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From: abeles@mhuxm.UUCP (abeles)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Ethiopian Jews, Racist Ultra-Orthodox, and "Who is a Rabbi?"
Message-ID: <307@mhuxm.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Feb-85 13:41:04 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxm.307
Posted: Fri Feb  1 13:41:04 1985
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Long discussion of Law of Return, Who is a Jew, with quote at end:

A. Schecter defends the ultra-Orthodox position on requiring Ethiopian
Jews to convert before being allowed to integrate into Israeli society.
This is the same position, essentially, which says that no non-Jew can
benefit from the "Law of Return" unless the person is converted by an
Orthodox authority (read: rabbi).

This is tyranny.  Israel was not founded by Orthodox Jews for Orthodox
Jews.  Orthodox Jews are only one kind of Jew.  Conservative, Reform,
Reconstructionist, unaffiliated, nonreligious, etc., are other kinds
of Jews.  All are Jews and all have the same rights to speak up for
the Jewish point of view.  All their voices are equally valid.  The only
thing that gives a person or a group of people a more important voice
is the fundamentally democratic process of leadership by consent.

(Israel was founded by secular Zionists who were left to do the job
because virtually all Orthodox groups opposed the creation of the
Israeli state.  It was populated primarily by refugees from Hitler
who were not interested in a religious state as now being pressed
by the Orthodox.  Later many Sephardim were brought to Israel, too.)

Not unless Israelis develop a wide consensus that the Orthodox conversion
process is the best should it be the only one permitted.  Can it be
stated any more clearly than that?

I for one would oppose the ultra-Orthodox position in question vigorously
because it gives too much power to the Orthodox authorities.  Religion
should not be enforced by the State.  Those who claim self-righteously
that their way is the only way according to Halacha should quit enforcing
their beliefs on others.  If Judaism is truth, then Jews will be attracted
to it by natural laws from HaShem.  Education is one thing, but using
the power of the State to enforce one's beliefs is anathema to me.
And remember, Judaism consists of beliefs.  If it were factual it would
be, essentially, scientific, and we could uncover Halacha without need
to resort to the arcane texts, viz., Tanach and Talmud, etc.

Orthodox Judaism falsely but aggressively asserts itself to be the 
only legitimate heir to mainstream Judaiem which produced
the traditions (including Halacha) which are handed down in the various
"sources."

I know a lot of Orthodox people who, unlike myself, are quite concerned
about having people who consider themselves to be Jewish but who were
not converted "al pi Halacha (according to Jewish Law)" getting married
to Orthodox Jews as a result, possibly, of not knowing that a conversion
was done incorrectly.  Let me assist you in resolving this problem,
which many Orthodox Jews feel could pose a danger to the entire Jewish
people.

Let's examine the reality.  When an Orthodox person marries, he or she
doesn't just take a mate by randomly selecting from among those who
claim to be Jewish.  The person discriminates (this kind of discrimination
is perfectly alright) based on many characteristics by which people are
distinguished.  In reality, aside from attractiveness, character, intelli-
gence, education, etc., religious background and family history (what
Ashkenazim called "yichus") are quite important.  If the person is a
renegade, they may not pay attention to those important characteristics
but by the same token may not marry someone who is Jewish at all.  So
realistically nobody is going around just marrying someone who says that
he or she is Jewish if they are serious about being Orthodox.

In the present generation the majority of Orthodox are descended from
families who came out of Europe within the last three generations (counting
the present one), at least among Ashkenazim.  Among Sephardim, the culture
is even more strict, typically, about who is and who is not suitable for
marriage (note the Syrian community or Martillo's use of the phrase
"Sephardim Tahor"--pure Sephardim).  Among Ashkenazim, people assume
that everyone from Europe pretty much is actually really Jewish.  How
do we know that this is true, and that they were either descended from
Jacob (a. k. a. Israel?) or converted according to Halacha?  We just have
to accept it the way it is, because nobody really knows for sure who
his ancestors were.  We are told such and such, and some people can
trace part of their ancestry to a documented rabbinical line, but there
is still the faith that the documentation was not contrived or falsified.
There is no way to reach into the dark past and hold a trial to verify that
anyone is really Jewish according to the requirements.  The key point is
that we believe we as a people are really Jewish because we believe in
G-d and we believe in G-d for strictly personal reasons!


One point of the last paragraph is that at the present time it is easy
to tell whether a person is really Jewish if you define anyone coming
from a shtetl in Poland, etc., as being really Jewish.  But this will not
continue forever.  In the world today there is lots of assimilation
resulting in intermarriage, and regardless of whether or not an Orthodox
person believes that conversion according to Halacha is mandatory, there
will be people running around within four generations who will not be
Jewish according to that position but who will honestly believe themselves
to be Jewish and who will present themselves as being Jewish.  The kind
of law Orthodox want cannot prevent this.  No law can prevent this.
The only thing we can rely upon is the help of G-d to keep us together
as the Jewish people.  G-d helps those who help themselves, but when there
is no way to help yourself then you must rely upon G-d.  This is one of
those cases.  G-d *must* help us in these matters if the Jewish people
are to survive.  Isn't one of the best "articles of faith" that people
turn to when searching for a reason to believe in Judaism the fact that
the Jewish people have survived the exile for two thousand years?  Could
we have done this without the help of G-d?  Then we must rely upon HaShem
for something like this as well.

However, with regard to what the individual can do, aside from general
t'shuva, any serious Orthodox person must investigate the family of the
person they are considering marrying.  This is essentially, as I remarked
above, no different from the way it is in reality anyway!

And furthermore, divisiveness such as is spawned by such a move on the
part of the Orthodox as the attempt to enact the amendment to the "Law
of Return" is exactly what caused, according to tradition, the exile
and destruction of the Second Temple.  I believe that I have shown above
that amending the "Law of Return" is not necessary because it cannot
be effective at helping a problem which requires divine intervention
to prevent.  That is, it won't help, it is divisive, and we must rely
on HaShem for this because there is no man-made remedy for what ails
us in this case.

The divisiveness is really caused by arrogance on the part of the Orthodox
leaders.  As a close friend has pointed out, the issue is not, "Who is
a Jew?" but, rather, "Who is a Rabbi?"  The issue is not whether 
converts are accepted as Jews by the Orthodox, but whether Conservative
and Reform rabbis are accepted as rabbis by the Orthodox rabbis.  The
reason is simple:  because the authority to convert is, according to
the way the Orthodox want it, taken away from any rabbis who are Conservative
or Reform.  Thus, (as Rabbi Yitzchak Greenberg said, and I summarized
to the net many months ago) it is a power struggle between the Orthodox
and Conservative (as well as Reform) authorities.  It is arrogance!

A Good Shabbos to all,

--J. Abeles


From Asher Schechter, responding to a remark of Bill Peter:

> The "racist Ultra-Orthodox" people mentioned in Bill's article are
> just trying to save the Israeli society from a disaster. If the
> Ethiopian Jews don't undergo a "token" giyur then their children
> would be considered possible mamzarim by jewish law (like it or not).
> It may be "racist" but jews don't marry into a people whose origin
> is not known hallachically to be Jewish and pure. To save Israel
> we ask the Ethiopian Jews to swallow their pride for a minute and
> conform with this technicality. 
> 
> The rabbinical interpretation of nidda was given at Sinia and
> all Jews knew about it but may have forgotten it.
> 
>                               Asher Schechter