Who is a Jew?
The historical Israelites and/or Hebrews, who promulgated Judaism, were not simply a homogeneous assemblage united by a common ideology; they constituted an ethnoreligious group from whom a majority of modern Jews directly descend.However, there are differences in interpretations when it comes to non-Orthodox Jewish denominations in the application of this definition, including According to the Mishnah, the first written source for halakha, the status of the offspring of mixed marriages was determined matrilineally.This presumption of the status of the offspring of any mixed marriage is to be established through appropriate and timely public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people ...[20] For the person to be accepted as Jewish by an Orthodox or Conservative community (for example, on an occasion of their bar or bat mitzvah or marriage), they require a formal conversion (in accordance with halakhic standards).Although Orthodox and Conservative Judaism do not recognize Jewishness through patrilineal descent, "it should also be noted, however, that in the case of a child born to a Jewish father but to a non-Jewish mother, most Orthodox rabbis will relax the stringent demands normally made of would-be converts",[33][better source needed] and the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement "agreed that 'sincere Jews by choice' should be warmly welcomed into the community".Conducting a conversion absent the traditional requirements of immersion in a ritual bath and circumcision for males is a violation of a Standard of the Rabbinical Assembly and grounds for expulsion.[44] The Rabbinical Court of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism requires an average of a year of study to become conversant in Jewish life and tradition.For example, a male who has had a brit milah, who has a general understanding of Judaism, but who has been raised in a secular home might not be required to undergo ritual conversion.[58][59] Those not born to a Jewish mother may become accepted as Jews by the Orthodox and Conservative communities through a formal process of conversion to Judaism in order to become "righteous converts" (Gerei Tzedek—Hebrew: גרי צדק).In addition, Halakha requires that the new convert commit himself to the observance of its tenets; this is called Kabbalat Ol Mitzvot (Hebrew: קבלת עול מצוות), "Acceptance of the Yoke of the Commandments".Voices within the Reform movement say that the law, which changed to matriarchal around 2,000 years ago (originally in the Torah the offspring was determined by patriarchal descent) and was based on the tragic circumstances the Jewish people were facing, was once helpful but is no longer relevant.A "prospective convert declares, orally and in writing, in the presence of a rabbi and no less than two lay leaders of the congregation and community, acceptance of the Jewish religion and the intention to live in accordance with its mitzvot".[98][99] As of 2010[update], anyone who immigrated to Israel after 1990 and wishes to marry or divorce via the Jewish tradition within the state limits must go through a "Judaism test"[100] at an Orthodox Rabbinical court.[103] The court rulings are not final, and any clerk has the power to question them[104] even 20 years later, changing one's citizenship status to "on hold", and putting them in jeopardy of deportation.This is derived from the Rufeisen Case in 1962,[98] in which the Supreme Court ruled that such a person, no matter what their halakhic position, is not entitled to immigration under the Law; they concluded that "no one can regard an apostate as belonging to the Jewish people".[117] Ancestral aspects can be explained by the many Jews who view themselves as atheists and are defined by matrilineal descent or a Cohen (Kohen) or Levi, which is connected by ancestry.[122][123] If one's ancestral line of Jewishness is in doubt, then a proper conversion would be required in order to be allowed to marry in the Orthodox community, or in Israel, where such rules govern all marriages.However, in a number of cases the Supreme Court of Israel has ordered the Ministry of Interior to register Reform and Conservative converts as Jews.The right of people who convert in the Diaspora under Reform or Conservative auspices to immigrate to Israel and claim citizenship as Jews is detailed in Israeli law.Historians, such as the late Kamal Salibi, have utilized etymology and geography to reconstruct the prehistoric origin of the Jewish people in the Arabian Peninsula."[129][clarification needed] During the time of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, conversion to Roman Catholicism did not result in total termination of the person's Jewish status.Since legal, political, religious and social pressure pushed many people to untrue conversions (public behaviour as Christians while retaining some Jewish beliefs and practices privately, a kind of crypto-Judaism),[c] they were still treated with suspicion, a stigma sometimes carried for several generations by their identifiable descendants.The limpieza de sangre ("Cleanliness of blood") required public officials or candidates for membership of many organizations to prove that they did not have Jewish or Muslim ancestry.The question was of critical importance during the rule of the Nazi party in Germany, which persecuted the Jews and defined them for the government's purposes by the Nuremberg Laws.Members who have studied Hebrew and who observe the Sabbath and other Jewish laws in 2005 received the support of the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel to arrange formal conversion to Judaism.The Kaifeng Jews, a Mandarin-speaking group from Henan Province, China, experienced first contact with Europeans in 1605 via the religious scholar Matteo Ricci.[152] After that, other conversos fled to the northwestern frontier of the Spanish Empire,[153] today the southwestern United States, to evade the scrutiny and threat of discovery in the more monitored settlements.A genetic study of men in the early 2000s showed that many Hispanos of the North-American Southwest are descended from Anusim (Sephardic Jews who were forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism).Michael Hammer, a research professor at the University of Arizona and an expert on Jewish genetics, said that fewer than 1% of non-Semites possessed the male-specific "Cohanim marker" or Cohen Modal Haplotype, which is prevalent among Jews claiming descent from hereditary priests.It was conclusively shown to be related to Jewish ancestry, given the history of the people in the area, and many families reported knowledge of a high incidence of cancer.
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