

Now, I have an in-law who was raised ethnically but laxly Jewish (of course), married to a woman who was raised Catholic. Both of them are agnostic and non-religious now -- they say there may be a God, but that's not really where they focus their time, energy, or attention. They don't have a single difficulty in their marriage that relates to religion. Despite the fact that their marriage is contrary to Jewish law, I can't see that it makes a practical difference, right now, to them. They're good together, precisely because the religions their families gave them are entirely unimportant to them. I'm glad that D married J, because I adore J and would never have met her if they hadn't married and then moved to the town where I live.

But you can bet, if either one of them ever decides that religion is important after all, they're going to (G*D forbid) have problems. If J starts going to church and saying that without Jesus, D is going to hell, D is going to resent the church and then start resenting J. If D starts wishing that his wife were able to participate in the mitzvah of taharat hamishpachah ("Family Purity"), which is only doable by a Jewish woman, J is going to resent Judaism, Jewish law, and D. If J decided that Judaism looked good to her and started getting into religion and considering converting to Judaism and becoming observant when D was not fully supportive and willing to become observant with her -- or if D started wanting to become a Catholic and become observant in that way, while J was not wanting to be observant as a Catholic -- that would create friction, too. If they had kids, that would be even more friction, as they argued over what religion to teach to the kids and how much encouragement to give to them in that path.

Short version of the above: If X is unimportant to you and Y is unimportant to your spouse, no problem. If X is important to you both, or Y is important to you both, no problem. If X is important to you, and Y is important to your spouse, and X is contrary to Y... problem. Whether X and Y are religions, political stances, or whatever, it's a problem. Marriage is something to work at and foster actively, not something that "just happens." Adding problems to it on purpose is just a bad idea.

My Mom did it.
I'm personally a big fan of the results.

Well, i'd be going with her to Shul, lol, as women are the ones that put it together, since its the negative side of the lamp of Shabbat, the male (positive) side is on Saturday. But other than that, yeah, not that i'd be lonely, but it wouldn't feel right. I want my kids to be raised somewhat observant/orthodox, in that way they need the same motherly figure as their dad is with religion and ect.

I love it being defined biologically, it's simply amazing to me how each of our DNA's can actually be researched and we're able to figure out which one of the Israelite tribes were from. It's in our blood, and our blood was shed because of it, in and out of the Torah. I understand your reason, this is just mine. Tradition is tradition, it keeps all of us together in this completely separated world, personally I feel complete order and peace with it. Judaism will definitely not disappear, I can assure you that, especially with Israel, I'm acually seeing a lot more Jews around lately (well un-observant people becoming observant), aswell as a lot more converts. It's not that we shove our tradition and knowledge of Talmud and Torah down the throat of our kids, it's because its very important for the formation of a soul that can choose to be close to Hashem at any time of the day, and kids need to know that. A lot of people born into Chassidism eventually leave in there teens and explore their own way of living and move away from the Chassidic sect, BUT, they all eventually come back to it, because since they were submerged in it since birth, it's the only waters that make sense, which I have to agree can be a disturbing thing, but good, all is good.

A Jew doesn't go to Israel, if even for the first time. They return. Not even for Jews, but for the entire world, it seems. I know people who aren't even Jewish and they went to Israel and felt it to be a true home, like it was a long lost memory, everyone has connections to it somehow.

Perhaps people can bond despite religious or political differences. I myself am with a Christian woman, and we're very happy, as are our families. Religion doesn't come into it - we both do our own thing.

And, when I have children, I shall raise them as Jews despite the fact that they'll only be a "quarter-Jewish", with no maternal Judaism, and if I marry a Gentile (which looks likely), I don't expect her to convert, just as I expect her to allow me to remain Jewish.

The analogy of Judaism being "gifted" to my children like wealth isn't one I can see working, as wealth is a massive privilege few obtain, whilst religions can be changed freely to suit the person. People do not wish to be Jewish without hope, they can become so at any point, as you said, Divash, but comparing Judaism to great wealth is as if saying Judaism was worth more than other religions, or at least should command greater respect. Is that an idea I want my children growing up with?

I am proud to be Jewish, yes, but I equally respect Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc etc., and would not be upset should my children choose to convert, nor do I have any issues with marrying someone outside of Judaism, because of this fact.

I agree with this. Every heritage is "treasured" by the people that sprout from it. The Torah is treasured by the Jews because we have sprout from it, or from the Children of Israel, we are Isralites. We definitely are no different than everyone else, we are however the first religion to acknowledge that G-D is one, casting ourselves away from Idolatry and pagan gods and goddesses, which is like a creature worshipping a creature, which to me doesn't make sense. I love Jewish people, we all love eachother, it's a big family, like every heritage. The amazing thing about ours is that when we are saddened or have problems in our life, we can turn to the Torah, and read about people who had the exact same problems and find a solution fast, because that same G-D, G-D of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, still has a covenant, that is very much alive today as it was 4000 years ago. That's why I feel the need to marry inside it.

Rapunzel207, I DO think that it should be the first thing asked. Now, hear me out. If you can say definitely that this person's religion is too different from yours for you to ever be happy with them unless they were to change it, then you should not think of that person as someone to hold a relationship with. Why? Because if you want them to change themselves, they aren't really right for you, nor are you right for them.

I agree, though, with the second part of what you said. While religion should be one of the very first questions, in my opinion, it is definitely not the only question. Sharing a religion is not the only thing that matters, but it is a big deal. If you do share a religion (beliefs, values, goals, dreams, hopes), then one huge source of potential marital stress/conflict is out of the way, and then you can begin looking at other things -- such as whether you're a morning person and he's a night person, or whether you're a vegetarian and she can't envision eating a meal without meat in it, and so on.