The Hebrew Hammer or The Passion of the Christ? This question has nothing to do with either movie.

January 10, 2006 6:27 PM

In accordance with reform, orthodox, or conservative Judaism, what am I?

Here's the necessary background:

My father is the product of two Jewish by birth parents. This goes on for, at the very least, every generation in the past century. My mother converted to Judiasm, mitvah and all, before she married and before she became pregnant with me. They divorced, but I continued my religious education at Hebrew school for a couple of years.

My mother remarried and started attending church again. However, she did not get baptised or do anything to convert back to Episcopalianism. At this time I began attending church, volunteered as an alter boy, received first communion, and was eventually baptised.

By the time I began high school, I informally renounced Christianity and stopped attending church. When my Jewish grandfather died recently, I learned that I did not count as a minion because I had not been bar mitzvahed. When I asked the cantor of my uncle's reform synagogue what it would take for me to be able to particpate in the minion, considering my family will be short of the requisite ten in a few deaths or family fights, I received an odd response: I might have to convert.

The question is simple: am I Jewish under any of the major threads of Jewish thought? If possible, please share with my any reasoning or evidence to go along with your answers, as I would like to share it with the cantor and the family.

posted by sequential to religion & philosophy (25 comments total)

I always understood that since Judaism is matrilineal, you're considered Jewish if your mother was Jewish, whether you were mitzvahed or not. The Wikipedia article "Who Is A Jew?" would seem to bear that out (scroll down to the part about three basic disputes). See also Jews who have practiced another faith.
posted by Gator at 6:41 PM on January 10, 2006

The major threads are by choice, I think. I recall...
posted by k8t at 6:42 PM on January 10, 2006

Do you believe in god?
posted by dydecker at 6:43 PM on January 10, 2006

That depends on what denomination your mother converted under: Orthodoxy only recognizes Orthodox conversions, Conservative would recognize Orthodox or Conservative ones, and both accept matrilineal descent only, so your father's background doesn't matter.

From what I understand, in the Reform world you'd be Jewish if you identify as such and are in some way active in it, because they accept patrilineal descent: "The Central Conference of American Rabbis declares that the child of one Jewish parent is under the presumption of Jewish descent. This presumption of the Jewish status of the offspring of any mixed marriage is to be established through appropriate and timely public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people. The performance of these mitzvot serves to commit those who participate in them, both parent and child, to Jewish life."
posted by needs more cowbell at 6:46 PM on January 10, 2006

Among those Jews who recognize your mother's conversion to Judaism as valid, you are a Jew. This is because you are the child of a Jewish mother. However, if your mother was converted to Judaism in a Reform setting, her conversion will not be recognized by Orthodox Jews, or Conservative. Therefore, you will have to convert if you want to be a member of a minyan in a Conservative or Orthodox setting. If she was converted in a Conservative setting, then Reform Jews will recognize the conversion but not Orthodox. Since your uncle's synagogue was Reform, I don't see why you would have to convert.
posted by amro at 6:46 PM on January 10, 2006

link to what I quoted.

Also, FYI, what you're interested in is counting as a member of a minyan, not counting as a minion.
posted by needs more cowbell at 6:55 PM on January 10, 2006

You have to talk to the Rabbi at whatever particular synagog you want to attend. What he or she says will probably apply at all of that denomination's synagogs.

Do you think of yourself as Jewish?
posted by spork at 7:17 PM on January 10, 2006

Spork has it exactly right. You seem to wonder if you are techinically considered Jewish, which is not necessarily a useful categorization. If you consider yourself Jewish, there will be space for you within the reform umbrella. Other than that, you'll have to be more than a Woody Allen fan who appreciates a good nosh and a Dr. Bronner's Cel-Ray soda.

Mmm, Cel-ray.
posted by allen.spaulding at 7:22 PM on January 10, 2006

er, Dr. Brown's. Oy gevalt, I don't know how that happened.
posted by allen.spaulding at 7:22 PM on January 10, 2006

It's a Minyan, not a minion :) Different etymologies.
posted by ori at 7:27 PM on January 10, 2006

You seem to wonder if you are techinically considered Jewish, which is not necessarily a useful categorization. If you consider yourself Jewish, there will be space for you within the reform umbrella.

