In intra-communal contacts, such as in Federation activities, the Orthodox who are involved interact regularly and with a comfort level with Jews who are intermarried. Simply put, in the ordinary course of our personal and communal activities, it is increasingly difficult to avoid cordial relations with Jews who have intermarried.
At times, the Orthodox are proactive in their interactions with the intermarried, as happens far more frequently than we may want to own up to. This is especially true in fundraising. Aggressive efforts are made to secure contributions from these Jews and, knowingly or not, these efforts confer a measure of legitimacy on the donors.
Nor are such fundraising initiatives necessarily discrete private encounters. I have been at dinners where Orthodox organizations bestowed public honor on those who intermarried – and I am referring not only to Modern Orthodox events but also some that were sponsored by yeshiva world and chassidic organizations.
Apart from the halachic violation, intermarriage is destructive of Jewish continuity. There is abundant evidence in our history teaching us this lesson. Our history also teaches that in many places there was a great deal of ambivalence in dealing with the intermarried.
While it is clear what will happen down the road, we live and act in the present. And presently, for all the necessary rhetoric condemning it, there is, in various social interactions involving Orthodox Jews, considerable tolerance of intermarriage.
Perhaps the approach that should be taken is to distinguish between personal contacts where tolerance may be accepted and communal contacts where the response should not be as friendly.