Who is a Jew?
Who is a Jew? (Hebrew: ?מיהו יהודי) is the name of the religious, social and political debate on the exact definition of which persons can be called Jewish. As Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation, a religion, an ethnicity, and a culture, the definition of who is a Jew may vary, depending on whether a religious, sociological, or national approach to identity is used. "Who is a Jew?" has also become a well-known rhetorical question within Judaism, referring to a cultural and religious battle to define who can be described as truly being a "Jew" and what the "correct" definition for being "Jewish" actually is.
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Perspectives
Within the Jewish community
According to Halakha (Jewish law and traditions), only a child born by a Jewish mother is counted as Jewish. A child with a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother is simply considered a non-Jewish person. Although an infant conversion might be contemplated in some circumstances, such children would typically be able to convert to Judaism after he or she had reached religious adulthood (12 years old for a girl, 13 for a boy), just as any non-Jew would. This standard is applied with Conservative and Orthodox Judaism.
As discussed in "controversies" below, Jewish religious movements that do not accept Halakha as normative have adopted different standards for their definition of who is Jewish. The Reform movement considers anyone Jewish who has at least one Jewish parent; but if there is only one Jewish parent, the person has to affirm his/her Jewish identity to maintain this status.
Though there is also controversy surrounding conversion to Judaism, all religious movements accept converts fully as Jews.
In liberal secular societies
Members of most secular societies accept someone as a Jew if they say they are, unless they have reason to believe the person is misrepresenting themselves for some reason.
In societies with race laws or traditions
Whether someone is viewed as a Jew may make the difference as to whether a person may have a certain job, live in certain locations, receive a free education, live or continue to live in the country, or even be imprisoned or officially murdered. Within Roman Catholicism, especially in times such as the Inquisition, it was usually considered that if Jewish people made a sincere conversion to Christianity, they were no longer legally regarded as Jews. In Nazi Germany, being a Jew was considered as a racial designation, and one could not become a non-Jew in the eyes of the government by being non-practicing, marrying outside the religion, or converting to Christianity. If one grandparent, either male or female, were Jewish, even someone who actually adhered to the Christian faith could be subject to the race laws. In modern Saudi Arabia, a Jew may not enter the country at all except under extraordinary circumstances.
In modern Israel
The phrase Mihu Yehudi (transliterated from Hebrew: ?מיהו יהודי "Who is a Jew?") came into widespread use when several high profile legal cases in Israel grappled with this subject after the founding of the Jewish state in 1948. These legal cases arose because being Jewish is not simply a matter of subscribing to a set of religious beliefs. For a variety of reasons related to Jewish history, Judaism's religious laws, and cultural norms, being a Jew involves being part of a people, or a nation in modern terminology. For most, it is a product of their birth when they are born into a Jewish family; for others, becoming Jewish involves applying and formally "converting" to Judaism. Identifying who is a Jew matters for religious reasons as well. A valid Jewish marriage can only exist between two Jews; a traditional minyan (the quorum required for communal prayers), can only be formed with ten adult Jews (necessarily male according to Orthodox authorities).
According to Jewish tradition, the first converts were Abraham and Sarah, and Biblical and post-Biblical literature provide numerous examples of individuals, such as Ruth, and Onkelos, who joined the Jewish people for a variety of reasons.
All Jewish denominations and groups within the Jewish community agree that it is possible for virtually anyone to become a Jew, but since the mid 20th century there has been increasing disagreement about what precisely determines whether someone is born Jewish, or what it would take to join the Jewish people.
The controversy
The traditional definition of a Jew is "someone born to a Jewish mother or who has converted to Judaism." The requirement for a valid conversion is that the candidate for conversion understand the obligations of being a Jew, show commitment to fulfilling these obligations, (for a male) to undergo Brit milah (ritual circumcision) or one of its exceptions, perform immersion in a mikvah, and satisfy the scrutiny of a Beit din, or rabbinical court. The beit din act not only as judges but as witnesses in the course of conversion, and it follows that its members must be kosher, i.e. suitable and qualified for these purposes.
