Reflecting on Judaism

          On the 3^rd July 2009 the Jewish Chronicle reported that the English Court of Appeal had ruled that the JFS, and presumably by extension many other Jewish orthodox schools that accepts pupils only if their mother is recognised by the London Bet Din as being halachically Jewish, either by birth or by conversion, were in breach of the Race Relation Act. This ruling created havoc for these schools and I wish to discuss the circumstances which brought the matter before the court.

          Three families whose children were not accepted by the school because their mothers were not recognised to be halachically Jewish prompted the appeal although only one of them was party to the action. In reporting the background to the case Professor Geoffrey Alderman, in the same edition, gave a brief history of the three families. In respect to the family that brought the case the mother was converted by a non-Orthodox Bet Din. In respect to the second family, the mother was converted under the auspices of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and in Israel the conversion is still recognised. In respect to the third family, the mother was converted by the Orthodox Rabbinate in Israel and her conversion too is still recognised there. She married under Orthodox auspices in New York but as her husband is a Cohen the London Bet Din decided that the conversion was insincere and invalidated it in the UK.

          I am not qualified to enter into the legal discussion but consider that I am competent to question two aspects of the Chief Rabbi’s and Bet Din’s criterion for accepting pupils as I was involved in Jewish religious education, both at the Ilford Jewish Primary School, the JFS and elsewhere for some 40 years. The questions I ask are, was the criterion sensible and was it soundly based. Was it sensible? I think almost certainly not. Was it soundly based? One can argue either way. I discuss this below.

          Was it sensible? The purpose of criteria is to attain certain results. The reason for excluding non-halachic children from orthodox schools, it was said, is so that a child should not grow up and marry another child, who attended the same school, assuming that the second child was Jewish.

          When the Ilford Jewish Primary School opened in 1970 there were some 700 applications for the 150 or so places available. It would have been impractical to interview all of the parents even if we had thought of doing so. The pupils were accepted on 'a first name on the list, first served', basis. Among the first intake there were two or three non-halachic Jewish children. When the United Synagogue noticed this they wrote to the school asking that in future it should follow its criterion and make an effort to exclude such children. It did so. The school flourished and eventually grew from a one-form entry school of 280 children to a three-form entry school of over 700 children. What was not taken into account was the fact that the non-orthodox community would resent the exclusion of some of their children and would open a school in competition. The end result is that the Ilford Jewish Primary School has shrunk to a one-form entry school and the non-orthodox school has grown to a two form entry school whose intake comprises, I guess, an overwhelming majority of halachically Jewish children, children of members of the United Synagogue. I call this 'shooting oneself in the foot’ for the criterion proved counterproductive. When a criterion proves to be counterproductive is it not time to change it?

          When the United Synagogue was contemplating the opening of a second secondary school in N.W. London, I phoned the offices of the United Synagogue, and urged them to consider opening the school on the formulae subsequently employed by JCoss, a school that accepts Jewish children of all denominations, or else, in the not too distant future, the non-orthodox community would open such a school and the majority of its pupils would again be children of the orthodox community. The office replied that in principle they could not advise such an approach. I suggested that they forget the principle but look at the practicalities. Of course the United Synagogue did not do so and as a result there is JCoss, a new secondary school that will take any child claiming to be Jewish, whether halachically Jewish or not. The U.S. should not complain. It got what it should have expected. It shot itself in the foot once again.

          Evidence in support for having an all inclusive school is that among my friends there are four who have orthodox children who are, or were, headmasters of Jewish Secondary Schools in North America. The schools' ethos is strictly orthodox. Nevertheless, they accept pupils and teachers from all strands of the Jewish community and from the reports I receive they are at least as successful as the United Synagogue schools; probably more so. The wife of one of these headmasters told me that even their very orthodox teachers teach that 'the Orthodox believe this, the Conservatives believe this and the Reform believe that etc, etc.’ and there are pupils from the non-orthodox community learning gemara. Regarding the fear of outmarriage, results are very encouraging. Out-marriage in the U.S.A. is said to be in excess of 50% but from research carried out by her husband’s schools out-marriage of graduated pupils of marriageable age was less that 20%.

          I asked the father of one of these head-masters to confirm that my description was accurate. This is his reply.

