SAUL GONZALEZ: With the lighting of candles and the reciting of prayers, Gary and Christine Goldhammer are starting their Passover Seder meal with their daughter, Alexandra, and invited family and friends.
GARY GOLDHAMMER (praying): May the Lord cause the light of His countenance to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. CHRISTINE GOLDHAMMER: The egg also symbolizes renewal.
GONZALEZ: Although they are both participating in this Jewish tradition, the Goldhammers don't share the same faith. Gary is Jewish, but Christine is Lutheran. Theirs is one of the growing number of Jewish-Christian interfaith marriages in the United States.
Ms. GOLDHAMMER: I honestly don't think it has to be one way or another. I think you can make it work if you have both religions.
GONZALEZ: Like many other interfaith couples, the Goldhammers make their marriage work by putting their religious differences aside, such as a belief in the divinity of Jesus. Instead they look for common ground.
Ms. GOLDHAMMER: I think that's kind of the nature of an interfaith marriage. You have these conflicts already, and you have to be able to communicate through them.
Mr. GOLDHAMMER: But you start at the beginning. You know, "there is no god but God," and that's where it starts and begins and ends. So when you have that connection, everything else really is not that important.
GONZALEZ: The growth of interfaith marriages in the United States has been especially significant to the Jewish community. According to a national survey conducted by United Jewish Communities, the number of American Jews marrying someone of a different religion has grown from about 13 percent before 1970 to nearly 50 percent today.
Rabbi STEVEN CARR REUBEN (Author, MAKING INTERFAITH MARRIAGE WORK, speaking at service): We believe we teach that the words that matter in that Torah scroll are universal, and the people that matter in our lives and in the world are universal. GONZALEZ: Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben, who has written a book on interfaith marriage, views the increasing number of Jews in relationships with someone of a different religion as a positive development, both for Jews and the wider society.
Rabbi REUBEN: It is the natural outgrowth of having a society that is open and free and accepting, where there aren't the same barriers that shut down communities and make people live in ghettos and make people live only with their own religion, or their own race, or their own culture, or their own kind, whatever that might be. Every interfaith relationship is like a pebble in the pond. There are ripples that go out that touch many more people than that couple and their kids.
GONZALEZ: For many American Jews, though, interfaith marriages shouldn't be seen as a cause for joy and celebration. In fact, they worry that the relationships can have a profoundly damaging effect on the health and future of Judaism.
Rabbi ZVI BLOCK (Beis Midrash Toras HaShem): To us it's a nail in the coffin.
GONZALEZ: Zvi Block is an Orthodox rabbi who criticizes fellow Jews who see interfaith marriage as a path to assimilation.
Rabbi BLOCK: I have no such interest. I'm not anxious to be accepted. I have no interest in integrating or assimilating, or becoming part -- or becoming, as if that is some kind of sign of arrival or some sort of rite of passage. I don't need any of that. The very fact that we live under a threat of assimilation means that we could so easily melt away and our traditions and our history and all that we value fall apart and become, God forbid, extinct.GONZALEZ: Such fears often stem from demographics. Numbering between five- to six-and-a-half million people, American Jews account for only about two percent of the U.S. population. It's feared interfaith marriages could shrink the number of Jews, because such relationships increase the chance of children being raised in either the non-Jewish faith of a spouse or in a home that's largely secular.
Rabbi BLOCK: Where are the kids going to go? I know what they are going to do. They're going to go one week to Hanukkah with the Jewish parent, one week to Christmas with the non- Jewish parent -- totally confused.
GONZALEZ: You don't think that's sustainable?
Rabbi BLOCK: It's destructive.
GONZALEZ: Destructive?
Rabbi BLOCK: Destructive -- destructive to the new generation, absolutely.
GONZALEZ: Because?
Rabbi BLOCK: Because the kids are confused. There's conflict there.
ALEXANDRA GOLDHAMMER (reading from the Haggadah): Against their will they made bricks and built cities for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. 
Rabbi WEINBERG: This is the wrong time in our history to not allow people the opportunity to become Jewish who want to become Jewish. We should be trying to welcome more people into the fold who are ready to live a Jewish religious life. So this program helps prepare them make that decision, whether they want to embrace Judaism or not. 
It is not going to be Judaism-Christianity, how to raise the children, what to do, how to bring this equality. It's more that the both of us will now be Jewish. We're going to have a Jewish home, and we're a part of the Jewish nation and people. 