But sequential is looking for reasoning to present to a particular rabbi at a particular synagogue where he (or she) is being told he can't participate. I think he's looking for technical arguments.
posted by amro at 7:47 PM on January 10, 2006

amro, well either way, the Cantor doesn't seem to be the best person to ask for advice about the matter. A conversation with the Rabbi should sort things out.
posted by gregb1007 at 8:01 PM on January 10, 2006

If your mother went through the bathing ritual where a rabbi said prayers, that was a mikvah. Technically, you're a Jew. Also, what amro said.
posted by brujita at 9:40 PM on January 10, 2006

You should ask a Rabbi (or several), but I'd think that you'd be considered Jewish by any denomination that considered your mother's conversion as valid (I'm pretty sure that neither her later church attendance, nor your baptism, would have any bearing at all, as far as Jewish law is concerned). Orthodox synagogues, for instance, only consider orthodox conversions valid.

I have to say, though, that this struck me as terribly odd:
I learned that I did not count as a minion because I had not been bar mitzvahed.
As far as I know, this is simply false, in every branch of Judaism. A bar-mitzvah merely marks coming of age. If you're at least 13 years old and Jewish (also male, in Orthodox contexts), then you can be counted in a Minyan.
posted by kickingtheground at 10:09 PM on January 10, 2006

I don't know if the cantor is aware of your whole background. But renunciation of Christianity or no, the last time you were active in religious life, you were taking communion and getting baptised. Well, yes, that means that you are pretty far away from qualifying to be part of a minyon.

Converting would show that you take Judaism seriously. That's the cantor's point. And even if you do it, they still might make you get a bar-mitzvah before they'll call you part of a minyon.

But hey, if it's the minyon you're worried about, don't sweat it. They don't have to all be from your own family. A minyon is just ten bar-mitzvahed Jewish men.
posted by bingo at 10:10 PM on January 10, 2006

As far as I know, this is simply false, in every branch of Judaism. A bar-mitzvah merely marks coming of age. If you're at least 13 years old and Jewish (also male, in Orthodox contexts), then you can be counted in a Minyan.

Not in the synogogoue I grew up in (conservative), so far as I remember. Boys were also not supposed to wear talit or tfillin until after their bar-mitzvahs (or, technically, the day itself).
posted by bingo at 10:14 PM on January 10, 2006

Bar Mitzvah is just the day you come of age--12 for girls, 13 for boys. At this point you can get married (!) and are responsible for your actions under Jewish Law. (Before that, your parents are responsible for your actions.) It's just a day, no special ceremony is required, but its nice for most, esp if you're "coming back" (t'shuvah, one who comes back is ba'al t'shuvah) into the fold, or a nice feather in your cap if you're a convert (ger).

As far as the your Jewishness goes, the above posters were right--it all depends on how your mother converted, and if she went into the mikvah. Most Orthodox do not recognize any other conversion than orthodox, not necessarily because it was not according to halachah (Jewish law), but because the officiating rabbi might not be , um, orthodox enough for them.

Often it is impossible to ascertain if a conversion 20 years ago was "valid", so yes, conversion would be the only way to make sure that you're 100% Jewish. However, it is usually a long process no matter what branch you're in. Also be prepared to have your jewishness called into question if you convert, say, Conservative, and then go to an Orthodox shul. Keeping in mind the rabbi supervising your condition is legally responsible for your behavior, forever, they generally do not make it easy for you. It is considered a mitzvah (good deed) to try and dissuade a convert from converting, and the law is you should turn a ger toshav (wanna be convert) 3 times before accepting him. So expect a lot of dissuasion.

You will be expected to keep the laws according to your ability until you are fully observant to the level of your supervising body. In addition, a standard reading list is required (Jewish books are expensive), as well as participation in all jewish religious observances for at least a year, sometimes up to four.

