According to Jewish law (halacha) a person is Jewish through the maternal line, or halachic conversion [usually comprised of education by a reputable rabbi and community, a hearing in a beit din--rabbinic court--which includes the giving of a Hebrew name, and immersion in a ritual bath (mikveh)]. You come out of this process completely Jewish, a Jew-by-choice; as such, it's a little more than simply sad if you then go on to desecrate the religious laws--those who haven't had the choice are given some more leeway [although there is a delightful argument in Talmudic (oral law) tradition that every individual as well as all of humanity is given and was given the choice of existing or not...]. You cannot be Jewish otherwise.
As for proving it : My mother was raised a Roman Catholic, that's what my mother's mother said she was, and I can't find out anything about my mother's mother's mother. Because of the time and various other things, it is possibly plausible (in fact likely) that my maternal grandmother is covering something up. Of what that something is, I have no solid idea. All of my requests for details are completely ignored, as if I haven't made them. Proving the matter would require rabbinic documentation of at least one of these women or their mothers, but this is not typically available in cases where the woman has renounced or otherwise given up or left the community (for whatever reasons) and especially if the women have been out of and separated from the community for several generations and the Rabbinic Authority in Israel uses ketubim (marriage contracts) for their proof (so your mother--not your mother's mother--would have to have left the community after her marriage--meaning she was most likely at least partially raised in the Jewish tradition) at least this was the case when I was researching it. one change, though, in regard to converts is that the Israeli Authority now recognizes certain Conservative conversions (they still include mikvot, but their interpretation and practice of some religious law is considered less stringent than Orthodoxy) where before they had only counted Orthodox ones.
Perhaps my attitude in explaining this is too ambiguous. The law clarifies that in the case of doubt, one cannot and does not assume in favor of legality unless that doubt is indeed compelling in which case the question is brought before a rabbi (who is basically a religious lawyer ; being a rabbi means you have sufficiently studied the necessary texts and commentaries to sufficiently and adequately lead a community, to answer their questions, to preside over their cases, and to guide their observance of the law, and if not to discern when you cannot do so safely and to know the question to then put before a more learned rabbi). This is the point : doubting something doesn't make it true.
About your Cherokee puzzle : can't a slaveowner also be a white southerner?
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Date: 2008-05-21 02:51 am (UTC)As for proving it : My mother was raised a Roman Catholic, that's what my mother's mother said she was, and I can't find out anything about my mother's mother's mother. Because of the time and various other things, it is possibly plausible (in fact likely) that my maternal grandmother is covering something up. Of what that something is, I have no solid idea. All of my requests for details are completely ignored, as if I haven't made them. Proving the matter would require rabbinic documentation of at least one of these women or their mothers, but this is not typically available in cases where the woman has renounced or otherwise given up or left the community (for whatever reasons) and especially if the women have been out of and separated from the community for several generations and the Rabbinic Authority in Israel uses ketubim (marriage contracts) for their proof (so your mother--not your mother's mother--would have to have left the community after her marriage--meaning she was most likely at least partially raised in the Jewish tradition) at least this was the case when I was researching it. one change, though, in regard to converts is that the Israeli Authority now recognizes certain Conservative conversions (they still include mikvot, but their interpretation and practice of some religious law is considered less stringent than Orthodoxy) where before they had only counted Orthodox ones.
Perhaps my attitude in explaining this is too ambiguous. The law clarifies that in the case of doubt, one cannot and does not assume in favor of legality unless that doubt is indeed compelling in which case the question is brought before a rabbi (who is basically a religious lawyer ; being a rabbi means you have sufficiently studied the necessary texts and commentaries to sufficiently and adequately lead a community, to answer their questions, to preside over their cases, and to guide their observance of the law, and if not to discern when you cannot do so safely and to know the question to then put before a more learned rabbi). This is the point : doubting something doesn't make it true.
About your Cherokee puzzle : can't a slaveowner also be a white southerner?