I know Israeli law privileges Orthodox Judaism for some purposes, eg. recognizing marriages. Do they do that for citizenship as well?
No, I believe citizenship and marriage are handled differently. Unless things have changed recently, there's no civil marriage in Israel. Only the Orthodox synagogues can marry people. If a couple can't get an Orthodox rabbi to marry them, for whatever reason, they go to Cyprus or Turkey and get married there, and then register their marriage on their return to Israel. It was several years ago that I was told about this anomaly, and things may have changed in the meantime. For obvious reasons, there has long been a lot of pressure to introduce civil marriage.
But now I'm wondering whether the claims that "lots of Messianic Jews are not really Jewish at all" lack foundation? If converts are being essentially "shunned" by their former group, perhaps I've been led to believe that lots of Messianic Jews have no real Jewish ancestry, whereas in fact they do???
Confused.tastic
Well, remember, the Israeli immigration authorities would only be dealing with the Messianics who try to move to Israel. So, let's assume for the sake of argument that 95% of the MJs who do that are ethnically Jewish. That still doesn't tell us anything about the group worldwide.
I'm sure somewhere there exists an academic paper containing demographic info about Messianic Jews. No idea where you'd find it.
An article I found called "Why The History Of Messianic Judaism Is So Fraught And Complicated" quotes a Messianic theologian as saying that about half the people in Messianic congregations are gentiles.
An article I found called "Why The History Of Messianic Judaism Is So Fraught And Complicated" quotes a Messianic theologian as saying that about half the people in Messianic congregations are gentiles.
Presumably that is going to depend on whether you use traditional matrilineal descent or the broader "at risk of being murdered by Nazis" definition.
An article I found called "Why The History Of Messianic Judaism Is So Fraught And Complicated" quotes a Messianic theologian as saying that about half the people in Messianic congregations are gentiles.
Presumably that is going to depend on whether you use traditional matrilineal descent or the broader "at risk of being murdered by Nazis" definition.
But there's also the question of whether the non-matrlineal Jews themselves use that as their criterion.
I know people with a Jewish father and gentile mother who are considered Jews in good standing, been bar-mitzvahed, the whole nine yards. (Not sure if their congregations are Conservative, Reformed etc, though I'm pretty sure they're not Orthodox.)
I also am vaguely still in contact with a university friend who was the son of Jews escaping some pogrom or other and they were Yiddish speaking Jewish communists. His surname is the single syllable that the immigration official transliterated from their original given name.
Tangent alert, but according to Henry Louis Gates on PBS’s “Finding Your Roots,” the belief or assumption that immigration officials changed any surnames on arrival in the US is “one of the biggest myths in the history of geological analysis.” See here.
It was the story told by my friend; but from history I suspect 50:50 - immigration official struggling to get a name down, the family looking at what they had and deciding that that looked good and they'd take it. Then later realising it wasn't that great a match to UK surnames and regretting it. So many changed names on arrival in new countries.
I know of at least one atheist Jew who is 100% observant. She identifies with the Jewish people/race/ethnicity (delete as appropriate) and says that these observances are what make Jews Jewish. So she keeps kosher, owns 4 sets of dishes, sweeps the cupboards for passover, sleeps in a sukkoth, the whole nine cubits. She moved to Israel because keeping kosher and observing the feasts is so much easier there than in the United States. But the whole God thing leaves her cold. Has no time for him in any form.
An article I found called "Why The History Of Messianic Judaism Is So Fraught And Complicated" quotes a Messianic theologian as saying that about half the people in Messianic congregations are gentiles.
Presumably that is going to depend on whether you use traditional matrilineal descent or the broader "at risk of being murdered by Nazis" definition.
Well, yeah. Plus there's the fact that the ancient (as in biblical) way of measuring Jewishness was patrilineal, not matrilineal (see Ezra and Nehemiah), and converts could jump through some hoops and be counted as much Israel as anybody else. So I guess it's never been totally clear.