On the plus side, though, most jews have a LOT of respect for a convert, but they may not let you marry their daughter/son. Also you will not be able to marry a Kohen if you are a female ger, (usually recognizable by "cohen" as last name but not always.

Good books include R. Hayyim Halevi Donin's "To be a Jew". Great book. I liked "the Kuzari" by R. Yehuda Halevi, tr. R. D. Korobkin--a story about a king in the middle ages who invites a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew to discuss the relative merits of their religions, and is so impressed wiith the Jew that he converts immediately, then mandates his entire kingdom to convert!

So good luck, and once you've made your decision, don't let them dissuade you, at all, no matter what. They can be pretty convincing (they dissuaded me at the beis din-Jewish court of law--after four years of study and practice.
posted by gilgul at 11:02 PM on January 10, 2006

So as an aside, gilgul, how did they dissuade you? that's very interesting to me.
posted by arimathea at 4:43 AM on January 11, 2006

I liked "the Kuzari" by R. Yehuda Halevi

Yeah, that's a fun read, but I feel I should point out that it's basically historical fiction: it takes off from a murky episode in Khazar history and uses it as a peg to hang theological debate on. Well worth reading, just don't take it for actual history.

I too am curious about the dissuasion: please elaborate, especially as it's relevant to the poster's plight.
posted by languagehat at 5:54 AM on January 11, 2006

You're Jewish. and that Cantor is an asshole.
posted by LilBucner at 8:14 AM on January 11, 2006

So as an aside, gilgul, how did they dissuade you?

It really depends upon who you are. If you were raised a Jew, but are not legally a Jew, dissuasion will be formulaic. There is a tradition of reminding the prospective ger moments before immersion in the mikvah of the difficulty of observing commandments. If you are converting to clear up ambiguity, and were raised a Jew, there's not much to the education process or the dissuasion.

However. If you come to conversion from no background, the process of dissuasion accompanies the process of learning, which often takes more than a year. The rabbi in charge of your conversion would ideally like to be satisfied that you are serious about being Jewish and that you will observe the mitzvot in some meaningful way. The idea is this: in becoming Jewish, you take on a massive set of legal obligations and if you don't treat them as legal obligations, don't take them on. This is the position of Orthodox and Conservative movements. There is a wide variance within these movements as to the intensity of the learning involved in the conversion process and the doggedness of the dissuasion. Both movements assume that its members are required to follow the law--to perform the commandments as a matter of legal obligation.

There's not much dissuasion in Reform conversion because Reform Judaism is not an halachic system. If, after conversion, the convert is not obligated to observe Shabbat or the dietary laws, there's no reason to warn them of the legal responsibilities they're about to embrace. Reform Judaism emphasizes identity and tradition over legalism.

please elaborate, especially as it's relevant to the poster's plight.

It seems to me that if the poster's mother converted to Judaism, then the poster is Jewish. The only questions might pertain to the validity of the conversion, and there isn't enough information here to evaluate that on any level. The dissuasion issue is really the only area where self identification matters. If the poster identifies as Jewish, and wishes to formalize the process, there will be far less dissuasion, even from some stringent rabbis.

Also: the bar mitzvah thing is a crock. If you are Jewish, you count in a minyan--even if there are valid reasons for not permitting a particular person to lead the services (and it is not appropriate to get into that here-unless sequential was praying in a VERY serious, ultra frum setting).
posted by kosem at 8:26 AM on January 11, 2006

I admit that I'm not up to speed on the origins of the bar-mitzvah, but in the conservative synogogue that I grew up going to, the ceremony itself was taken very seriously. I spent a year preparing for mine (if you don't count the five years of Hebrew school leading up to it as well), and it wasn't easy. I read - chanted, really - a significant amount of text directly from the Torah, as well as as reciting a haftorah. Both the Torah and the haftorah have a unique set of 'tropes,' i.e. syllable-by-syllable indicators of intonation, which in the case of the Torah reading need to be memorized, as they don't appear in the text (and neither do any vowels, of course). I also gave a speech about the meaning of the text and the experience of preparing for the ceremony, and basically led the entire service (which among other things, meant singing a lot of Hebrew prayers, which I had long since memorized, into a microphone). In all the services I went to up through the Saturday before my bar mitzvah, I did not wear a talis; afterwards, I always did. If an adult man who was known to have not had a bar mitzvah had walked into the sanctuary with a talis on his shoulders, I doubt he would have been tackled and forced to remove it, but I think someone would have told him that he really wasn't supposed to be wearing it. Anyone who didn't actually put in the year of study to do the Torah reading, or worse, opted for a Sunday bar/bat-mitzvah, meaning a shorter and easier service, was basically regarded as a pussy who didn't have what it took to go through the real process.

