The great Sir Fred Trueman one of the greatest cricketers of all time discovered late in life that his maternal grandmother had been Jewish and according to wiki, that made him Jewish as well.
Got me wondering, how many generations back can the line go before it ceases to matter accordingto relevant law. If a there is a direct decent in the female line from a Jewish great x8 grandmother from 10 generations ago, would that make some Jewish under law?
Am I wrong to presume that their is diversity in opinion?
I also realise that the answer to the trivia question, greatest Jewish cricketer has to change and Sir Fred is no where near the bastard as Ali Bacher was/is.
How would you define the “gap”, so to speak? Is it the gulf between the last practicing Jew and you? E.g. if the last person in your maternal ancestry who actually practiced the faith was your great-great-great-great grandma, though each generation has considered themselves ethnically jewish. Is it the gulf between the last person who considered themselves personally Jewish? E.g. your great-great-great-great grandma converted to Roman Catholicism and that faith has been practiced down to your generation, and you want to be considered Jewish? Is it the gulf between the last person who knew they were considered Jewish?
First consider the people who consider others to be Jewish who do not consider themselves to be Jewish. Then consider how much that consideration is worth.
(note: this is not godwinizing the thread-- it’s relevant data …)
Hitler defined a Jew as anyone with one Jewish grandparent.
And because of that, Israel today uses the same definition for its immigration law, known as “the Law of Return”.
I was actually going to post a question about this earlier, but guess I don’t need to. Found out last weekend that my mom’s mother’s mother was Jewish, and figured I was also, but didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
I am not interested in what Hitler or the Nazis believed. Israel’s law of return is also interesting but a tangent. My question is simple. As (from what I know) under classical Jewish law/tradition a person is considered Jewish at birth if their mother is Jewish; how many generations removed from the last maternal Jewish ancestor would it be (if at all) before a person can no longer be considered Jewish for the purposes of said law/tradition. Presume for arguments sake that the persons knows about the last ancestor being Jewish and he is a Kali worshipper.
And already answered. Under traditional (not Reform) law, it does not matter if many generations were apostates. If the mother was Jewish under Jewish law, the child is, down the generations, no matter how many generations of non-observance or lack of Jewish identity. The issue would only be documenting that such is the case.
Reform law is different and can be either parent but requires being raised with a Jewish identity.
Wouldn’t that mean that there’s a pretty good chance we’re all Jewish? In the same way there’s a really good chance we’re all descendants of Caesar’s family or whatever?
Edit: From now on you’ll all refer to me by my Jewish name, Mattithyahu. Mazel mazel. Good things.
Israeli Law of Return isn’t really relevant, all it does is grant the grandchild of a Jewish person the right to immigrate to Israel and receive citizenship, whether the immigrant is considered Jewish by religious law or not.
To the question itself – if you can document a matrilinear connection to a Jewish person in the past, you will be recognized as being Jewish yourself. No limit (According to Orthodox Judaism.)
I wondered if that was maybe where the OP was going to go with this.
It might mean that a lot of us have some Jewish blood but as soon at the matriarchal line is broken, the next generation isn’t Jewish.
Historically, the Jews started as a tribe of people a few thousand years ago. There were lots of other tribes/cultures then and most people come from those other ones.
Just guessing but Biblically they would probably start with Abraham and Sarah which was a time where there were also many other tribes.
Jacob and his wives, actually. Or possibly only the descendants of Jacob’s son Judah. Definititely not all the descendents of Sarah, since neither Ismael nor Esau (and their progeny) are considered Jewish.
All this of course is if you accept the stories of the Patriarchs as historical. Otherwise it’s not clear exactly when the Jewish identity formed, and at what point they adopted matrilineal descent.
As to the second, you should read Shaye Cohen. He argues that Judaism didn’t really become matrilineal until the Mishnah, maybe in response to increased intermarriage, maybe in response to Roman law. He points out also that, one’s tribal status is still inherited from your father. You’re a Kohen if your father was a Kohen. Also, you have all sorts of intermarriage in the bible, without the suggestion, until the book of Ezra, at least, that those marriages were invalid. (Moses married a non-Jew, Judah, Joseph, David, Solomon, etc.)
Wait a minute, I’m confused about something. If Abraham was the first Jew, and his wife Sarah was not Jewish . . . then none of their offspring would be Jewish . . . so nobody today is Jewish. The first Jew would have had to be female.
So if Abraham was the first Jew, who was the second?
Of course I’m leaving out people who had converted.