As for half the people in Messianic congregations being Gentiles, that's essentially what I'd expect, given the intermarriage rates of Jews and Gentiles in America (not sure about elsewhere). That's large enough even when Christianity doesn't enter into it and a certain amount of family resistance (on either side) can be assumed; if the Jew in question is already a member of a Christian congregation (of whatever stripe), I suspect that would remove most or all of whatever barriers remained--resulting in a congregation full of mixed marriages as well as other configurations.
I also am vaguely still in contact with a university friend who was the son of Jews escaping some pogrom or other and they were Yiddish speaking Jewish communists. His surname is the single syllable that the immigration official transliterated from their original given name.
Tangent alert, but according to Henry Louis Gates on PBS’s “Finding Your Roots,” the belief or assumption that immigration officials changed any surnames on arrival in the US is “one of the biggest myths in the history of geological analysis.” See here.
/tangent
It actually does still happen fairly often in my experience with Vietnamese immigrants, though when it comes to officials, the problem is usually either misspelling or a misunderstanding of which name is the family name. But we've got any number of people with freaky name problems in the current community stemming from immigration. If fixing the problem is apt to get you delayed or even thrown out* of the immigration queue, which is years long already, most people just shrug and roll with it.
* because suddenly "there's an error in the system," and "we can't match your application with your previous paperwork," and "OMG maybe you're trying to CHEAT us in some obscure but nefarious way," and all that. Bah.
Comments
No, I believe citizenship and marriage are handled differently. Unless things have changed recently, there's no civil marriage in Israel. Only the Orthodox synagogues can marry people. If a couple can't get an Orthodox rabbi to marry them, for whatever reason, they go to Cyprus or Turkey and get married there, and then register their marriage on their return to Israel. It was several years ago that I was told about this anomaly, and things may have changed in the meantime. For obvious reasons, there has long been a lot of pressure to introduce civil marriage.
Well, remember, the Israeli immigration authorities would only be dealing with the Messianics who try to move to Israel. So, let's assume for the sake of argument that 95% of the MJs who do that are ethnically Jewish. That still doesn't tell us anything about the group worldwide.
I'm sure somewhere there exists an academic paper containing demographic info about Messianic Jews. No idea where you'd find it.
Presumably that is going to depend on whether you use traditional matrilineal descent or the broader "at risk of being murdered by Nazis" definition.
But there's also the question of whether the non-matrlineal Jews themselves use that as their criterion.
I know people with a Jewish father and gentile mother who are considered Jews in good standing, been bar-mitzvahed, the whole nine yards. (Not sure if their congregations are Conservative, Reformed etc, though I'm pretty sure they're not Orthodox.)
/tangent
Well, yeah. Plus there's the fact that the ancient (as in biblical) way of measuring Jewishness was patrilineal, not matrilineal (see Ezra and Nehemiah), and converts could jump through some hoops and be counted as much Israel as anybody else. So I guess it's never been totally clear.
As for half the people in Messianic congregations being Gentiles, that's essentially what I'd expect, given the intermarriage rates of Jews and Gentiles in America (not sure about elsewhere). That's large enough even when Christianity doesn't enter into it and a certain amount of family resistance (on either side) can be assumed; if the Jew in question is already a member of a Christian congregation (of whatever stripe), I suspect that would remove most or all of whatever barriers remained--resulting in a congregation full of mixed marriages as well as other configurations.
It actually does still happen fairly often in my experience with Vietnamese immigrants, though when it comes to officials, the problem is usually either misspelling or a misunderstanding of which name is the family name. But we've got any number of people with freaky name problems in the current community stemming from immigration. If fixing the problem is apt to get you delayed or even thrown out* of the immigration queue, which is years long already, most people just shrug and roll with it.
* because suddenly "there's an error in the system," and "we can't match your application with your previous paperwork," and "OMG maybe you're trying to CHEAT us in some obscure but nefarious way," and all that. Bah.