<p>Pizzagirl - Well, I would hope that they don’t find it insulting. But you know, I wonder if you really want to tie acceptance as a Jew to ‘level of knowledge about Judaism’. I don’t think that would work, globally. Who gets to judge what knowledge counts? Would it be not possible to be an uneducated Jew? (I wonder if a religion that operated by that criterion wouldn’t tend eventually towards gnosticism.) Although the best Jewish joke I know is about abortion, and Jewish feelings about it, and Jewish educational aspirations. Can’t get into more detail.</p>
<p>The theoretical granddaughter of a Jewish convert to Christianity would almost certainly be asked to convert to Judaism before being accepted halachically as a Jew, by the Orthodox and Conservative rabbis I know. </p>
<p>I don’t think that halachah misunderstands biology. I believe it is making a statement about education within a family, about attachment to an identity, about drawing a clear line around ethnic and communal belonging. Obviously, the model that halachah uses is different from the ones that confessional religions use. Interestingly, in biblical accounts it’s clear that there was a time when Jewishness followed paternity. Again, I don’t think it’s a biological theory that is being reflected in the Jewish view of identity/conversion. I hear that you are ready to scrap that ole’ heap of historical junk, but I don’t agree, at least partly because I’m interested in a definition of Jewish identity that can work to tie Jews to their history, beliefs and identity worldwide WITHOUT being insulting. I’m really a big-tent girl, but I’d like to make the tent big by making conversion easier (and certainly not by seeing it as insulting), not by redefining something basic in a way that will never really fly for most Jews who care about the issue.</p>
<p>Harold and Kumar are a pair of stoners in a pair of very funny movies. I think everyone gets treated pretty irreverantly in them - I can’t remember anything particularly anti-Semetic though I’m sure there must have something. </p>
<p>My kids (particluarly the oldest one) look Jewish and have a Jewish last name, but only have one Jewish grandparent (Dad’s father). For various reasons I think it would make more sense if kids took their Mom’s last names rather than the Dad’s. :)</p>
<p>Interestingly, my Dad had a little talk with me before I got married urging me to take my husband’s name. He felt that if I didn’t it could look anti-Semetic. I understood his point of view, but I felt at the time either we both changed our names or neither of us did.</p>
<p>Real simple - it is and has always been about jealousy. Yes, there are those that blame them for killing Christ, but it boils down to the fact that they became successful and others did not. Of course the fact that lending for interest between Christians was outlawed, and Jews had to become the go-betweens (i.e. the Christian would loan money to the Jew for 2%, then he would turn around and loan it to another Christian for 3 or 4%) and they made money using others’ money. So, there was jealousy.</p>
<p>One thing I like about this discussion, is it shows how much Jews and Christians are alike: Christian denominations are also always arguing about whether members of other denominations are “really” Christians or not.</p>
<p>By the way, one thing that’s been mentioned a couple of times: who, exactly, still blames Jews, collectively, for killing Christ? There may be some people who do blame some of the Jewish leaders in the New Testament story for bringing about Christ’s death, but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered any real-life person who expressed the idea that Jews, as a group, are guilty for killing Christ. I’ve certainly encountered plenty of anti-Semitic people, but that particular thing never came up.</p>
<p>As a Christian, Lutheran to be exact, every Sunday we say the Apostles Creed. In the Creed it says…(Jesus)…“was crucified under PONTIUS PILATE, died and was buried” Pontius Pilate was the ROMAN governor of Judea. The blame falls on Pilate because he, as a person, was too weak to stop the crucifixion.</p>
<p>I was taught to think of religion as a tree. The main trunk of the tree is the basis for all religions under God and off of that tree there are many branches. Each branch may go off in a different direction, but they all depend on God to feed them.</p>
<p>As someone who grew up in the heavily Lutheran upper-midwest, I have to say, I love the Lutherans!! Tolerant and charitable - although I’m not sure about the lutefisk!</p>
<p>I’m not certain that Judaism is indeed unique in its mixture of tribal/ethnic identity and religion. I think that a similar structure applies to some South Asian religions, most notably Hinduism. (As I understand it, there is a debate about the possibility and means of conversion within Hinduism that is quite serious, and several hundred million times more significant than the debate within Judaism.) And I don’t even begin to know enough about African religions and ethnicities to know whether they are linked there.</p>
<p>My understanding of the rule of matrilineal descent was that it developed at the time of the Babylonian exile, when there had been the still-familiar pattern of systematic rape of Jewish women by the conquering army. The community was faced with a lot of babies who were living with their mothers, as part of a Jewish community, and who clearly did not have Jewish fathers. Excluding those children from the community would have forced a terrible choice on their mothers, and would perhaps have denied the community the critical mass of members to survive. So . . . presto!: Matrilineal descent as a legal interpretation.</p>