Three basic disputes
The controversy of "who is a Jew" concerns three basic disputes:
- The North American Reform movement has changed some of the traditional requirements for a Jewish identity in ways that are unacceptable to more traditional movements in two ways: (1) Children born of just one Jewish parent - regardless of whether the father or mother is Jewish - can claim a Jewish identity. A child of only one Jewish parent who does not claim this identity has, in the eyes of the Reform movement, forfeited his/her Jewish identity. By contrast, the traditional view is that any child born to a Jewish mother is Jewish, whether or not he/she is raised Jewish, or even whether the mother considers herself Jewish. (As an example, the grandchildren of Madeline Albright (who was raised Catholic and was unaware of her Jewish heritage) would all be Jews according to halakha (traditional Jewish law), since their mother's traceable female ancestors were all Jewish (Dr. Albright only has daughters). (2) The requirement of brit milah has been relaxed, as has the requirement of ritual immersion. (Conservatism also permits conversion without circumcision in the case of hemophiliacs.)
- The Orthodox movements assert that non-Orthodox rabbis are not qualified to form a beit din, and are generally restrictive in their willingness to accept the ruling of a beit din with whom they are not familiar. This has led to the fact that non-Orthodox conversions are generally not accepted in Orthodox communities. Since Orthodox Judaism maintains the traditional standards for conversion -- in which the commitment to observe Halakha is an absolute requirement -- non-Orthodox conversions are generally not accepted in Orthodox communities because the new movements perform conversions in which the new convert does not undertake to observe Halakha as understood by Orthodox Judaism.
- A third controversy concerns those who no longer consider themselves Jewish because they no longer practice Judaism, do not accept or follow Halakha, or now adhere to another religion. Nonetheless, all Jewish denominations would still consider such a person to be a Jew if he otherwise met their definitions.
In practical terms, this means that a growing number of traditional Jewish families are increasingly concerned about the genealogy of their children's potential spouses, fearing that their grandchildren may not be Jews according to halakha. It also creates awkward situations in the course of Jewish rituals, e.g. in creating a minyan during synagogue services or when searching for a Jewish spouse.
It has also become an important issue in Israeli politics. The Law of Return largely relies on the traditional interpretation of who is a Jew, albeit with the added stringency that the person wishing to make aliyah to Israel – that is, to immigrate under the Law of Return – should not have formally converted to another religion. (It should be noted however, that the Law of Return also includes the children and grandchildren of Jews, indicating that the aim of the Law of Return is somewhat different than that of resolving the theoretical question of who is Jewish.) Leaders of the Conservative and Reform movements have vehemently opposed the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's claim that they alone can determine what is and what isn't a legitimate Jewish conversion.
There have been several attempts to convene representatives of the three major movements to formulate a practical solution to this issue. To date, these have failed, though all parties concede the importance of the issue is greater than any sense of rivalry among them.
Religious definitions
For the most part, a Jewish identity has been seen as a religious question stemming specifically from the Torah and Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) as a whole. As a result, religious authorities, namely scholarly rabbis, have traditionally taken the responsibility of determining the criteria for being a Jew.
Traditional (Halakhic) perspective
According to the traditional Rabbinic view, which is maintained by all branches of Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism today, only Halakha ("Jewish law") can define who is or is not a Jew when a question of Jewish identity, lineage, or parentage arises about any person seeking to define themselves or claim that they are a "Jew" or "Jewish".
Therefore, Halakha defines a "Jew" as someone, male or female, who is:
Either
- (1) The child of a Jewish mother, known in English as "matrilineal descent". For the derivation of this tradition see [1] and [2]
or
- (2) A person who converts, meaning, formally converted to Judaism under the auspices of a halakhically constituted and recognized Beth Din ("Court [of Jewish-Torah Law]") consisting preferably of three learned rabbis acting as Dayanim ("judges"), but also possibly two learned and respected lay members of the community along with a rabbi who then issue a Shtar geirut ("Certificate of Conversion").
