According to several posters in this thread and apparently to Orthodox and Conservative schools of Judaism. Have you not read the thread?
They defined tribal membership matrilinially. Their reasons for doing so are lost in the mists of time. Over time, such an arbitrary rule becomes its own reason, something Judaism is rife with (see: Kosher).
It was a rhetorical question. Somethig I would have thought obvious in context.
Point being, those are not all Jews.
That’s my point. Orthodox/Conservative exclusion of non-matrilineal Jews was being held up as some kind of final authority on the definition of “Jewishness,” and as a proof that it has no genetic/ethnic component.
I don’t think the reason for this one is hard to figure out. They could always know for sure who the mother was.
Maybe. Or maybe it had something to do with discouraging exogamy, since males are more likely to practice it.
Finding purely rational explainations for Jewish rules is an old game - they often sound perfectly reasonable, like the “kosher prevents food poisioning diseases” one. Whether they are true, or simply sophisticated “just-so” stories, is hard to tell.
Actually, no. Tribal membership is defined in Judaism patrilineally. Whether you’re a Jew or not is defined matrilineally, and Judaism doesn’t become matrilineal until sometime between the 2nd century BC-1st century AD.
I don’t think anyone is saying that Jewishness doesn’t have any genetic or ethnic component. I think, if anything, your comparison to the Druze and the Mandeans is a good one.
All three groups; Jews, Druze, and Mandeans, are religious groups, first and foremost. But they’re all endogamist religious groups that either don’t allow conversion (in the case of the Druze and Mandeans), or discourage it (in the case of the Jews), and so there is an ethnic component and cultural traditions that have developed around it.
The thing is, though, I think, and this goes back to the earlier, greater question (about atheist Muslims), that all religions have a cultural component. One of the things you hear about in the United States, for instance, are “Cultural Catholics”. These are people who don’t actively practice Catholicism, and don’t necessarily believe in what the Catholic church teaches, but still follow Catholic traditions; they like the “laughter and good red wine”, as Hillarie Belloc would put it, without the belief in God. And generally, the Catholic church and their family and friends accept those people as Catholics; lapsed Catholics, bad Catholics, but still Catholics. I’m sure it’s the same thing in Islam, that there are “cultural Muslims”, who were raised Muslim, participate in various Muslim traditions and the Muslim culture of the area, but aren’t really deep believers in the Muslim faith.
I did not know that. What’s the source?
Ok, maybe someone can address this directly. Is there any branch of Judaism that does not allow conversion to the religion?
Dio, in regard to a previous question, Israel has a law known as the ‘right of return’, that allows any Jew to immigrate to Israel and become a citizen. That law does not always conform with religious beliefs about what defines a Jew.
Diogenes:
But according to the Orthodox definition of “Jew” there IS no other kind. There may be some who don’t practice the religion, but that doesn’t make them (in our eyes) less obligated to. But that obligation is only inherited through the female line. (Of course, it can be adopted voluntarily by those who are not born obligated, i.e., converts.)
Captain Amazing:
Not true. There are numerous allusions in scripture that point to matrilineality being the rule even in earlier times.
Check out Shaye Cohen’s “The Beginnings of Jewishness”.
As far as I know, no. Though it is not generally encouraged.
Diogenes:
Cite? My understanding has always been that the Orthodox Rabbinate in Israel controls matters of personal religious status within Israel. Israel will recognize foreigners as Jews based pretty much on their say-so, even if said status is based on the Reform acceptance off patrilineality outside Israel, but that’s not quite the same as saying that patrilineal descent is recognized as a definition of Jewishness by the state of Israel.
It’s rare, but aparently there is at least one group that refuses to accept converts.
Correct. So citing Orthodox beliefs to define who is “Jewish” is not meaningful. That’s exactly my point.
Seems to me it isn’t so clear. I have not of course read this book, but there is a reference to it on the wiki site as follows:
The argument appears to boil down to one of Biblical interpretation. It is true that Israelite monarchs often married foreign princesses. I would be wary of extrapolating from that whether Judaism at the time was matrilinial or not - the “rules” applicable to legendary figures and princes may not be the same as those that apply to ordinary persons - princes practice exogamy (marrying outside the group) for reasons of state, whereas exogamy tends to be discouraged for ordinary Jews - as in Ezra.
The Law of Return basically defines a Jew entitled to Right of Return (under a 1970 Amendment) as anyone who would have been persecuted under the Nuremburg laws. The Law of Return does not conform to Halakhic law because Israel is ostensibly suppoosed to serve as a safe haven for Jews, and those persecuting Jews don’t care about Halakha.
Where? Ezra? Biblical genealogies are all father to son, the son of a Kohen or Levite is a Kohen or a Levite even if his mother wasn’t the daughter of a Kohen or Levite, in Numbers 1:18, we’re told that the Israelites were “registered by the clans of their fathers’ houses”, and Moses, Joseph, and Judah all married non-Jews, and there’s no doubt of the Jewishness of their children.
Matrilineality is a Talmudic thing.
This is why I’d recommend the book and not the Wikipedia article.
The argument is that clan affiliation was seperate from matrilinial discent - much in the same way as a person may trace their basic ethnicity matrilinially, but their family mane patrilinially.
Another origin theory is found in Deuteronomy and Leviticus as follows:
Orthodoxy believes the Talmud is based on Oral Law, which is equal to, and as old as the Torah. That’s obviously a faith position, though.