Right of the bat, I want to say that Iām not fighting with you Iām talking with you and I donāt mean to upset you. I am maybe a bit of a dick but not on purpose, and I think that you being a dick was also not done on purpose. I am just saying that from my perspective, culturally, your position seems to be very strange.
First of all, I was not talking about patrilineal! Sorry, I was reacting originally to this
āBut as a Jew who converted, I am so tired of basically anyone else claiming they are unambiguously Jewish and implying conversion is both unnecessary and beneath them, and then throwing a tantrum when everyone else says their local rabbis may still deem it necessary for them to convert in order to remove any ambiguityā.
āYou still managed to act annoyed or upset that God forbid, you might have to convert as if it is beneath you somehowā
Sooooooo it kind of is definitely about me and people who are like me?
I donāt understand why you are jumping to conclusion that itās about patrilineal Jews. Itās not. (Im way worse than that!) Im sorry I didnāt reread the og post and mixed eggs with sperm. I have, I swear to god, forgotten about the ordeal with patrilineal Jews at the time. Literally Itās about you saying that there is only one way of being Jewish - religiously. And itās news to me because, yes, I am ambiguously Jewish, I know that, but if I convert that ambiguity will not go away. Iām not disputing that you are Jewish, but my complicated interfaith intercommunal fucked up family will not magically disappear. I already am a bit Jewish. Conversion FOR ME wonāt change that particular part. Iāll just become more religious. Two things can be true at once. You are Jewish through conversion, more Jewish than Iāll ever be, because I was born ambiguously Jewish. I canāt truly choose Judaism because like like you did, I am already. In my beautiful mind, I will not perceive myself less or more of a Jew if Iāll convert. I am already jewnough (sorry). And for Nazis too.
(Also English IS not my first language but I obviously can differentiate between the words āspermā and āeggsāā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦ I mean egg is kind of a 1st grade word and sperm is international. obviously there might have been another power at play, like me forgetting who done what. That hurts my feelings, that you thought that I donāt understand the word egg, and didnāt even suspect that Iāve mixed something up, is what Iām saying . Like itās part of what Iām talking about, you immediately thinking that Iām patrilineal or that I am either stupid (egg??) or malicious. I am neither).
Also re ethnicity, I of course know that it doesnāt include genetics. I also think that it is disingenuous to imply that ābloodā wasnāt important to humans, it so was. They were maybe less obsessed with ābloodā than we are obsessed with genes, but itās because we have soooo many shiny new toys like 23 and me and stuff. Everyone is obsessed with it now, itās strange to just. Ignore it. Of course the embryo would want to know more, why not? In modern world, genes are facts (however stupid it is). Their life has changed when they found out. Trust me, some of their friends will start treating them differently now.
Also please about Reddit being an international space,,,,,,,,,, come on.
But I do feel like a lot of USA Jews are turning their back on people like me. And I donāt understand why!!! Iām not stepping on your toes. There is lots of space, we are all dead anyways. Some Jewish people are Jewish regardless of what a rabbi said. I am ambiguously Jewish, but youāve basically said that my gruncle would had to convert to be considered Jewish and itās mind blowing to me that a fully Jewish person raised by a Jewish mother with a Jewish father dead in Holocaust would have to convert because his dad decided that he is a secular communist and refused to set fut in a synagogue when he was a teen and then he died, and they were from USSR? Culturally I am absolutely flabbergasted at that idea! Canāt say that Iām not judging, I am, but mostly I am curious that someone would have the audacity to tell that to my lovely gruncle who is buried in Israel and all that?? Like he didnāt go to synagogue at all, but being Jewish was so important for him. For all of us? Idk.
You highlighted only part of the important bit anon, and it excluded the part I was frustrated by.
"claiming they are unambiguously Jewish AND implying that conversion is both unnecessary and beneath them." My complaint is people acting like conversion is beneath them, and that conversion is something only lesser people need to do, and that as a process, it is something to be avoided at all costs. The idea that someone is going to throw a tantrum at the very notion that they need to speak to a Rabbi who might still suggest conversion is my problem ā because they're throwing a tantrum over the notion of being similar to, or seen as, a convert. I'm tired of people acting like it's a unique insult to convert.
Then you literally go on to say "I was born ambiguously Jewish."
Well then, you're not who I am talking about??? You're not claiming to be unambiguously halakhically Jewish???
You LITERALLY used the word I used?
"conversion wouldn't remove that ambiguity." I mean it quite literally does. That's the whole point of converting. Conversion removes ambiguity regarding halakhic status of Jew vs ???.
Conversion isn't a magic wand removing things like family baggage or interfaith relationships or cultural/historical trauma or anything else.
I was working with the information I had. Not trying to be mean, but genuinely unsure if you were actually fully confused:
1. You seemed to not understand the key point of the original person I was talking about re: egg donor
2. You told me you weren't from the US and didn't specify another anglophone country so I had to assume it was very possible that English isn't your first language and my wording was unclear or confusing to you somehow which is why you started discussing fathers and patrilineals.
I'm not saying that to be mean, I literally had to clarify a very important point about the original question being responded to, in order to make sure you weren't misunderstanding me.
Again: I turned my back on no one. You are projecting assumptions here based on only half of my statement that - by your own admission - doesn't even include you.
I mentioned that someone ELSE said they knew of people who converted after the shoah to deal with the loss of records in order to remove any ambiguity. I was not the person who made this statement, I was not the Rabbi(s) who suggested it, I didn't even say it was the correct decision. I merely quoted someone else saying they knew people who did this.
And, to be blunt, it's weird that you're continually acting like that is an American Jewish issue. A lot of these things happened in Israel. Your gruncle, if he committed Aliyah, probably had documentation that Israel accepted stating that he was a Jew.
From Easy Aliyah, for those claiming Jewish ancestry:
For those claiming Jewish ancestry:
Birth certificates establishing Jewish lineage
Must show clear connection to a Jewish parent or grandparent
May require apostille certification for international validity
Translation into Hebrew may be required
For the former Soviet Union, birth certificates (or marriage certificates) often listed "nationality" as Jewish
Soviet/Russian Internal Passport showing Jewish nationality
Extremely valuable for immigrants from former Soviet countries
The infamous "fifth line" (pyataya grafa) listing nationality as "Jewish"
So this isn't ...an invented American Jewish thing. It's also well known that Israel has different requirements for Aliyah than for being considered halakhically Jewish. They also have tracked those differences by numbers (see for example, the discussions on the 1990's post-soviet Aliyah Wikipedia page).
The fact of the matter is that Israel has been heavily involved in the push to get people to formalize their status via conversion, and Israel is the one constantly debating whether or not this is important and how quickly it should be done. Post-soviet emigration literally was a big factor in discussing how to potentially convince people to formalize their Jewish status under halalkha via conversion. It's arguably more of an issue in Israel because things like marriage are handled by the religious courts, and if you're not religiously and halakhically Jewish, you can't get married by a Rabbi in israel. You can qualify for Aliyah as a Jew, and still not be halakhically Jewish and that obviously impacted a lot of former Soviet immigrants.
This isn't a uniquely american thing. I want to stress I'm not even agreeing with how Israel or the Israeli rabbinate handles this issue! I'm just saying that the issue exists, and it's far more pressing outside of the United States and this is not some weirdly American attitude when it's far more of a huge deal in Israel.
discoholicmusic
janainaart
prguitarman
2087