Who the first Jews were is a matter of some controversy. Some maintain that it was those who were present, bodily, at the revelation of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai; others maintain that Abraham and Sarah were the first Jews.
This standard for conversion is mandated by a long series of codes of law and texts, including the Talmud, through the Shulkhan Arukh, and subsequent interpretations that are held as authoritative by Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism.
As a result, mere belief in the principles of Judaism does not make one a Jew. Similarly, non-adherence by a Jew to the Jewish principles of faith, or even formal conversion to another faith, does not make one lose one's Jewish status. Thus the immediate descendants of all female Jews (even apostates) are still considered to be Jews, as are those of all her female descendants. Even those descendants who are not aware they are Jews, or practice a faith other than Judaism, are technically still Jews, as long as they come from an unbroken female line of descent. As a corollary, the children of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother are not considered to be Jews by Orthodoxy or Conservatism unless they formally convert, even if raised practising Judaism.
Those not born to a Jewish mother may become accepted as Jews by the Orthodox and Conservative movements through a formal and usually difficult process of conversion to Judaism in order to become "true converts" (Geirei tzedek in Hebrew), and they are then accepted as Jews by the movement doing the conversion. In addition, Halakha requires that the new convert commits himself to observance of its tenets; this is called Kabbalat Ol Mitzvot, "Acceptance [of the] Yoke [of the] Commandments", the most important being the observance of Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath), Kashrut (the dietary laws), Niddah (husband and wife abstaining from sexual contact during menstruation).
Conversion is still relatively rare, and typically discouraged. Orthodoxy does not accept the validity of non-Orthodox conversions; it recognises only those conversions in which the new convert accepts and undertakes to observe Halakha as interpreted by the teachings of Orthodox Judaism. Non-Orthodox rabbis do not require that converts make this commitment, and therefore do not perform conversions accepted under Orthodoxy. Additionally, because of the constant internal differences within all groups, it is not unusual for rabbis to be suspicious of conversions performed by their colleagues.
Conservative Judaism may accept the validity of some Reform and Reconstructionist conversions, but only if they include (at a minimum) brit milah (i.e., circumcision) or "hatfah dam brit" (symbolic circumcision for those already circumcised) for men, immersion in a mikvah, and appearance before a beit din.
Perspective of Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism
In recent times, two theologically liberal Jewish groups have allowed people who do not meet the classical halakhic criteria to define themselves as Jews. The two groups are Reform Judaism, which began in mid-19th century Germany, and Reconstructionist Judaism, which began in mid-20th century United States.
Both exist primarily, but not exclusively, in the United States, where Reform Judaism is the denomination of about half of all Jews who nominally affiliate with any movement. Their procedures for conversion to Judaism often vary from the Orthodox ones, and they accept a person as a Jew even if their mother is non-Jewish. In the case of Reform, a person with one Jewish parent is considered to be a Jew if he or she performs "appropriate and timely public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people"; while this may in principle be taken to require a Reform upbringing, it is also stated that "for those beyond childhood claiming Jewish identity, other public acts or declarations may be added or substituted after consultation with their rabbi", and at least some -- possibly most -- Reform rabbis find any form of clear and public self-identification, religious or not, to be sufficient.
This policy is commonly (though somewhat inaccurately) known as patrilineal descent; bilineal descent may be a more appropriate name. The Reconstructionist position is similar.
Thus, today many Reform Jewish and secular American Jews born from originally gentile mothers consider themselves to be Jews, although they are not considered Jewish by Orthodox Judaism or Conservative Judaism. Not every movement outside the United States affiliated with the World Union for Progressive Judaism (an organization to which both Reconstructionist Judaism and American Reform Judaism belong) accepts bilineal descent; notably, the Reform movement in the United Kingdom does not, while the Liberal movement there does.
Some Reform Jews view Judaism as a religion alone, and thus they view Jews who convert to another faith as non-Jews. For example "...anyone who claims that Jesus is their savior is no longer a Jew..." [Contemporary American Reform Responsa, #68]. This contrasts to the traditional view that Jews are a people, not merely followers of a religion, and that those who adopt the beliefs of another religion are still seen as Jews, though apostates. On the other hand, there are pre-Reform texts stating that an apostate is always an Israelite, but no longer a Jew; in order to be considered a Jew again, the apostate must repent.
