You know I seem to recall discussing the adoptions up my family tree with you before tom . At that time I was unsure of the truthfulness of this claim. Since then I have recieved a cute little copy of the tree that i am sure she sent to at least all 36 of the lost descendants. It is so ironic how over the last few months so many people here have told about the importance of Jewish ancestry, the horrors of anti - semites, the stereo types that Jews face, the unfair treatment Jews get. Now all of a sudden you guys say “no big deal” “don’t worry about it”. So which is it guys? Do you have honest opinions or do you taylor them for each argument?
Firstly, You have no idea who I am other than SW . Secondly, I have spent long hours considering what this means to me. I have spent long hours on this board to find out what the folks here think about Jews. I have come to the conclusion that I came to in the first place. The use of ancestry to attach tags and divide people into groups is the tool of a racist. I don’t want any part of it and I am damn well pissed at Judaism for allowing such a practice to survive into this age of intelligence.
So, that’s the crux of the matter: that Jews decide who is a Jew. Too bad SW. I suppose you think it’s arrogant of the United States to determine just who is a U.S citizen too. And the New York Yankees determining just who is a Yankee? What an outdated idea… :rolleyes:
Guess what, SW, we’re not going to abandon millenia of Jewish law simply because you don’t like it.
Zev Steinhardt
This mysterious lady that called you, her last name wouldn’t happen to be Shickelgruber, would it?
The problem, obviously, is that the relative calling SW is Jewish. Anti-semites don’t appear to like that kind of stuff happening to them.
Willy, I’m going to enter here and attempt to change the tone of this thread. If you’re amenable to that, we might even succeed in changing the tone of the entire board toward you.
Assuming that the story you’ve told us in this thread’s original post is true, it puts a whole different spin on the angle from which you had been asking questions such as how to become a Jew without adopting the actual religious beliefs. Quite frankly I, and probably others, took it as an anti-Israel rant directed against Israel’s “Law of Return.” Based on this new thread of yours, I am seeing that your questions are based on an actual change in your religious identity (to some degree), and wondering just how it could occur and what it does or should mean to you.
Now, I wish to address the offense you took at this event: someone called you up, out of the blue, and told you that you should start considering yourself a Jew when previously, you hadn’t. Perhaps this woman was so crass as to tell you that you should start learning Torah and taking on the obligations Judaism considers to be incumbnent on all Jews.
I don’t know just how far this person went in her pushiness, but clearly the information she conveyed could have and should have been conveyed in a less offensive manner.
That said, there was/is a point in telling you this information. We Jews believe that there is a set of obligations that we are obligated, by divine covenant, to fulfill. It is a charge that we believe we inherited from our forefathers, that just as one’s parents act in one’s best interest in physical matters, we trust that our forefathers acted in our best interest in this spiritual matter by accepting this responsibility for their descendants for all time. It is a charge that we believe to be a communal responsibility and that encouraging the other members of the community to fulfill that responsibility enhances the entire Judaic experience.
Naturally, the off-putting manner in which this woman told you you were Jewish did not accomplish this communal goal, as it has engendered a hostile attitude toward Judaism and its goals. Nonetheless, your continued ignorance of your Jewish status would not serve that goal either.
Now that you have access to this information…that by the understanding of Judaism you are a part of this mutually beneficial spiritual community, you can do what you’d like with that information. You can choose to participate in Jewish life or not to participate…you can investigate what it means, or you can remain willfully ignorant of what it means. No one can impose their religious beliefs on you, but should you reject their suggestions, you do so as a result of your conscious choice, not as a result of ignorance that that choice existed.
Certainly such an event can be confusing and even upsetting. But the solution to confusion is not anger, hostility or resentment; it is seeking understanding toward eventual resolution of your confusion.
