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<<Previous -- Table of Contents -- Next>> CHALLENGES TO JEWISH IDENTITY The
British Determine Who Is a Jew?! ... [The] Jewish Free School in London has been ordered to admit a child whose mother had a non-Orthodox conversion after the child's parents sued .... What is mind-boggling is how a British court of appeals, which ruled against the school, said the Jewish community's ancient tradition of deciding Jewishness is ethnically-based, discriminatory and therefore unlawful. ... [The 1 court said that if the child practices Judaism, then he is Jewish. But to base it on his parents was an unlawful emphasis on ethnicity rather than on faith. One can immediately understand the implications for Jews who are not at all observant. Presumably the British government would not consider them Jews. Now, let's put aside for a moment the government's unbelievable infringement in the affairs of a religion and focus instead on the court's rationale. In you are living in Britain, you become a citizen automatically if your parents are British. Even if you don't behave in a particularly British manner, or hate the country of your birth, the UK cannot take away your passport. And if you're an American living abroad, your children automatically acquire American citizenship. I should know because six of my nine children were born in Britain. And even though only one of their parents was American, and living in Europe to boot, they automatically became Americans .... So is it really that difficult for British judges to understand that peoplehood is conveyed through a parent? The Jews are first and foremost a people and only secondarily a faith. We were the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob before we received the Torah at Mount Sinai and began practicing Judaism's tenets. Peoplehood comes first, and is completely independent of any kind of religious affinnation. Jewishness is not something that can be lost, and not something that can be renounced .... I am gobsmacked that a British court is challenging this .... This ruling constitutes a legal assault on the very integrity of the Jewish religion as practiced in Britain, and is a watershed moment in modern Jewish history. And with all the recent stories of British academics seeking to bar Israeli counterparts from conferences and the rise of anti-Semitic incidents in the British isles, it will only further cement world opinion that Britain is a country becoming hostile to Jews. Being a people does not make
us a homogeneous ethic group. There are black Jews and white Jews, European
Jews and Asian Jews. Converts of every ethnicity can of course join
us at any time. But in so doing they are not adopting a faith but a
people. They do not become merely practitioners of the Jewish faith
but part of the Jewish family. A convert is transfonned from an outsider
into a Jewish brother or sister. But the process must of course have
standards. To be a British citizen is not an arbitrary act. It takes
approximately Now just imagine how absurd it would be if the US told Britain to alter its residency requirements, or vice versa, and you can begin to understand the chutzpa of British judges trying to alter the identity requirements of a 3,500-year-old faith that is the precursor of Christianity .... One of our religion's principal values is community and peoplehood. For thousands of years, dispersed throughout the world, Jews have always looked out for each other.... (Jerusalem Post, November 9, 2009) <<Previous -- Table of Contents -- Next>> |
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