           “I’m not sure all US Jewish Schools adopt the same criteria for determining whether a child is Jewish enough to gain entry. My son’s school (Grade 1 through 12 – 1600 pupils) is open to, and caters for, all forms of Judaism by respecting the pupil’s Jewish and home background. However, the ethos is traditional regarding kashrut, the sanctity of Shabbat, head covering for boys (not necessarily kippot for seniors) and observance of the Festivals. But tefilla is provided in whatever form of service (there are around a dozen services or just discussion groups, each morning) that suits the particular child’s own experience. The School is highly successful. And the standards of Jewish studies and Ivrit would leave UK schools trailing out of sight.

          Was Chief Rabbi’s Court’s criterion soundly based? I don’t know and what I write on this subject should be considered only as a basis for discussion. Should they have taken into account only matrilineal descent? Should they reinstate the concept of patrilineal as well as matrilineal when deciding ‘Who is a Jew’?

          When the Court of Appeal’s judgement was announced I sent my initial thoughts to a few friends. A rabbi friend of mine replied saying that I had not mentioned that matrilineal descent reaches back to Ezra (circa 458 BCE). He also alleged that I was advocating Reform teachings. So I will first repeat, and put in quotes, what I originally wrote. I will then discuss the comments made by him.

          Extract from my original thoughts:-

          “”There are two relevant extracts found on the internet from which I quoted:-

          The first extract :-

          “Matrilineal descent, the passing down of a child's Jewish identity via the mother, is not a biblical principle. In biblical times, many Jewish men married non-Jews, and their children's status was determined by the father's religion. According to Professor Shaye Cohen of Brown University: "Numerous Israelites heroes and kings married foreign women: for example, Judah married a Canaanite, Joseph an Egyptian, Moses a Midianite and an Ethiopian, David a Philistine, and Solomon women of every description. By her marriage with an Israelite man a foreign women joined the clan, people, and religion of her husband. It never occurred to anyone in pre-exilic times to argue that such marriages were null and void, that foreign women must "convert" to Judaism, or that the off-spring of the marriage was not Israelite if the women did not convert."

          Sometime during the Roman occupation and the Second Temple period a law of matrilineal descent, which defined a Jew as someone with a Jewish mother, was adopted. By the 2nd century CE, it was clearly practised. The Talmud (Kiddushin 68b), which was compiled in the 4th and 5th centuries, explains that the law of matrilineal descent derived from the Torah. The Torah passage (Deut. 7:3-4) reads: "Thy daughter thou shalt not give to his son, nor shalt thou take his daughter to thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me that they may serve other gods." Some scholars believe that this new law of matrilineal descent was enacted in response to intermarriage. Others say that the frequent cases of Jewish women being raped by non-Jews led to the law; "how could a raped Jewish woman's child be considered non-Jewish by the Jewish community in which he or she would be raised?" Some believe that the matrilineal principle was borrowed from Roman law.”

          The second extract :-

          "The law of descent as currently accepted by Orthodox Judaism appears to be an exception to a generally patrilineal system of family law. For example, laws of inheritance and the descent of the monarchy follow the father. A Jew also belongs to the tribe of his or her father, so a Kohen or Levi must be the son of a Kohen or Levi. The child of a mixed Sephardi-Ashkenazi marriage generally adopts the communal identity of the father.

          For this reason, many scholars suggest that the original rule of Jewish descent must have been patrilineal, and that it was changed around the time of Ezra, or even later, at the time of Yavneh, possibly under the influence of Roman law. There are several instances in the Bible where Israelite men marry Gentile women without direct mention of the women converting. For example, many of the Israelite kings married foreign princesses, and this does not seem to have prevented the children of these marriages succeeding to the throne. An example is Rehoboam, who was the son of Solomon by the Ammonite princess Naamah. Another example is the Book of Ruth, which seems to claim such ancestry for King David himself."”

          I now revert to the comment made by my rabbi friend, namely, that I had not mentioned Ezra. It is true that Ezra imposed a demand on male Israelites to give up their ‘strange wives’. I have looked at the Book of Ezra but found no mention of ‘matrilineal’. People often quote Ezra but sometimes give only part of the story.