Try to get past the hostility which this intrusive woman has evoked in you and decide in a rational manner how best to handle this information. Take control of the situation instead of feeling helplessly dumped upon. You may be a Jew, but everyone, Jew or otherwise, has free choice. Don’t let the shock of the revealation or the pushy manner of the woman who called you make you think otherwise.
cmKeller , I appreciate your advice. I have already spent a good deal of time considering this. It is going to take much more time for me to understand why Zev and others like him insist on labeling people as Jewish due to their ancestry. Believe me I have tried and tried to understand without prejudice but it keeps coming back to racist mentality that I have spent a life time avoiding. I have covered ever angle I could think of here. How would I have become a Jew two years ago believing the same things I believe now? The answer is always “you can’t”. So then we proceed to how does one stop being a Jew? You can’t. It just sounds so silly but by every standard presented to me it is accepted as truth by everyone from the Jewish scholars to the Nazis that I am Jewish. They wouldn’t have converted me before because of what I believe and now the have to by law because of ancestry. It is racist from every angle I look at it. I don’t want to be a part of this racist mentality but again and again I have been told there is no way out. What is the answer? Do you really think I am that screwed up or can you see how screwed up this law is?
Willie, you need to relax. There us no way you can be Jewish - you are most obviously no more than two generations removed from apes.
All right, Jewish Dopers. That’s enough. We’ve attacked Willy for far too long.
Willy, you’re right and have been right all along about Jews. I’m posting a confession here. It’s in the Pit cause mentshes like Zev, Captain Amazing, Alessan and others are gonna flame the hell out of me for my post there.
But you deserve to know.
Fenris
The answer is, don’t accept it. According to Jewish law, you’re a Jew, but nobody’s saying you have to accept Jewish law as valid. As a matter of fact, you’ve made it clear, you don’t.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem to be frightened of something. Obviously, what this woman told you has affected you a great deal, and what she said bothers you. I’m just curious as to why exactly it bothers you, or what you’re scared of.
My adoptive Dad is Jewish; Mom is Lutheran. I was baptised and raised Lutheran.
My birth mother and I found each other a few weeks ago. She’s a non-practicing Jew. Supposedly, I can walk into any Conservative or Orthodox temple, say “shalom!”, and be one with the Chosen People. I’m BOTH Lutheran and Jewish, I guess … dual religions.
Considering that I usually attend a UU church, nothing comes as much of a shock anymore.
;j
If you live in the part of France or Germany or Poland where they have begun entertaining violent anti-Jewish behavior and you feel that one of the other 35 people on the list are going to “out” you, then you have reason to be concerned.
If you live in a neighborhood in the U.S. where there has been a tradition of anti-Jewish behavior and you feel that one of the other 35 people on the list are going to “out” you, causing you social embarrasment, a visit from the Klan, or having your kid have to walk six blocks out of the way to school to avoid a beating, then you have reason to be concerned.
If none of those things apply, then the odds on your having to be concerned are minimal. Given that it is unlikely that any of those other 35 people are going to publicly denounce you (given that they are in the same “predicament”), then you seem to be deliberately confusing what the Jewish comunity does for its mutual assistance and what might happen to you as an individual.
Note that this woman simply search records until she discovered previously existing information. If the lads at Stormfront or melvig were able to get behind Buchanan and move this country toward reproducing the events of Kristalnacht, then one of them would have gone to the same records and discovered the same information and you would now be in danger *not because of Jewish Law, but because (based on the last historical go-round), the Jew-haters would have branded you a Jew despite your ignorance. All this lady has done is provide you fair warning incase the bad guys take over the U.S.
If the U.S. never turns violently anti-Jewish, it really is no big deal. If the U.S. does turn violently anti-Jewish, at least you will be able to flee to the haven of Israel (and you won’t even need bris to get in).
Sweet Willy:
Well, here we get to the root of the problem: racism. Why is it not racist to define one’s religion by their ancestry? Let’s try to work with this together, Willy. Let’s start by agreeing to a definition of racism. No one doubts that there are different sub-groups of humanity. Let’s define “races” as those sub-groups (although we’re really talking here about ancestral groupings that aren’t necessarily broken down along classic race lines). As I see it, what makes an attitude about those sub-groups racist requires both of the following:
a) A belief in the superiority of a specific race.
b) A belief that these superior qualities are not available to members of another race.
