I just finished listening to Unorthodox podcast episode 185 and the gentile of the week Matt Schneider posed a question at the end as usual and I found the trio’s response missed a few points. Matt, who is 3/8th Jewish through his father’s side asked about matrilineal descent. Liel responded saying this concept is a central tenet of Jewish faith and a mainstream idea. While this is true in Israel where halakhic law applies, it is not necessarily true here in the US where the single biggest block of Jews, 29%, identify as Reform (according to the 2018 AJC Survey, 11% identify as Orthodox, 14% as Conservative, 16% as Secular, and 25% as other). It should’ve been clearly stated in the response that Reform Judaism recognizes patrilineal descent as well as matrilineal.
Stephanie said Judaism is a matriarchal religion and I beg to differ a little. Judaism started as a patrilineal religion. There are plenty of examples of men in the Torah taking non-Jewish wives who did not convert but their children were still considered Jewish. Ruth is a famous example of this. No one questions whether King David was really a Jew. I’ve read commentary stating there is a basis in Deuteronomy and other parts of the Torah for matrilineal descent; however I’ve read arguments to the contrary as well. In either case, the practice of matrilineal wasn’t utilized until after the destruction of the second Temple and took hundreds of years to become an accepted norm in Jewish practice. I’m all for strong Jewish women regardless of who considers them Jewish or not.
Mark made an interesting comment about over-the-counter DNA testing. DNA tests further complicate the question of descent. I know some people whose mothers are Jewish and their fathers are not who’ve taken a DNA test only to learn they are 20% Jewish or even less. They then struggle with the question of how Jewish am I really. Are they more Jewish than someone whose father is 100% Jewish? Or what about people who are egg donor conceived but raised under halakhic law?
I think using DNA and any type of descent is troublesome in many ways and we need to look for a different way to answer the tricky question of “Who is a Jew?”. Robert Mnookin in his book The Jewish American Paradox proposes anyone who publically identifies as being Jewish should be considered Jewish under the idea of a “big tent”. Each Jewish organization under the tent (Orthodox Union, Union for Reform Judaism, J Street, AJC, American Jewish Congress, various temples, etc) would choose what criteria they wish to allow someone under their little tent, such as following halakhic for orthodox Jews. I embrace this inclusive concept of Judaism as I believe many American Jews do as well.