          At a Jewish history course I attended at Jews’ College the recommended reading was ‘A History of the Jewish People’ edited by Prof. H.H. Ben-Sasson of the Hebrew University. So let us have a look at what ‘A history of the Jewish People’ says about Ezra (page 175) and I quote. “At this point (Ezra 10:44), (after he demands that they give up their ‘strange wives’), the source breaks off. It is possible that at this stage Ezra was compelled to retract his order owing to changes in the international situation or complaints lodged on behalf of noble families in Jerusalem who were affected by his far-reaching measures.” The conclusion of the Book of Ezra gives a list of notables who had married ‘strange wives’ and the final sentence says ‘All these had taken strange wives and some of them had wives by whom they had children’. What was the status of these children? Were they Israelites of not? The bible doesn’t say.

          And what did Ezra mean by ‘strange wives’? What I think he was trying to impose on them is that the men should give up their wives whose father was not an Israelite and marry a woman whose father was an Israelite. Remember, they were living in a patrilineal society. If Ezra was suggesting that they take wives who were descended from only matrilineal Jewish stock going back generations, there weren’t any. So, in spite of my rabbi friend’s suggestion, Ezra was not advocating matrilineal Judaism but only that the father of the bride should be of Israelite patrilineal descent.

          The History Book goes on to show that even if Ezra’s edict did have some effect it did not last very long for under the rule of John Hyrcanus (132-134 BCE), three hundred years later, the whole of the neighbouring Idumean race, and others, were forcibly converted to Judaism. It was only during a later period that the concept of matrilineal decent would have become the norm.

          Referring the Talmud’s interpretation quoted in the ‘first extract’ above, namely, that the law of matrilineal descent is derived from the Torah, it took 1900 years from the time of Abraham and 1200 years from the time of Moses for this interpretation to be introduced to the Jewish people and implemented. Why did it take so long? I am reminded of a comment made by the lecturer of the Jewish history course. He was a well know and well respected rabbi. He said that very often when the rabbis wished to introduce a new concept they search the Torah to find support for it. I wonder whether this is what happened in this instance? Let us have another look at the rabbis’ authority. ‘The Talmud (Kiddushin 68b), which was compiled in the 4th and 5th centuries, explains that the law of matrilineal descent derived from the Torah. The Torah passage (Deut. 7:3-4) reads: "Thy daughter thou shalt not give to his son, nor shalt thou take his daughter to thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me that they may serve other gods."

          What the Talmud does not tell us is that in the previous two sentences Deut.7:1-2 the People are told that they are to be given land owned by seven idol- worshiping nations and it is with these seven nations that "Thy daughter thou shalt not give to his son, nor shalt thou take his daughter to thy son.”.

          No one can deny that at the time of the giving of the Torah patrilineal descent was the norm so the clear meaning of Duet.7:3-4, to my mind, is that the People were being told to marry their children only to children whose parents were Jewish by Israelite patrilieal descent. I don’t see how the concept of matrilineal descent is deduced. The criterion of matrilineal descent was introduced, in part, to prevent out-marriages. Can we say that the criterion has really been successful?

          Regarding to the suggestion that I was proposing ‘Reform Judaism’, I think that we can easily differentiate. The early American Reform movement wished to do away with the Shabbat, have Sunday as the day of rest; they did away with the laws of kashrut, wished to pray in English and so forth. They broke with both the Torah and our past. In the unlikely event that the rabbis now decide to revert to patrilineal descent they would be reverting to Torah law as understood and practised for well over a thousand years, almost two thousand years; reinstating our past history and not breaking from it. Should such reinstatement be labelled Reform? And consider the problems it would solve. People who were considered Jews up to the time of the Second Temple would again be considered to be Jews and controversy within the community would be greatly reduced. But on the other hand it is not easy to dispense with the tradition of matrilineal descent that has also existed for some 2000 years.

          And look at the problems that would be avoided. The Jewish orthodox schools would not be in the mess that they are now in, the problem of out-marriage would be considerably reduced and our numbers might grow dramatically as in days of old. According to the Jewish Encyclopaedia there were some 8,000,000 Jews living within the Roman Empire alone.

          I am left with some tantalising questions. There is no doubt that at some time Jews were defined only patrilineally. It was then changed to matrilineally. Did those who were considered to be Jewish by patrilineal descent before the changes, and their descendants even unto today, lose their Jewish identity? How was the change implemented and over what period? In the light of all this, those who believe that the Jews of today are of pure matrilineal descent are deluding themselves. I wonder how many Jews today, including our leading, learned and revered rabbis, would fall within the definition of Jewish ‘but only because of continuous matrilineal descent’.