Do you disagree? Is there another element that you’d wish to add, or would you dispute that a racist attitude must contain at least the two elements I described above?
I no longer think you’re screwed up, Willy, although I will say that your attitude in prior threads had me thinking so at the time. I also don’t think the law is screwed up. I think that thirty years of living as a Jew has taught me more of Jewish belief and practice than the relatively brief time you’ve spent examining Judaism, and I like to think that we (and that includes Zev and the others) can help you toward a better understanding of that law. Ultimately, it’s your choice to agree or disagree, but surely a better understanding can make that choice more meaningful.
Chaim Mattis Keller
I have to step out for a while. I do appreciate your help and would like to continue later. BTW, I have never believed that we can break humanity into sub groups. We are all humans and that has always been the end of the story for me.
Sweet Willy:
No problem, I’ll be patient until your return. Until then, just to address your recent response…
Then, does that make any form of group identity racist?
American? New Yorker? Yankee fan? Yale Alumnus?
Do you agree that these are distinct categories of people, who have something in common with others of their group not shared by others outside their group?
In other words, is believing in the existence of subgroups inherently racist? Or, as I suggest above, the belief in the superiority of a subgroup, and the belief that that superiority can never be attained by a non-member of that subgroup is what makes an attitude racist?
Chaim Mattis Keller
Presumably not from his mother’s side!
Ahhh, I slay myself.
Oh, and who want’s to tell SW about LDS post-mortum baptisms? Or that the Buddhists believe he’s coming back for another round whether he personally is Buddhist or not? Or even that many (most?) sects of Christianity imposes the requirements of Christianity on all people, not just those who believe the New Testament?
I’ll tell him about my beliefs: Hey, Sweet Willy, I’m an atheist. That means that I believe that when you die, you will cease to exist. You will not go to heaven. You will not be reincarnated. And you know what? I further believe that there is no way around this. None at all. I believe that this is what’s going to happen to you whatever you believe, and that the only way to achieve immortality is to get a baseball stadium or a highway or something named after you. So I guess I’m imposing my belief system on you, too.
Man, you’ve got a tough road ahead.
No group has the right to claim the membership of any person who doesn’t want to be in it (except for maybe the army and a nation, but thats a different debate.) If I discovered that the KKK or the Republican party was putting me down as a member because some past relative was a member, I would pissed. I think that most of the people who have been attacking SW so far would feel the same way if they were in comparable circumstances. If we replace the word Jew with “Satanist” in the OP, I think many people would be agreeing.
Note: I am not likening the KKK, Republican party or Satanism to Jews or to eachother in any respect other than that they are all groups. It’s just an analogy. I’m not trying to be offensive, just give some perspective.
Anyway, I thought that according to Jewish law you had to be raised as a Jew to be considered one?
This is quite ironic. I think I see why you are so upset. You see, in many of your posts you have suggested that the persecution of the Jews is related to their “racist” policies. This suggests that you believe the persecution was just on some level. This leads one to think you are most likely an anti-Semite. This would make the discovery of your own Judaism rather strange, as it would mean self-hatred, wouldn’t it? As a side note, I’m having a bit of trouble swallowing your story. First of all, why are you bringing this up now? It’s, at the very least, nearly a month since you received this phone call. Why enlighten us now? Why enlighten us at all in this matter? It seems that you didn’t want anyone to know of your Judaism, so why did you make a display of it? I notice that this serves your “Judaism is racist” argument very well. As this seems to serve your purposes so well, how can I be certain of the validity of your tale? Along with that, why did you bring it up at all, and a long time after the fact also? Some answers would be nice.
Willy has “stepped out for a while”–permanently. Lynn (or perhaps some other Godlike Administrator) has most effectively wielded the Flyswatter of Vengeance, and Elvis hath done left the building.
Can I get an “amen”? 
Hmm. I actually thought he was beginning to engage in genuine discussion.
Ah well.
Chaim Mattis Keller