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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy who wrote (256802)	2/17/2008 12:50:23 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The Jewish law part of your sentence says he's Jewish no matter what, but then you say he can declare himself to not be Jewish, and that will be the way things are - which is it? As I have tried to explain to you before without success, a person can be Jewish by birth but choose to 'opt out', either by declaring that he's not Jewish or more usually by converting to another religion. Just being an atheist is not enough to opt out. Lots of Jews are atheists, but still consider themselves Jews and are considered so even by the most ultra-Orthodox Jews. Since you have so much trouble with the term 'Jewish', let's try another example. Suppose you have a buddy whose mother is Serbian but whose Dad is Croatian. Is he Serbian or Croatian? Either group would probably accept him but how does he define himself? In this case, as with the Jews, the 2 ethnic groups have a religion attached to them - Catholic for the Croatians and Orthodox for the Serbs. So without asking him, you could notice when he celebrates Christmas as a good marker for which side of the divde he considers himself. Or you could just ask him. At the end of the day, he gets to say. He obviously doesn't consider himself to be Jewish (he's a declared atheist), although obviously he's the son of a Jewess. You really think there is something different about him compared to the exact same person who's mother happened to be Catholic? If so, what? Yes, I think there's likely to be something quite different about him - his view of the world and of human nature, his values and priorities are likely to be subtly different from the son of a Catholic mother. French Jews have a different cultural package than French Catholics. Nothing you have said settles the matter one way or another. At the end of the day, it's for him to say. After all, if you aren't Jewish, you don't have to accept the legitimacy or follow the rules of what is laid out in 'Jewish law', whatever that is You don't have to accept them if you're Jewish either. There are millions of non-religious Jews.