in 1908(Mendel Silber,“Intermarriage, ” CCAR Yearbook, 1908, p. 207). This represented part of the concern over the subject and the desire to establish a policy of the question. The following year a major portion of the Conference was dedicated to this subject with the presentation of two papers(E. Feldman,“Intermarriage Historically Considered,” and S. Schulman,“Mixed Marriages in their Relation to the Jewish Religion,” CCAR Yearbook, 1909). Both cited a considerable number of sources and reviewed the positions taken by various Reform groups in the 19th century. The discussion of the Conference indicated that all the rabbis present opposed mixed marriages, although some were wiling to officiate at them. The debate dealt with the freedom of the individual rabbis versus the power of the Conference and the general force of the rabbinic tradition. The debate on the subject dealt with the question itself and with the issue of rabbis officiating at such marriages. The resolution which was passed read:
“The Central Conference of American Rabbis declares that mixed marriages are contrary to the tradition of the Jewish religion and should, therefore, be discouraged by the American rabbinate.”
There was no substantial additional discussion in the following years, but the matter was mentions peripherally in a lengthy paper by Kaufmann Kohler (“The Harmonization of the Jewish and Civil Laws of Marriage and Divorce,” CCAR Yearbook, 1915, pp. 33510). This essay made it clear that Reform Judaism accepts civil marriages as valid and does so in the case of mixed marriages as well.
The following decades saw some discussion of this subject in responsa of the Conference(“Forfeiture of Congregational Membership by Intermarriage, ” CCAR Yearbook, 1916, pp. 113% “Burial of Gentiles in a Jewish Cemetery, ” CCAR Yearbook, 1963, pp. 85ff), and those of Solomon B. Freehof in his various volumes. Fairly
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