Intermarriage has long been frowned upon by the Jewish community, though in modern times its opposition has normally been framed as demographic rather than strictly legal. Many studies indicate that the children of intermarried couples are less likely to raise Jewish children, prompting concerns that rising intermarriage rates would threaten the long-term viability of the Jewish community. For this reason, leaders across the Jewish denominational spectrum were, until fairly recently, united in their opposition to intermarriage.
But long before intermarriage was seen as a demographic worry, it was considered a violation of Jewish law. The principal source for this comes from the seventh chapter of Deuteronomy, which concerns the seven nations occupying the promised land that were to be dislodged so the Israelites could possess it. The text reads:
“When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are about to enter and possess, and dislodges many nations before you: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites … You shall not intermarry with them: do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your children away from Me to worship other gods, and God’s anger will blaze forth against you, promptly wiping you out. (Deuteronomy 7:1–4)
In context, the prohibition applies solely to the seven Canaanite nations (understood, already in the classical rabbinic period, to be extinct) and does not seem to constitute a blanket prohibition on intermarrying. Moreover, it’s clear that many ancient Jewish heroes did in fact take wives who were not of the faith — including Moses, who married a Midianite woman, and King Solomon, who took many wives from foreign nations. However, later Jewish tradition does not see it this way. Both the Talmud and the later medieval law codes consider any marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew to be forbidden. Later sources go to great lengths to imagine that potentially problematic biblical unions were not the intermarriages they appear to be, suggesting for instance that Moses’ father-in-law eschewed idol worship before Moses married into the family, as did Solomon’s wives before he married them.
Rabbinic tradition considers marrying any non-Jewish person to be forbidden, though there’s some dispute over whether the prohibition derives directly from Deuteronomy or from later rabbinic rulings, which would render intermarriage a less serious violation than if it were directly prohibited by the Torah. The most extensive treatment of this in the Talmud is found in Avodah Zarah 36b, which features a claim that the verse from Deuteronomy applies only to the seven nations and that it was later rabbinic authorities who extended it to include all non-Jews. The Talmud then records a dissenting opinion from Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who homes in on the Torah’s expressed concern that such marriages might cause Jews to turn away from God, reasoning that the biblical prohibition applies to all unions with non-Jews that might lead to such an outcome.
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Maimonides is explicit that marriage with any non-Jew violates a biblical law:
When a Jew engages in relations with a woman from other nations, [taking her] as his spouse, or a Jewess engages in relations with a non-Jew as her spouse, they are punished by lashes, according to scriptural law. As [Deuteronomy 7:3] states: “You shall not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughter to his son, and do not take his daughter for your son.” This prohibition applies equally to [individuals from] the seven [Canaanite] nations and all other gentiles. (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Forbidden Intercourse 12)
The understanding of intermarriage as a violation of Jewish law continues to be upheld today by nearly all Orthodox and Conservative rabbis, the latter formally barred from officiating at weddings between a Jew and a non-Jews by the Code of Ethics of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative movement’s rabbinic association. The Reform movement, which doesn’t consider itself bound by Jewish law, maintained a formal opposition to intermarriage into the 1980s, but by 2018 survey data indicated that the overwhelming majority of Reform rabbis would officiate at intermarriages. In 2024, the movement’s rabbinical school formally dropped its longstanding ban on ordaining intermarried rabbis and cantors.
