Comments on: Jewish Identity — what is it?

By: soniabloom

soniabloom — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 21:42:16 +0000

I am a very interesting case on “Who is a Jew?”question. My father’s side of the family has a Jewish background, not my mothers so, by Hallakhah I was not Jewish.

After many years of working at the Israeli embassy–having a M.A. and a Ph.D. about Jewish questions, I have also lived in Israel, go there every learned Hebrew, send money to Jewish charities, have a very public involvement on behalf of Israel, and against anti-Semitism–I converted under the Conservative Movement in the U.S. This means that I can have Israeli citizenship, on the assumption that I have Jewish nationality (I don’t go due to my age and lack of locally needed skills).

However, on my own, I decided to be more a few years ago, and recently asked to be converted according to their standards. It is amazing the difficulties I am going through, how hard it is to find someone to guide me, to overcome the uneasiness of the rabbis, even though they know the sincerity of my decision.

In anthropology we say that religious or ethnic identity is clearly marked on the borders, that is: when someone wants to join, or to leave, the group, what are the exigencies? What makes you X or Z? What makes you a non-X or a non-Z?

In a recent sad “case study”, I was “thrown out” of Frumster, a dating site for religious Jews, on the premises that I did not convert under Orthodox guidance, i.e. I am not a Jew. I took it as an anthropologist, as an interesting case of study on ethnic identity, but it hurted deeply!

So, who am I? A goy? A Jew? Any clues?

Sonia Bloomfield

By: Vic Rosenthal

Vic Rosenthal — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 04:02:37 +0000

The paradigm case of someone who identified with the struggle of the Jewish people but could not get married in Israel is Hanan Frank, a psychologist whom I knew as a kibbutz member some years ago. He lost both legs in the 1967 war, but was not considered halachically Jewish. I’ve been told recently that he wrote a book about his experiences called ‘Petek’, but I haven’t seen it.

By: Shalom Freedman

Shalom Freedman — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 03:27:20 +0000

The Wittgensteinian ‘family resemblance’ idea is I believe a useful tool , I think most especially in cautioning against seeking one single characteristic which all members of the concept in question share. The idea of overlapping characteristics in which there are different sharings by different members makes sense. The real question then is which characteristics would be shared. And a by -no- means less important question is what happens when considerable groups of people who define themselves as Jews ‘differ on the definition of a characteristic’ i.e. the most conspicious example here is the ‘paternal descent’ definition of Reform Jews which is in opposition to the Orthodox and traditional Jewish view of ‘maternal descent’ alone.
I myself tend to believe one definitional component extremely important i.e. the individual ’s own identifiication with Jewish history and the ongoing struggle of the Jewish people’. But I know there are problems with this also.
I don’t think ultimately that there is a perfect way of clarification. A certain vagueness and indeterminacy are to my mind O.K. They are not however O.K. when practical questions, such as marriage, become involved.

By: Vic Rosenthal

Vic Rosenthal — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:07:19 +0000

Here’s one response, on the Zionism-Israel News site.