Intermarriage with non-Jews is not just an attempt to broaden one's choice of partners, but holds forth the clear inducement of being able to divest one's self of a label that has always been known to be extremely uncomfortable to wear. Such intermarriages now exceed fifty percent of all marriages of Jews in the U.S., and constitute the greatest single worry of rabbis and others with a vested interest in the survival of Judaism, posing as it does a direct threat to their very livelihoods.
The difficulties of relinquishing a label affixed at birth and ingrained under layers of imposed guilt, provides the greatest deterrent to anyone who dares to consider assimilation. Viewed realistically, however, the short-term prospect of parental or tribal disapproval - or even ostracism - becomes less burdensome when weighed against the long-term likelihood that in the normal course of events, one's children will otherwise become victims of Anti-Semitism themselves.
If, as asserted by the socio-biologists, the preservation of one's own gene pool constitutes the most compelling instinct humans possess, one must do everything in his power to rescue his own progeny from a destiny that has consistently worked to exterminate that gene pool. This entails changing all those Jewish-sounding names and cultural traits that would otherwise facilitate their selection for the bottom of the Pecking Order.
The bulwark against assimilation was once provided by the nuclear Jewish family. Held together by the primitive fear of divine retribution, and hemmed in by the unrelenting hostility of the "goyim", it was fairly easy for them to keep the wagons in a circle with the children herded safely inside. However, technological revolutions in communication and mobility have enabled the siren song of universalism to be heard clearly, even inside that once-secure circle of wagons.
I have no illusions that discussion of the taboo subject of assimilation will either accelerate or retard its occurrence. Attempts to portray such palpably understandable behavior as the manifestation of an evil impulse, are no longer germane or saleable nowadays. Neither does it constitute an act of disloyalty or cowardice to reach such a decision. By way of example, in an attempt to improve the quality of their lives, millions of Americans are moving out of their inner cities. This "flight to the suburbs" is regarded with no more imputation of disloyalty or cowardice than is any other decision made by reasonable people.
In their ability to assimilate or "pass" into the general community, Jews clearly enjoy an advantage over Blacks or Asians who might seek similar anonymity. Long and diligent efforts by Anti-Semites to ascribe identifiable physical traits to Jews - usually of a derogatory nature - have shown repeatedly that there is no such thing as a phenotypical Jew. However, technological progress does not stand still, especially in matters seeminly as important to the world schema as the identification and selection of Jews for persecution. Earlier reliance on such primitive aids as grandfather clauses, circumcision, or yellow armbands will become unnecessary, once all newborn babies are programmed into "genetic fingerprint" data banks. When that occurs, any transitory advantage that Jews might once have enjoyed, will disappear.
In the matter of converting to any other religion, the undeniable lure of universalism is in no sense an acknowledgement that other organized faiths, with their long histories of serving as breeding grounds for hypocrisy, chauvinism, xenophobia and hatred, are somehow "better" than Judaism. To begin with, except for superficial symbolism and the parroting of esoteric ritual, very few practitioners of any religion are capable of making an intelligent comparison of the ethical or theological tenets of their faith, with those of any other. The answer, then, does not lie in the attractiveness of other creeds or cults. Rather it is based on the overriding impulse toward self-preservation, and the need to be somewhere else when good sense indicates that the next Holocaust is imminent.
