Quest for Judaic Identity by Douglas Kaplan

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Judaism is a religion.

Jews are people.

While the two are closely associated, they are, nevertheless, distinct entities. The Old Testament identifies a Jew as an individual who is a direct lineal descendant of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and, if male, they must be circumcised.

The Jew acquires Jewish genetic identity at the moment of conception. That identity is not lost by conversion to another faith or adoption of atheism. A converted Jew who returns to Judaism is not obliged to convert back since that person never stopped being a Jew. Jewish genetic identity cannot be created or altered by conversion which simply involves religious instruction, blessings by a cleric, and immersion into a ritual bath.

In the third century A.D., the rabbis altered the biblical source of Jewish identity from the Jewish male to the Jewish female causing abject retrospective and prospective confusion. Today, As a result of that change, a Jewish husband married to a gentle wife must procure a token, but ineffectual conversion for his wife, before childbirth, in order to maintain that his child was born Jewish.

Without a verifiable identity, a person does not exist.

Year first published: 2022