[lbo-talk] Re: who is Jewish

[andie nachgeborenen]

I believe Bill was imaging a scenario where, say, the mother of an Inuit, with no connection to the Jewish community, history of practice, relationship to anyone who practiced, etc., suddently, out of the blue, announces, "I'm Jewish, and so are you, kid." Who knows why, she read a book. That wouldn't do. She'd have to convert first.  Look, I'm describing a cultural practice. It's complex, as a number of people have announced. It's not an a priori construction. It wasn't made up as an example of something. It's a way of doing things that has evolved. If you want to understand it, the proper approach to it is anthropological, not to attack it by counterexample. Particular versions of the practice are contested. Thus thus Orthodox do not accept Reform or Conservative conversions, and since they control the religious law in Israel, convertees who are not Orthodox don't get in under the Law of Return, while Reform, Conservative, and even nonobservant totally secular Jews don't have convert and do get under the law of return. On the other hand the Orthodox hate people like me, regard my ilk as worse than apostates, and Jews who intermarry get flack even in Reform households. I could go on. But the long and short of it is that you have try to understand it. Of course you can dismiss it as as a lot of superstitious claptrap, but then you will miss the opportunity to try to understand phenomena that are real and imporatnt, if not ruled by formal logic. jks

joanna bujes <joanna.bujes at sun.com> wrote:At 08:50 AM 05/01/2003 -0700, Justin wrote:
> No, your mother suddenly telling you she was Jewish wouldn't make you 
> Jewish.

Well, it would to the Israeli state and to a Nazi. Because in both cases 
it's a "blood" question--not a religious question and not a cultural 
question. If Bill showed up with a birth certificate that designated his 
mother's religion as Jewish, he would be Jewish; he would enjoy the right 
to live in Israel or the right to march into a gas chamber--depending on 
who was running the shown. I believe the right to return is currently 
granted to a Russian whose grandmother was "jewish" -- I'm not sure what 
the evidence required would be. But it seems to be good enough for a state 
that seeks to expand its population.

For my own part ethnic identity doesn't mean much and I have come to 
understand that all forms of identification are ultimately a form of mental 
lazyness. But hey, History is not so wise and one would be foolish to 
ignore it.

Joanna

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