Your contrast of US, a country, on the one hand with religion on the other brings up what I think is the main point of confusion on this, and that’s that to be Jewish is both a nationality (with a national homeland and a political ideology) and a faith. You allude to that in your post. It’s tough to balance and define both aspects.

My point about halacha being relevant to all Jews is not that all Jews believe in it, but simply that they all descend from the rabbinic Jewish tradition, it’s part of their history, so it’s shayach to everyone (except those few wacky karaites who remain) so it should be the default standard due to it’s power as the immediate historical precedent. I completely agree we should be applying the Ger Toshav status today. That would be a good compromise to make people part of the nation without having to be Jewish. In general, I think we should encourage a mass noahide movement, and apparently the Lubavitcher Rebbe encouraged this. R. Adin Steinzaltz’s Sanhedrin actually accepts Ger Toshav’s but the sanhedrin is not really taken seriously from what I hear.

My opening line was going to be “I abhor both empathy and logic.”
I agree that much of this post has an emotional underpinning to it, but I do agree that my argument is not logical.
I will stand by my guns, and regardless of the Reform movement, state that pre-Diaspora things were different.
The reason I chose the Reform movement, was because they made a change AFTER they realized what was happening, and that a society was being created that considered themselves Jewish, because they were being raised Jewish.
For the migrant worker’s child, America (for better or worse) has a solution for him.
All these other places are law-based societies, and in order to become a citizen, you have to wait, take a test, marry someone, do something.
To become part of a different religion it is much easier. In Islam, you have to repeat something three times, and in Christianity you have to become baptized. If you do either of these things, people from all over the religion will marry you and accept you.
The Reform will allow an adoptee NOT to go through conversion, if raised Jewish. That has nothing to do with blood, that has to do with way of life.
I will never say that the Tel Avivian eating shrimp is not Jewish, that wasn’t my intention at all, I think that they are. My intention was that we need some system to include the other people as well.

My intial question was: What is a Jew? If a person comes, and you know will not keep the mitzvot, but will live in Israel, and celebrate the holidays and fill out “Jew” in any official form, will the Orthodox way ever allow him to convert.

Matrilineal descent is doing the Conservative movement well, especially because the Orthodox don’t accept them. Because their responsa about driving on Shabbat is different. (Yes, I know who I am talking to.)

You can’t bring up halakha, and say, “Everyone keeps the same thing.” Halakha is fluid, and it has been for many years.

You say that I don’t understand the nature of law. What has happened to the “Ger Toshav” that is in the Bible, and fills some sort of need? I agree with you, that I do not provide an answer, but the Torah was smart, it realized that other people would live with us, and cohabitate with us. In our own land.
And raise our kids to be good Jews. There is no blood there, but there is action.
If an American goes to Spain, meets a woman, loves her, wants to marry her. She could come back with him and become a citizen of the USA.
Why? Because the US understands that you need something like this so people can love outside of their own boundaries. Yes, it has been abused, but it still is based on a good “ideal”.

You want everyone to follow your particular group - and then everyone would be happy. I hate to tell you that your group is the minority. So therefore they can be more selective.

That’s what makes your statement that Reform considers Judaism a way of life and not just a matter of blood an emotional platitude. Everyone agrees JudaISM (the belief system) is a way of life (and you can’t deny the orthodox actually treat it as such more than reform do) but even Reform admits that blood is involved because they still say one parent must be Jewish. It’s actually they who engage in inquisition because they don’t consider a kid Jewish unless he engages in what they consider Jewish practices like a bar mitzva, Torah study, etc..who are they to judge what’s Jewish practice? Maybe I have my own ideas of what that should be. (this leads to the interesting case of a child born to a Jewish mother but raised Christian, who the reform consider Christian and halacha considers Jewish..they’re stricter than halacha!) That’s why halacha has the only consistent solution. Conservative Judaism understands this and they keep matrilineal descent also in order to preserve Jewish unity. It was Reform who caused the mess by unilaterally breaking with the one inherited legal standard that all Jews could agree on.

Historical points about how thousands of years ago it was different (even though traditional belief states that the Talmud actually reflects the original law from Sinai) or how halacha came into being may of historical interest, but are irrelevant because today; regardless how we got here, normative Judaism came to state that matrilineal descent is the norm and this became the only accepted standard, accepted by sefardim in Iran and ashkenazim in europe, until reform broke with it. The halacha is the only standard that is historically relevant to all Jews (as it’s the inherited tradition of all modern Jews even if they don’t keep it now) and is therefore far simpler than coming up with some new idea and expecting 15 million people to agree to it.

I am advocating a (virtually impossible) country that can look to the bible for its outlook towards outsiders.

Unless Israel somehow does something that is good for everyone, no one will be able to marry in Israel in another generation.