<p>The same kind of practical reasoning stands behind a lot of the controversies today. In North America, the rate of marriage to non-Jews is very high, and has rabbis pulling their hair out. If the Jewish-identified children of Jewish fathers get to be treated as Jews, that significantly expands both the marriage pool and the potential-synagogue-membership pool – good things in many people’s view. (Certainly mine.) In Israel, the issues are very different: claims on social welfare from immigrants (and if they are not Jewish, they don’t have a right to immigrate), and politics (American Jews who are not ultra-Orthodox tend to be more on the left of Israeli politics, and if you can keep some of 'em out, or limit their civil rights, so much the better). Also, in Israel, Judaism is much more an ethnic than a religious question – the majority of Israeli Jews do not engage in any religious practice, but one’s ethnic categorization has a lot to do with one’s legal status. Religiously-engaged American Jews who are not Orthodox tend to confuse people in Israel.</p>
<p>The argument among some members of the Orthodox community is not that Reform and Conservative Jews are not real Jews. It’s that what they’re practicing is not Judaism. </p>
<p>Hunt: I had no idea Christian denominations argued over whether members of other denominations are “really” Christians. This puts me in mind of my grandmother, who lived through pogroms in Eastern Europe as a child. She would watch the news on TV about the violence in Northern Ireland in the 60s and 70s and shake her head. She just couldn’t get over the fact that Christians were fighting with other Christians.</p>
<p>The ship has sailed on that one, as the Reform Jewish movement, to which the majority of American Jews with any affiliation belong, are perfectly content acknowledging either matrilineal or patrilineal descent, providing said child / family publicly identifies with Judaism through appropriate public acts (bar / bat mitzvah being an example but not the only one). That’s their official position. I recognize it’s not the position of Conservative or Orthodox and that’s fine.</p>
<p>As for patrilineal descent not counting as much as matrilineal, it seems that there is indeed acknowledgment of “blood through the father” insofar as that is how Cohen/Levi/Israel status was determined.</p>
<p>But it’s both, no? I mean, if you took a typical Reform synagogue like my own – I’m going to take a wild guess that at least a quarter of the membership are adults who, like myself, had a Jewish father but not Jewish mother. Certainly of the children in the religious school, it’s probably close to one-third or maybe even a half. While we require the child studying in our religious school to be not simultaneously going to a Sunday school for a different religion, it’s no great secret that lots of the mothers weren’t Jewish, or that many of them go to a secular Christmas at a grandparent’s house. I would submit that most C / O would look at it and say not only is what we’re practicing not halachic Judaism but that many of us as a congregation aren’t Jews. Which is their prerogative, of course.</p>
<p>WJB: In certain parts of the country, Catholics are indeed viewed as “not real Christians.” I think it’s incredibly ignorant, but there’s no denying that there’s a sector of the population for whom they seriously don’t consider Catholics Christian.</p>
<p>I believe there are two separate questions, pizzagirl. </p>
<p>The first question is whether what Reform and Conservative Jews are doing is practicing Judaism. Some Orthodox Jews say “no, period”; and some say hedge their bets slightly by saying it’s not “authentic” Judaism. </p>
<p>The second question applies only to members of Reform congregations (since the Reform movement is the only movement that recognizes patrilineal descent). The question is whether congregants who are patrilineally descended, even those who are actively engaged, are Jews. Without a halachic conversion, both the Orthodox and Conservative movements say “no,” although the Conservative movement certainly takes the position that Reform Jews are practicing Judaism.</p>
<p>OK, fair clarification. But, as a Reform Jew, and I mean this nicely, it’s not all that important to us that C / O don’t see many of us as Jews. We’ll deal with it if and when our kids marry your kids and there’s a need or desire for a halachic conversion, but until that occurs … it just doesn’t affect us.</p>
<p>As for myself, if I go to officially convert with a Reform rabbi, it won’t affect my kids anyway since they’re already here, so there’s no point in me doing so (unless I wanted to for my own reasons). My kids don’t have a desire to proactively convert under a C rabbi under the off chance that they’ll marry a C for whom their status won’t be good enough. Like I said, they’ll deal with it if and when it becomes a problem, which would only be if they were to marry a C with a C rabbi.</p>
<p>I was just thinking the same thing. On a micro level, the only time the “Who is a Jew” issue surfaces is when a patrilineally descended child decides to marry a Conservative or Orthodox Jew for whom the issue of a halachic conversion does matter. And then it’s up to the lovely couple to work it out.</p>