I'm also surprised by the willingness of people in this thread to embrace the idea that sequential's mother converted is the end of the story. He has taken communion, and he has been baptized. Sure, there is no rule in Judaism (that I know of) that explicitly says that if you take communion, you're no longer a Jew. After all, as the old adage goes, you can't get kicked out of the religion, but you can be a bad Jew. That being said, sequential formally joined another religion, one that is in theological conflict with Judaism at a fundamental level. He went through that religion's rituals to the extent that anyone he went to church with would probably swear that he's a Christian. Contrary to the opinions of some of those in the 'Jews For Jesus' thread in the blue, you cannot be Jewish and also be a Christian, theologically speaking. Sure, you can be biologically and culturally Jewish and be a Christian. But the day that you accepted that wafer as the body of Christ, you parted ways with the religion. Okay, so you later rejected Christianity. That doesn't mean that by default you became jewish just because your mother was jewish. You are a man with jewish ancestry, a Christian background, and no religion. As such, you should not feel entitled to anything as far as your participation in jewish rituals is concerned.
posted by bingo at 11:52 AM on January 11, 2006

Here is a paper about the legal status of Anusim, a term for Jews who were forced to convert to another religion (mostly during the Inquisition) and who, upon discovery of their identity, return to Judaism. A bit technical, but still interesting.

Also, support for some assertions in my earlier comment can be found here:
"According to halacha, before any non-Jew is accepted as a potential convert to the faith, three strong attempts must be made to put them off the idea. In order to fulfil their earthly potential, all that is required of gentiles is for them to observe seven laws that deal in basic morality. Jews, however, must faithfully observe all of the 613 mitzvot."
posted by kosem at 12:40 PM on January 11, 2006

First, thank you for all of the responses. Please accept my appologies for not replying earlier, but after reading several of the comments I was suprised to find that this was still an emotional issue for me. Previous experience has taught me not to share my thoughts with the internet when I'm feeling vulnerable.

Second, thanks to the many of you who provided me with corrections. I have never seen or don't remember seeing many of the Anglicized spellings of Hebrew words like minyan or mikvah so I relied on phonics. Please understand that I meant no disrespect, but I do understand the meanings of the words. I learned to read and write Hebrew at the same time I learned to read and write English, so Anglicized versions of words were not used to teach me Hebrew.

To those who asked what I consider myself, I have always considered myself Jewish - even the years I attended church from about eight until about thirteen. To reconcile my actions with my beliefs, I came to terms with the notion of being a secular Jew or ethnically Jewish. Until my grandfather's passing, I was comfortable with these descriptions. Don't get me wrong, his passing did not cause me to have a religious awakening. On the contrary, I was confronted once again with some members of the Jewish faith who were concerned that I was not Jewish enough to participate with my family. Though I did not count as a member of the minyan in the eyes of the orthodox man who lead the services or even the conservative members of the family, my grandmother, who happens to be conservative, and the less active members of their respective conservative and reform temple's were comforted and thankful for my participation. In some sense, this is less about being Jewish and more about being a part of my family.

I understand that I'll never be accepted in an orthodox temple and expect to be called snide yiddish words by those who are proud that both their parents were born Jewish. It's something I've learned to accept. The part that bothers me is that I could not participate actively. Though I recognize some Hebrew, to keep the pace with the orthodox gentleman who lead the service, I had to read the English, silently, while the rest of my family read the Hebrew. My family was okay with it, but the gentleman leading the service repeatedly turned to me during the service and made what I consider to be rude remarks about my inability to read the Hebrew. Before or after the service, I'd have happily received any criticism, but during the service, in front of friends and family, I felt it was innappropriate to single me out and interrupt the service.

