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From: teitz@aecom.UUCP (Eliyahu Teitz)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: "Jewishness" of non-blood-relations
Message-ID: <1229@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Mar-85 16:32:55 EST
Article-I.D.: aecom.1229
Posted: Mon Mar 11 16:32:55 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Mar-85 03:25:38 EST
References: <146@pyuxww.UUCP> <9039@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 18

> I find some of the implications of this sort of confusing. Is it then true
> that an adopted child (of unknown parentage) or an infant foundling,
> raised from just after birth, according to all the laws and principles,
> but still also of unknown parentage, can never be Jewish, unless they go
> through a conversion process as an adult? (Or is that not even enough?)

	Yes this is true. A person is a Jew only if born to a Jewish mother
 or converted to Judaism. As far as adoption is concerned, many rabbis prefer
 that adoptees be non Jewish and then converted for marriage purposes. If the
 child is Jewish and does not know who his natural family is, he may, by some
 chance, marry his natural sister, not knowing that she is his relative. If
 a non Jew is converted, then according to halacha, he has no relatives, being 
 compared upon conversion to a newborn infant. If so, even if he marries a
 natural sister, she is not his halachic sister, and any children born will not
 be mamzerim( unfortunately the government probably will arrest you for
 marrying a relative they consider illegal ).

			Eliyahu Teitz.