Jews who have practiced another faith
All Jewish denominations welcome the return of any Jews who have left (or who have been raised in a faith other than) Judaism, and these individuals would not require a formal conversion, though they would be expected to abandon their previous beliefs and adopt Judaism. Males would be required to have either a full brit milah (ritual circumcision), or a symbolic one (if already circumcised). In some communities, Orthodox and otherwise, people who return to Judaism may be required or encouraged to participate in a ceremony similar to conversion, including tevilah (immersion in a ritual bath) and appearance before a beth din.
Conversion to Judaism
A ger tzedek is a "righteous convert" or more literally a "convert [of] righteousness".
The laws of conversion to Judaism are based in discussions in the Talmud. Jewish law is generally interpreted as discouraging proselytizing, and religious conversion is also discouraged. This is due to the Jewish belief that all nations have a share in the World to Come, and thus, do not need to accept Judaism and live as Jews.
However, a rabbi convinced of the prospective convert's sincerity may allow him or her to follow the process of conversion, and thus appear before an established three-judge Jewish religious court known as a beth din ("religious court") to be tested and formally accepted.
There is no specific time frame for the conversion process and procedures. The prospective convert is taught the basic laws and beliefs of Judaism, and must show an ability to keep the laws and make a commitment to keep them. See How does one convert?. A male convert is known as a Ger (or Ger tzedek, meaning "righteous convert") and a female is a Giyoret, from the Hebrew root word gar ( גר ) (to "live" or "sojourn [with]".)
As discussed above, some denominations of present-day Judaism do not follow traditional Jewish laws concerning conversion. As a result, their converts are frequently not recognized by other Jewish denominations.
Definitions in the State of Israel
The situation in Israel is somewhat ambiguous.
Israeli rules for aliyah creates Israelis but not Jews
One area where the traditional definition of Jew is not followed by the Israeli governement is in deciding who qualifies to make aliyah ("emigrate [to Israel]") and acquire citizenship under the Law of Return.
The requirements here differ significantly from the definition of a Jew under halakha, in permitting anyone with only one Jewish grandparent, or as non-Jewish spouses of Jews, to move to Israel. A person with only one Jewish grandparent is presently allowed to make aliyah but that does not confer the status of Jew upon that person according to Jewish law neither in Israel nor anywhere else.
Thus, because the secular Israeli Law of Return functions in far broader terms than would be allowed according to Judaism's definition of "Who is a Jew?" it is consequently estimated that as a result of the easing of standards, in the past twenty years, about 300,000 avowed non-Jews and even practicing Christians have entered Israel from the former Soviet Union on the basis of claiming to have one Jewish grandparent or by being married to a Jew. The net result has been that Israel has not resolved the question of how such a large group of immigrants who are now Israelis but who are still not Jews should be formally converted to Judaism. [3]
Current Israeli definitions however, specifically excludes Jews who have openly and knowingly converted to a faith other than Judaism. This definition is not the same as that in traditional Jewish law; in some respects it is a deliberately wider, so as to include those non-Jewish relatives of Jews who may have been perceived to be Jewish, and thus faced anti-Semitism, but in other respects it is narrower, as the traditional definition includes apostate Jews.
Israeli laws governing marriage and divorce
A second area where the definition of Jew is relevant is in marriages and divorces, which are under the jurisdiction of the Israeli Ministry of Interior (see Ministry of the Interior) which, unlike the Law of Return, defines Jews strictly according to halakha.
Israeli definition of nationality
A third relevant area is in the registering of "nationality" on Israeli Teudat Zehut ("identity card"). This is also controlled by the Ministry of the Interior, which has generally only registered as a "Jew" those who meet the traditional definition according to the (Orthodox) Chief Rabbinate. However, in a small number of cases the secular Supreme Court of Israel has forced the ministry to register as Jews individuals who did not meet that definition.
