Fackenheim's affirmation of his Jewish heritage, although embraced by many other Holocaust survivors, was by no means universal. Physicist Lise Meitner had been born and brought up Jewish. She rejected newspaper attempts to characterize her as a Jew following the bombing of Hiroshima when the press learned that she had been the first scientist to recognize nuclear fission. Decades before Hitler rose to power she had become a Lutheran. Although the Nazis stole her savings and ruined her career she refused to work on the bomb or let Hitler define her identity. Intermarriage Intermarriages between Jews and non-Jews are relatively common in the United States and Canada. Several circumstances complicate these unions from the perspective of the Jewish community. Different movements within Judaism recognize different standards for conversion to Judaism and transmission of their heritage. Social pressure generally falls upon men to marry Jewish women because all movements recognize a Jewish woman's offspring as Jews. (Note: Starting in the late 1960s and lasting until the 90s–00s, several movements in Judaism ceased recognizing Jewish women's offspring as Jews if the women intermarried. The Reconstructionist movement of the United States, followed by the Reform movement of the U.S. in 1983, declared that they would accept the children of either an intermarried Jewish father or an intermarried Jewish mother as Jews only if the children had been raised as Jews. If the children were not raised as Jews, and later wished to join the Reform or Reconstructionist movements in the U.S., they had to convert. The Society for Humanistic Judaism in the U.S. will accept the children based on their own self-identification. The Orthodox and Conservative movements in the U.S. still require the conversion of patrilineal [Jewish fathers] children, but accept the children of Jewish mothers, regardless of how they are raised. Jewish Renewal rabbis do not have denominational guidelines, and go on a case-by-case basis.) A puzzling twist to this controversy is the fact, apparently not well known, that Prof. Fackenheim himself was intermarried, and the Jewishness of one of his children was rejected by an Israeli Orthodox court, even though that son was converted via Orthodox ritual as a child, and is a citizen of Israel. (See, "Rabbinical Court casts doubt on conversion of son of famed Jewish theologian" in the Jerusalem Post, January 19, 2009). According to this news article, his wife converted to Judaism some time after the marriage.