An open invitation

FRANKLIN -- By the time the Folsoms arrive for Friday evening services at Temple Etz Chaim, they've cleaned their house in preparation for the Sabbath. They've lit ritual candles, and when they blessed wine and bread before enjoying a Sabbath dinner of chicken and broccoli, everyone joined in -- even Owen, who is not Jewish.

Since marrying a Jewish woman in 1989 and deciding to raise their two children as Jews, Owen has picked up enough traditions and tunes that he sings along at services, too. But he's never seriously considered converting. In this small, suburban congregation, the Folsoms are as typical as families headed by two Jewish-born adults.

In an era when half of marriages involving young Jews are interfaith, causing concern among Jewish leaders about the future of American Judaism, Etz Chaim, with its relatively young membership, stands at the vanguard of that trend. Half its 146 households are interfaith. Almost 10 percent of the rest include an adult who converted to Judaism.

Etz Chaim belongs to the liberal Reform movement that since 1978 has officially welcomed interfaith families. Now the head of the Union of Reform Judaism has called on temples to do more to invite the gentiles among them to consider becoming Jewish. While Reform rabbis contemplate Rabbi Eric Yoffie's directive, Etz Chaim offers a glimpse into the complexities of intermarriage and the congregation of the future.

None of that concerned Owen and Melissa Folsom when they met at Clark University in 1985. She's a Lynn-bred, day-school-educated veteran of United Synagogue Youth. He describes his childhood in Maine as ''a tree at Christmas and loosely Christian." Today Melissa serves on the temple's board of directors.

''Tradition is more important to me than anything," Owen says. ''Something like converting," he adds, ''if that makes you feel more included or complete, it's an important step. I have never felt that. I feel included. I sometimes feel as though it would be nice to set a stronger example to my children, to share one more thing with them. I think that would be important to them, but not for me. Religious choice is so personal it's hard to do that for anybody else, even your own children."

Non-Jews and Jews by choice are woven into the fabric of Etz Chaim, bringing the convert's zeal and the active engagement of non-Jews like Owen Folsom and the more detached accommodation of other non-Jewish spouses.

The president and both vice presidents married non-Jews. A past president is a convert. A recent convert and a man studying to convert attend the rabbi's Torah class. Non-Jewish spouses are voting members of the congregation. They can sit on the board, though not as officers, and join any committee except religious practices.

They also present a challenge. ''Because we have such a diverse community," says vice president Carl Citron, ''it's sometimes hard to develop a wide array of programming."

In this web of complicated relationships with Judaism, Rabbi Barbara Symons presents conversion as a possibility without pushing so hard she alienates her non-Jewish fellow travelers. ''Temples should be more inviting of conversion, and we do that by action," she says. She asks new converts to address a Sabbath service, offers ''Taste of Judaism" courses, invites non-Jews to meet with her, suggests classes, and runs an adult b'nai mitzvah program that often attracts converts.

''I'm creating an environment that's inviting," Symons says. ''I am not somebody who will ask someone to convert. But if they want to approach me, I open my arms."

While Citron welcomes worshipers to services, his wife, Diane, a nonpracticing Protestant, stays home. Years ago, they decided to raise their children Jewish. ''I said to him, 'If you want the kids to be Jewish, that's fine,' but he was going to have to do it," she says. They joined Etz Chaim when their son, now 17, was 10. Carl soon started volunteering.

''She saw it was important to me and then jumped in. I couldn't have done it alone," he says. ''If I had married a Jewish woman," he adds, ''there's a chance I wouldn't have been as involved as I am."

Diane has been active in the religious school's parent group, run a temple gift shop, planned holiday functions, and hosted Passover seders. ''It's made my husband very happy that he sees the Jewish traditions passed on," she says.

Yet she remains an outsider. Not permitted to participate in the handing of the Torah scroll from one generation to the next at her son's bar mitzvah, she also skipped parts of the service that would have welcomed her. ''I could have been with my husband and son when they walked the Torah through the congregation, but it was my personal choice not to do that," she says. ''I wasn't comfortable."