Secular Israeli views
A minority of secular Israelis consider themselves to be "Israeli" enjoying a new Israeli culture and reject the title "Jew" as derived from halakha. They assert that one who is devoted to Zionism, believes and lives in the modern State of Israel, serves in the Israel Defense Forces, and works for the Ingathering of the Exiles from the diaspora, is "the real Jew." According to this redefinition, even a gentile who meets these criteria can be an "Israeli." They scorn the older generation of European Jews who they believe went "like sheep to the slaughter" to the death camps of the Holocaust and berate them for having a "galut (exile) mentality". They have a particular dislike for Haredi Jews whom they regard as old-fashioned relics of the Middle Ages, and whom they accuse of "religious coercion." This is part of an ongoing kulturkampf, or cultural divide in Israeli politics.
Other approaches to Jewish identity
There have been other attempts to determine Jewish identity beside the traditional approaches given above. These range from genetic population studies (see Y-chromosomal Aaron) to controversial evolutionary perspectives (see Kevin B. MacDonald, Yuri Slezkine).
Anti-Semitism and the definition of Jew
Although there are many reasons that the definition of Jewishness is important within the Jewish community, the question of "who is a Jew?" has often been used by anti-Semites as a precursor to persecution or discrimination against Jews as an ethnic group.
The Nazis, for example, ruled that anyone with one Jewish grandparent was either a Jew or a Mischling, and therefore subject to persecution (see Nuremberg Laws). Similarly, Neo-Nazis and modern anti-Semites often attempt to trace the ancestry of individuals to determine the existence of "Jewish blood" in a family tree, rather like racist efforts to identify individuals with "African blood."
Sensitivity over the historical and present use of the definition of Jewishness for the purposes of ethnic persecution makes some Jews uncomfortable when discussing the topic outside of the context of religious identity.
Views of secular philosophers
Jean-Paul Sartre, not a Jew himself, suggested in Anti-Semite and Jew (1948) that Jewish identity "is neither national nor international, neither religious nor ethnic, nor political: it is a quasi-historical community." While Jews as individuals may be in danger from the anti-Semite who sees only "Jews" and not "people", Sartre argues that the Jewish experience of anti-Semitism preserves – even creates – the sense of Jewish community. In his most extreme statement of this view he wrote, "It is the anti-Semite who creates the Jew." Conversely, that sense of specific Jewish community may be threatened by the democrat who sees only "the person" and not "the Jew".
Hannah Arendt repeatedly asserted a principle of claiming Jewish identity in the face of anti-Semitism. "If one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew. Not as a German, not as a world-citizen, not as an upholder of the Rights of Man, or whatever"; "A man attacked as a Jew cannot defend himself as an Englishman or a Frenchman. The world can only conclude from this that he is simply not defending himself at all."
Sociological and anthropological approaches
As with any other ethnic identity, Jewish identity is, in some degree a matter of claiming that identity and/or being perceived by others (both inside and outside the ethnic group) as belonging to that group. Returning again to the example of Madeline Albright, during her Catholic childhood her being in some sense Jewish was presumably irrelevant. It was only after she was nominated to be secretary of state that she, and the public, discovered her Jewish ancestry.
Ido Abram claims that there are five aspects to contemporary Jewish identity:
- Religion, culture, and tradition.
- The tie with Israel and Zionism.
- Dealings with anti-Semitism, including issues of persecution and survival.
- Personal history and life-experience.
- Relationship with non-Jewish culture and people. [4], [Voudouris 1999, 16]
The relative importance of these factors may vary enormously from place to place. For example, a typical Dutch Jew might describe his or her Jewish identity simply as "I was born Jewish," while a Jew in Romania, where levels of anti-Semitism are higher, might say, "I consider any form of denying as a proof of cowardice." [Voudouris 1999, 56]
Non-religious ethnic and cultural definitions
The traditional European definition of Jewishness (although it was not evenly distributed across Europe - the least developed European countries were almost always more prone to see the Jews in racial terms) differs markedly from the American progressive definition. In the former USSR, "Jew" was a nationality or ethnicity de jure all the way to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today laws concerning Jewishness are unwelcome and unethical almost anywhere in the world, but of course de facto the situation remains.
