What is a Jew? And why does it matter?
The number one article emailed over the last day from the NY Times is a piece from the magazine entitled “How Do You Prove You’re a Jew?” written by Gershom Gorenberg.
Intrigued by the title, I read on. If you have not yet read this article, I highly recommend reading it, and then coming back here to read my thoughts.
For the last 20 years, the hot topic covered by books, articles, television interviews, OU productions, the Israeli rabbinate, and people trying to make intelligent conversation at Friday night dinners has been “Who is a Jew?” Should Brother Daniel have been considered Jewish? What about the Ethiopian Falash Mura? What about the legions of individuals who emigrated from the former USSR? How about the children of migrant workers who speak Hebrew, celebrate Jewish holidays, live in Israel, and know no other life?
As the article states, post-Second Temple Judaism has largely been accepted as based on matrilineal descent. Seeing the amount of mixed marriages in America, the Reform movement had on multiple occasions made various statements regarding the status of children of Jewish fathers. In 1947 and 1961, the CCAR wrote about the child of a non-Jewish mother and a Jewish father, doing away with the need to perform a formal conversion, as long as they partake in the regular rites of the Jewish student, culminating in the Confirmation ceremony.
That said, in 1983 the Reform movement made a greater statement regarding mixed marriages and patrilineal descent. According to the Report of the Committee on Patrilineal Descent:
There are tens of thousands of mixed marriages. In a vast majority of these cases the non-Jewish extended family is a functioning part of the child’s world, and may be decisive in shaping the life of the child. It can no longer be assumed a priori, therefore, that the child of a Jewish mother will be Jewish any more than that the child of a non-Jewish mother will not be. This leads us to the conclusion that the same requirements must be applied to establish the status of a child of a mixed marriage, regardless of whether the mother or the father is Jewish.
Therefore:
The Central Conference of American Rabbis declares that the child of one Jewish parent is under the presumption of Jewish descent. This presumption of the Jewish status of the offspring of any mixed marriage is to be established through appropriate and timely public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people. The performance of these mitzvot serves to commit those who participate in them, both parent and child, to Jewish life.
Depending on circumstances, mitzvot leading toward a positive and exclusive Jewish identity will include entry into the covenant, acquisition of a Hebrew name, Torah study, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, and Kabbalat Torah (Confirmation). For those beyond childhood claiming Jewish identity, other public acts or declarations may be added or substituted after consultation with their rabbi.
For the Reform community, Judaism is more than just blood; it is a way of life.
For the Haredi (and by extension the Orthodox) community, Judaism is a binary function: IF your mother was Jewish when she gave birth to you, or IF you converted with someone that is trusted by the Haredi (and by extension the Orthodox) rabbinate, THEN you are considered Jewish.
This means that Tel Avivians who don’t believe in any concept of God and regularly gorge on calamari are considered more Jewish than a Conservative convert who is Shomer Shabbat and Shomer Kashrut. That is the letter of the law in the eyes of the Orthodox.
The irony that is the American Orthodox rabbinate is now, according to the NYTimes article, ready to back civil marriages in Israel in order to make it easier for American (Orthodox) individuals to marry in Israel.
Historically, the change in descent (and the question about who is a Jew) occurred after the destruction of the Second Temple, when the Rabbinic institution took charge and created Halacha as we know (and love) it. That Halacha is the work of a minority, or at least not of a ruling class. No government ever had to be run within its constraints. The same figures who created that Halacha would not eat in their own mother’s home if she was not a “haver.” They were interested, rightfully so, in strengthening their own community. The laws of conversion before were never very clear before then. Those laws would be codified in the Diaspora, mainly for the needs of a “ger tzedek – a righteous convert” and people who wish to marry outside of the tribe for love (but we don’t mention that).
In the Bible, we see the concept of the Ger Toshav, the foreigner who lives among us. However, in a Diaspora Judaism, there is never a need for that title, as we were lacking all control. When we have a homeland, and we are in control, it does not make sense that there is not a simpler system, such as the one that was spoken about in the Bible.
In the Diaspora, matrilineal descent made sense, because we would always know who the mother was.
Israel requires a solution. Not only for Sharon, the young Israeli woman in her late 30’s born to a Conservative Jewish American woman. Not only for the Conservative or Reform convert or the child of a Jewish father, who was raised as a Jew. Not only for American Jews. For everyone. For the foreign workers in Israel. For the adopted. For those non-religious individuals who identify with Judaism. For those who don’t have a voice, but live in the Jewish country.
Going to a purely civil marriage society is part of a solution, but not the whole thing. Unless agreed on by all sides, civil marriage will cause rifts that will be impossible to sew back together. Would I be able to meet a girl on the street in Herzeliyya and marry her without many communities rejecting her? What about my children? I am considered Jewish because an influential Orthodox rabbi from America wrote a letter saying that I was born to “a Jewish father and a Jewish mother.” I know that he never met my maternal grandmother, never researched her in her hometown in Lithuania where she was born, where most of her family was murdered by the Nazis, but he trusted that the ketuba (that he probably never saw) of my parents was kosher, and that my father is also an influential Orthodox rabbi. In the terminology of the 3rd century, I was born as a “haver.” Not all my friends can claim the same esteemed heritage.
If Judaism is something that we have to keep pure, and we have our personal Haredi “Inquisitors” (in the positive job of Inquisition, not as an odious term) making sure that the bloodlines are being kept clean, we have to make sure that is for a purpose. The Jewish Limpieza de Sangre lives on. We have to ask, “What is a Jew?” Why does it matter? How is that different than an Israeli?
The Hatam Sofer’s dictum of “Anything new [being] forbidden by the Torah” should not apply here, as this is going back to the Torah. After 60 years of existence, Israel has to recognize that it is a country, and not just a community of people. While the six-figured multitudes in America are problematic, the problem is magnified in Israel. It is more than a question of who is a Jew and, if they aren’t, how we can remedy that issue. It should be how we can accept everyone who wants to be here. As the NY Times article poignantly points out, 80% of American Jewish Federation leaders wouldn’t be considered Jewish enough to marry.
In Israel, the bar cannot be set at religious observance, as most of the country is not observant. It is complex, as complex as the the immigration debate in the United States. But that has to be the beginning of this conversation. We have to distill and determine what the modern Jew is. We have to be cognizant that the Jewish nation crosses religious and physical boundaries. People lived and died as Jews, because that was what they believed, while the current Rabbinate would not consider them as such.
The solution must be multi-partisan.
I, for one, am waiting.