On display during one Tuesday evening class for eighth- and ninth-graders are wine goblets and challah covers and Hanukkah menorahs, some traditional in design and some contemporary, symbols of the competing streams Etz Chaim strives to balance.

''I choose modern, not just to be cool," says Jillian Mershon, 13. ''Things need to change. We still remember the old traditional ways."

''I would choose traditional," says Jacob McGillis, 14. ''The older something is, it's usually more sacred or important."

''Tradition keeps our roots," says Billy Ceskavich, 14. ''Modern changes the world."

Both Mershon's parents are Jewish. McGillis and Ceskavich have non-Jewish dads. ''I don't feel any difference," says McGillis. Says Ceskavich: ''At home we don't do as much Jewish stuff as people who are fully Jewish. My dad is Catholic, and he has a big family. My friends get together for Jewish holidays. We don't do that."

These teens are continuing their Jewish education after their bar or bat mitzvah. Several attend Jewish camps. They all live in suburbs in and around Franklin with small Jewish populations, which, Ceskavich says, presents a bigger challenge than having one non-Jewish parent. That's why he likes Grossman Camp in Westwood.

''It's really fun to hang out with people who are my religion for once," he says. ''A lot of people who go to Grossman live in Sharon and Brookline. I've been to Sharon and Brookline, and it's really cool. There's falafel and Jewish stores. There are a lot more people I can relate to. I'd like to see what it feels like to live in a town with more people who are Jewish."

Among children in interfaith families, connected teenagers like these are most likely to establish Jewish households as adults. According to Sylvia Barack Fishman, professor of contemporary Jewish life at Brandeis, one-quarter of children in interfaith families maintain Jewish homes as adults, compared with 75 percent of children with two Jewish parents.

''Even when you have two Jewish parents, identification as a Jew doesn't happen automatically. It requires effort," says Fishman. ''Where there's one Jewish parent, there's an alternative religion in the home even if it's not expressed."

That future is a long way off. ''You can't really say yes or no to that," Ceskavich says. ''Maybe I'll marry somebody who's not Jewish and we'll decide to raise them Catholic, because my dad decided to raise us Jewish and he didn't mind. I don't think it's bad to have interfaith, because that's how I grew up, and it's fine."

Conversion at Etz Chaim is both a personal journey and a public occasion, at once a reminder to non-Jews that this is an option and an often moving reminder to Jews of what newcomers see in the religion of their birth. Though marrying a Jew is a common path to conversion, a number of Etz Chaim's Jews by choice came to the religion on their own.

In November of 2004, Bill Gilbert -- lapsed Catholic, husband and father of Jews -- was nervous when he immersed himself in a ritual bath in Newton and became a Jew. ''It's scary like your wedding is scary." And he was nervous when he later stood before the congregation and told them that ''coming to temple all these years made me realize how much I had missed religion in my life."

''Reform Judaism is not rules oriented," Gilbert says. ''You can actually interpret the Torah. I realized how intellectually stimulating it is -- intellectually stimulating and spiritually stimulating."

In May, Christine Mills -- choir member, lapsed Catholic, lone seeker who doubted the divinity of Jesus since girlhood -- delivered her story of conversion. ''Judaism," she told the congregation, ''teaches people how to live, not only as individuals, but as families and then communities."

Fishman, in her recent study ''Choosing Judaism," finds three types of converts -- activists or ''super Jews" who take on leadership roles; ''accommodating converts," the largest group, who adopt whatever level of connection their spouse and family have; and ''ambivalent converts."

Joan Hill belongs to that last group. She grew up with Jewish friends and an affinity for Jewish culture. She converted when she wed Richard Shansky, but became what she calls ''a stranger" to the religion and to Etz Chaim. ''Converting seemed like a good idea at the time," she recalls. ''But I knew early on it wasn't my path."

''If Joan had fully participated, would I have done this reexamination of my own Jewish values?" Shansky wonders. ''Going to services alone or with a young child, it's 'What am I doing here? Do we have a unified family?' " he continues. ''I've come to the conclusion that it's OK. If there's something of value in Judaism, that's a good thing, regardless of how others in the family feel or what they believe."