In fact, the European definition is traditional in many respects, and reflects not only how the Europeans saw Jews, but also how Jews saw themselves. For the purposes of the secular Jewish nationalist movement the Israeli Law of Return draws on external understandings of Jewishness (such as the Nazi and Soviet views), rather than traditional Halakhic criteria.
"Ethnic Jew"
"Ethnic Jew" (also known as an "assimilated Jew," see cultural assimilation) is a term generally used to describe a person of Jewish parentage and background who does not actively practice the Judaism but still identifies with Judaism and/or other Jews culturally and fraternally. The term "ethnic Jew" does not specifically exclude practicing Jews, but they are usually simply referred to as "Jews" without the qualifying adjective "ethnic". See: Ethnic group.
The term can refer to people of diverse beliefs and backgrounds due to the complex concepts of what makes a person "Jewish". The term "ethnic Jew" may be a misnomer since "ethnic" often carries a racial connotation that doesn't fit the diversity of Jews worldwide. Since "ethnic Jew" is often used to distinguish non-practicing from practicing ("religious") Jews, a more precise term might be "secular Jew."
The term sometimes can refer exclusively to Jews who, for whatever reasons, do not practice the religion of Judaism, or who are so casual in their connection to that religion as to be effectively secular. Typically, secular Jews are cognizant of their Jewish background, and may feel strong cultural (even if not religious) ties to Jewish traditions and to the Jewish people or nation. Like people of any other ethnicity, non-religious ethnic Jews often assimilate into a surrounding non-Jewish culture, but, especially in areas where there is a strong local Jewish culture, they may remain largely part of that culture, even to the point, for example, of participating in many Jewish holiday traditions, or of retaining a diet that stays close to the kosher laws.
"Ethnic Jews" include atheists, agnostics, non-denominational deists, Jews with only casual connections to Jewish denominations, and even converts to other religions, such as Christianity or Buddhism. Many ethnic Jews reject the traditional Jewish view of Jewish identity being based on matrilineal descent, and consider someone Jewish if either parent is Jewish, whereas the Halakhic definition of a Jew is matrilineal-based.
Religious Jews from any of the main Jewish denominations reach out to ethnic Jews, and ask them to rediscover Judaism. In the case of some Hasidic denominations such as from Chabad-Lubavitch, this outreach extends to active proselytizing.
Israeli immigration laws will accept an application for Israeli citizenship if there is proven documentation that any grandparent—not just the maternal grandmother—was Jewish. This does not mean that person is ethnically Jewish, but Israeli immigration will accept that person because they have an ethnically Jewish connection, and because this same degree of connection was sufficient to be persecuted as a Jew by the Nazis.
"Half-Jewish"
"Half-Jewish" is a controversial new term, describing people who have one Jewish parent. According to Jewish law, only a person born of a Jewish mother or lawfully converted can be considered Jewish. The Orthodox and Conservative movements maintain that Jewish status is passed down matrilineally, and that a person with a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father is Jewish, but that a person with a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother is not. As a result, many Jews consider use of the term "half-Jewish" to indicate ignorance of Jewish law.
Other Jews may use the term "half-Jewish" to imply that Jewishness is more of a cultural or ethnic identity than a religious one.
People of mixed heritage may not fully identify as Jewish, whether or not they embrace Judaism as a religion. In the United States, because of intermarriage, the population of "half-Jews" is beginning to rival that of Jews with two Jewish parents, especially among young children. "Half-Jewish" is emerging as an independent identity with its own traits of tolerance and adaptation, but also perhaps a sense of detachment, spiritual indifference, or unclear identity.
References
- Voudouris, Monica Săvulescu and Camil Fuchs, Jewish identity after the Second World War. Editura Hasefer, Bucharest, 1999, ISBN 9739235735.
- Daniel Klein and Freke Vuijst, The Half-Jewish Book: A Celebration. (New York: Villard Books, 2000).
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