<p>thereby avoiding the current practice that Reform rabbis now do conduct “halachic conversions” and are trained to present challenging opportunities (e.g. ritual bath immersion, or appearing before a Beit Din populated by Orthodox rabbis) in case the new JewByChoice would like more chance of easier internal acceptance someday in the future. Reform has always been about “informed choice” and this is just another development.</p>
<p>The reality is that some Orthodox assign themselves free reign to scoff at Reform activities. That includes at a very serious level – not accepting the signatures of Reform rabbis on lifecycle documents around the globe. Several years ago, a list published in Israel by the Ministry of Religion of acceptable diaspora rabbis for whom to accept conversion signatures included not one Reform rabbi and few Conservative rabbis. This has nothing to do with the kind of conversion any of them perform. The conversion ceremony performed by most Reform rabbis today is IDENTICAL halachically to activities conducted by their counterparts in other movements. In practicality, some of the Reform programs of preparation for conversion are far more rigorous, often following a year of active study in seminars. Those who duck away from appearing before an Orthodox Beit Din (court) say they do not want to lie about their plans and intentions to keep a kosher home. Those who appear are taught how to answer such questions with integrity by focussing on intentions and their openness to someday consider revising their kitchen. Excluding Reform rabbis from the Beit Din is a city-by-city struggle, especially since many modern Reform rabbis practice strict levels of halachah personally but do not demand same from their congregation, regarding all of that as personal choice within a tradition. </p>
<p>Having read through this entire fascinating thread, I only want to add this update: civil rights for other (nonOrthodox) denominations in Israel is making progress, but by law can only be batttled out one case at a time within the Israeli Supreme Court. Changing things case-by-case is very slow but each time the pluralistic side of the case wins. While at a glacial pace, the directionality within Israel is to open up to other religious denominations other than just Orthodox. Since I didn’t see that development reflected thus far in the thread, I[m adding that. For details Google up the name Uri Regev, the lawyer who brought many of these cases before the Israeli Supreme Court in his former capacity as head of the Israel Religious Action Center (sponsored, you guessed it, by the international Reform movement).</p>
<p>Concerning the OP’s original question, I’ll add that my weekly teaching of 8th grade Jewish afterschool students who attend a variety of public schools in my metropolitan area gives voice to the questions on their minds. Whenever we can pause from curriculum, they only want to know how to deal with comments and antiSemitic insults at their schools. For example, “Why do they throw a coin in front of me and dare me to grab it up from the floor?” Kinda heartbreaking, but I teach them strategies, including how to discern jokes from vicious hatred, when to walk away from a conversation, and other things that concern adolescents everywhere.</p>
<p>If it makes them feel any better, what I tell students at my all-girls’ alma mater when they ask how I deal with misogyny in my job as a civil/structural engineer is that some people are just jerks. I know they’re not really being jerks as a direct result of my gender, but that my gender just gives them a topic via which they can <em>be</em> jerks. It’s not a cause, merely an avenue… And I have to take a deep breath and give thanks that I have a tool that allows me to realize who the jerks are before I get backstabbed in my dealings with them in the workplace.</p>
<p>They’re not jerks to you because you’re Jewish, they’re jerks to you because they’re just fundamentally jerks, and they can’t help but let all that jerkness escape through what they say and do.</p>
<p>Still, how sad, that they have to deal with that.</p>
<p>So someone asked me to give examples of remarks against Jews.
The other day during lunch, a friend forgot to get a side fries and left his tray on the Cafe table along with his wallet. He went about 4 steps before running back and saying something like he forgot his wallet and that he really wants to keep his change when he comes back. Everyone laughed at the 2 poor jewish kids.</p>
<p>Anyways, someone else asked about Harold and Kumar. During the 2nd H&K, a guy pours a bag of change infront of these two jews in an attempt to get their cooperation. When the guy leaves, the jews scoop up the change.</p>
<p>Kind of bugs me the way Jews tend to be overwhelmingly liberal and pro-affirmative action…ie., in favor of various efforts to ensure the % of students or employees should in some way approximate the % of various ethnic groups in the general population. Yet they continue to be in top colleges and grad schools way above their % in the general population.</p>
<p>They are also pretty scarce in the military, as if it’s not their forte. So they avoid the military in just about every country they are in…except Israel. Seems like it would aid assimilation if they did their time in their chosen countries’ armed forces rather than avoiding them but running back to Israel and gladly taking up arms every time there’s a crisis there.</p>