When Dan Diamond was 12, his mother gave him a book titled “It All Begins With a Date: Jewish Concerns About Intermarriage.” At the time, it seemed a bizarre gift for someone so young, but its aim was clear.

In today’s Academic Minute, Whitman College’s Helen Kim examines if combining cultures, races or religious backgrounds can make both stronger in the long run. Kim is an associate professor of sociology at Whitman. Click to listen.

Contrary to previous studies on intermarriage that argue for the erosion of Judaism and Jewish identity, our work has demonstrated the opposite.

Be'chol Lashon research scholars, Helen Kim and her husband, Noah Leavitt are the leading, and virtually only, experts on Asian-Jewish intermarriage in the United States.

The affinity between Jews and Asians has some grounding in culture, according to Kim and Leavitt. In 2012, they published a study that sought to explain what draws these two ancient cultures together.