My mother converted with a conservative rabbi, at a conservative synagogue, and participated in the mikvah. There's never been any question, at least in my mind, whether or not this made me Jewish. I was raised a Jewish boy for eight years. It's a part of my identity that archaic religious laws or exclusive religious cliques can't take away. Furthermore, given my understanding, limited as it is, of Christianity and the fact that I was converted by a woman who remained Jewish, I believe I'll be able to find a reform rabbi who would be willing to give me the religious training I need to be bar mitzvahed. Thanks for your comments and links, they helped me separate assumption from fact in numerous areas.

bingo, I want to address you specifically, but only because you address the one thing I'm most worried about: my baptism. I was roughly ten years old at the time and, despite my willing participation in the rituals, I was a minor. There was no training for the baptism. The day it happened, we went to church early, were told where to sit, and the Father sprinkled some water on my forehead. First communion was slightly more involved, but I rarely attended Sunday school; a benefit of being an altar boy. In the end, I just received instruction on what to do during the ceremony. I don't mean this to be confrontational or in any way disrespectful, but I've just always struggled with the concept of the Holy Trinity.

(If you're at all curious about how I could be an altar boy for five years without believing in Jesus, you'd be surprised at how infrequently the topic came up with my Father. Even though I asked questions about Jesus, I don't think it ever dawned on him that a Jew would go through all these motions just to avoid pissing off his goy father in-law. Secretly, I enjoyed the pagentry of it all. Additionally, I found the wording of the prayers to God a bit more comforting than the conservative prayers I had said previously. Furthermore, I was an apt pupil, a dependable alternate if another altar boy missed a shift, and an admirer of the man, not the religious training, my Father was. He was, at the time, a lowercase father figure at a time I had not had a steady male parent in my life.)

In addition, there are other circumstances that cloud the validity of my baptism. My mother never told our Father that she had converted to Judiasm, partly to save face with the Episcopalian family in-law, partly to simplify the process, and mostly to thumb her nose at my biological father and pretend like their marriage had never happened. Can a Jewish mother, with partial custody of her child, and an Episcopalian man, with no legal custody to the Jewish woman's child, convert a child to Christianity? I suppose if I had been older, I could have done so willingly and consciously, but the truth is I was just doing what I was told.

Thank you all very much for your thoughtful comments. I've decided to get in touch with the conservative rabbi who performed my bris. Perhaps he can put me in touch with a reform temple or rabbi that would be willing to explore these questions with me in much more detail.
posted by sequential at 11:04 PM on January 11, 2006

I understand that I'll never be accepted in an orthodox temple and expect to be called snide yiddish words by those who are proud that both their parents were born Jewish.

This is really not true, sequential. In the first instance, many Orthodox rabbis will accept conservative conversions, as long as they were performed according to the law. If they do not accept the conversion, the proper thing to do, both ethically and legally, would be to insist on a short, formal conversion. Pride that both parents are Jewish really has nothing to do with Judaism. A jew is a jew is a jew (except in the narrow case of kohanim discussed above, and this will not apply in the Conservative context).

Anyone making snide remarks, Yiddish or otherwise to or about you is a phenomenal asshole deserving of rebuke and education.

As for someone making rude remarks to you during services: I don't know who this person is, but he is a dick.

I felt it was innappropriate to single me out and interrupt the service.

It was worse than inappropriate. It was mean, uninformed, and altogether not a very Jewish thing to do.

There are a lot of folks who seem observant and like they know a lot who really don't know what they're talking about. Sometimes this person is the "religious" one in the family. Well, assumption and ignorance are a nasty combination.

NB: If participation with your family is what you want, and your family is Conservative, I say speak to the Rabbi who performed your bris and explore the options in a Conservative context--not because of any preference on my part, but because that's the movement in which your family practices Judaism.
posted by kosem at 4:05 PM on January 12, 2006 [1 favorite]