In Judaism generally, as others have said, it is the identity of the mother that counts (except in the more “modernist” denominations like Reform, which allow children of Jewish fathers to be considered Jews if they want).
Given that, I would assume they would be considered “Jews”. But again, that’s just an assumption. I don’t actually know.
I honestly doubt that preventing interfaith marriages is a major motive for keeping the “millet” system. For one, it has the same “work around” as for secular/athiest Jews (or gays) - get married abroad - so it isn’t very effective at actually preventing interfaith marriages.
I’d say…policies and structures that facilitate a form of government in which all citizens have an equal say in the proposal, development, and creation of the laws they live under, either directly or through elected representatives.
A captive group of (involuntary) resident aliens runs counter to that, does it not?
I meant self-determination in the Atlantic Charter sense of “nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or interference.” This doesn’t mean the right to be ruled by the same ethnicity or religion as yourself, though that is often a result. This is informed by my view of a nation as a collection of residents within an arbitrary border, hopefully with some shared values; not an ethnicity or religion. Of course, the idea of self-determination is associated with ethnic groups, as well as a term in philosophy, so it’s a rather confused idea.
So, the Arab Israeli has self-determination, but the Arab in Gaza does not.
Sure, no offense taken.
But Reform Judaism doesn’t legally “count” as Judaism in Israel, correct?
That makes sense, but if that is a major motive, it may be satisfactory on the level of discouraging a non-zero number of marriages, without the media and political ramifications of an outright ban with no work-arounds.
It has no power to do stuff like marriages. Reform Jews are still counted as “Jews” though.
But yeah, I’d guess that for the “millet” system the Orthodix rules would apply - hence, a child born of a Jewish mom would be Jewish. But it’s just a guess.
Possibly. I’m just saying that it isn’t very effective, and so presumably not very satisfying to those who wish to prevent interfaith marrages - particularly given the fact that marrying in Cyprus is so well-established (and easy) as a work-around to those having difficulties caused by the system.
Probably the latter. Similarly, most Palestinians would probably not like the thought of their daughters have sex with Jewish boys and depending on the family or how well-known the relationship got, she’d possibly face some rather severe consequences.
My only cite for that is that I know it was mentioned in The Source, a historical novel by James A. Michener, first published in 1965 (one of the “framing characters”, an Israeli archaeologist, uses it). So it’s been around at least since 1965.
So, Arab population growth rate has declined, but still exceeds the national average. What’s causing it to decline, and what makes you think that will continue?
The same thing which has caused population growth to decline everywhere else in the world. I don’t know what it is (I do have some guesses) but there is something about modernity which causes fertility rates to plummet (except among certain ultra-orthodox religious groups).
It looks to me like the Arab world is following the same path trod by Europe in the past. i.e a huge fertility boom with the introduction of basic medicine and cheap food availability followed by a massive decline in fertility as more people lead stimulating lives in urban areas.
Germany does explicitly classify itself as the German state.
Why do you think they deny citizenship to ethnic Turks and ethnic Arabs who’ve lived there for multiple generations while granting citizenship to people who’ve live in other countries for centuries yet are ethnic Germans.
If they were not, then we’re back to the Ancient Greek version of democracy, with a small ruling class with a vote, and a larger body of powerless serfs.
Starting with their 1913 Nationality Law of the German Empire and States, it appears that they did. Nationality was defined in terms of jus sanguinis, blood descent from a German. This was changed by the 1999 law, previously mentioned.
I understand what you’re writing here, but I’m not referring to how Germany defines (and has defined) citizenship and nationality laws. I’m referring to the lack of any explicit declaration by the government that it’s a German and Democratic State. Why hasn’t Merkel waddled her way to the podium and pronounced that removing Turkish immigrants in Berlin is done to for the safety and protection of the German majority?
When I hear “Jewish and Democratic State” it comes off as it’s a democratic state as long as their is a Jewish majority. Since Jewish can be both an ethnicity and a religion, the statement is curiously vague on whether it refers to former, the latter, or both. Whatever the case may be, it drives a wedge between the constitutionally protected class (the Jewish people) and the gentiles. It is my opinion that other countries do not explicitly declare themselves “Ethnic X and Government Y State” in order to foster diverse immigrants. The reason you’d call yourself a “Jewish and Democratic State” is if all of you want is Jewish immigrants. It would be analogous to putting “White Europeans Only” in superscript under the “Give me your tired huddled masses” plaque on Liberty Island.
I wonder what would happen if Israel amended its basic law to delete references to Jewish and Democratic while keeping the exact same policies in place.
Would there be less criticism of Israel? Somehow I doubt it.
By the way, here are the first two articles of the Egyptian Constitution of 2011:
If it’s “the usual cause”, that’s normally attributed to birth control and improved women’s rights, plus wealth (that is, non-poverty). The reason wealth is a big factor is based on the generalization that poor people tend to have lots of children as a sort of retirement plan (in addition to having less access to birth control).
In any case, I was intriqued by the projection that the Arab population would not eventually be a majority, since I’ve always heard the opposite. I found one paper supporting this projection. This paper points out several previous prominent projections that Arab population would eventually dominate (or at least, equal), but that these projections proved to be false, generally because they underestimated Jewish population growth (due to both birth and immigration rates) and didn’t foresee Arab growth rate declining.
The projection in the above cite is that Arab population proportion would max out at around 41% in 2014 and decline to about 32% by 2050. However it’s based on projected continuing 3% per-annum decline in Arab growth rates. I suspect that decline will tail off, and I’m curious what assumptions would be required to reach Arab population equality. I’m not sure how to set up the equation, so I’d have to run a routine instead. If anyone knows how to calculate this quickly I’d be very interested.
My conclusion is that Arab dominance is definitely not a sure thing, and most likely not even the highest probability.
The orthodox population is still a fairly small minority. Even with higher growth rates, I wonder how long it will take before it would dominate population growth in Israel. I wonder what has kept this segment from dominating already. Clearly there’s some pressure keeping that from happening (e.g., children growing up and not following their parents’ orthodoxy) or it would already dominate. So, I wouldn’t project orthodoxy dominating Israeli population, at least not without a lot more data.