Irving Berlin’s 1926 interfaith marriage sparked a Jewish debate that still hasn’t gone - opinion

For more than a century, interfaith marriage has functioned as a kind of Rorschach test within American Jewish life, alternately framed as an existential threat or a potential avenue for renewal.

Irving Berlin and his wife Ellin Mackay appear in a photograph in the late 1920s. The 1926 marriage between the wildly popular Jewish songwriter and a Catholic heiress was a media sensation.

(photo credit: Bain News Service via Library of Congress/Wikipedia via JTA)

BySCOTT D. SELIGMAN/JTA

JANUARY 3, 2026 05:49

Updated: JANUARY 3, 2026 06:00

Irving Berlin’s 1926 interfaith marriage sparked a Jewish debate that still hasn’t gone - opinion

For more than a century, interfaith marriage has functioned as a kind of Rorschach test within American Jewish life, alternately framed as an existential threat or a potential avenue for renewal.

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Irving Berlin’s 1926 interfaith marriage sparked a Jewish debate that still hasn’t gone - opinion

For more than a century, interfaith marriage has functioned as a kind of Rorschach test within American Jewish life, alternately framed as an existential threat or a potential avenue for renewal.

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