Matrilineality in Judaism
Encyclopedia
Matrilineality in Judaism is the view that people born of a Jewish mother are themselves Jewish
. The Torah
does not explicitly discuss the conferring of Jewish status through matrilineality
, and in apparent contrast to this position, the Tanakh
(Hebrew Bible) provides many examples of Israelite men whose children by foreign women appear to have been accepted as Israelite. However, Jewish oral tradition
codified in Mishnah
by the 2nd century CE maintains that matrilineality was always the rule, and adduces indirect textual evidence from the Torah, with the implicit assumption that the women in question converted to Judaism.
The Mishnah
(Kiddushin 3:12) states that, to be a Jew, one must be either the child of a Jewish mother or a convert to Judaism
, (ger tzedek, "righteous convert"). The Talmud
(Kiddushin 68b) derives this law from the Torah, specifically Deuteronomy
7:3–4: "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." This rule was clearly accepted by the 2nd century CE, with virtually no debate over it appearing in the Talmud. Orthodox
opinion regards this rule as dating from receipt of the Torah at Mount Sinai
, but most non-Orthodox scholars regard it as originating either at the time of Ezra
(4th Century BCE) or during the period of Roman rule in the 1st–2nd centuries CE.
In the Hellenistic period
of the 4th Century BCE – 1st Century CE some evidence indicates that the offspring of intermarriages between Jewish men and non-Jewish women were considered Jewish; as is usual in prerabbinic
texts, there is no mention of conversion on the part of the Gentile spouse. On the other hand, Philo of Alexandria
calls the child of a Jew and a non-Jew a nothos (bastard), regardless of whether the non-Jewish parent is the father or the mother.
With the emergence of Jewish denominations and the modern rise in Jewish intermarriage
in the 20th century, questions about the law of matrilineal descent have assumed greater importance to the Jewish community at large. The heterogeneous Jewish community is divided on the issue of "Who is a Jew?
" via descent; matrilineal descent still is the rule within Orthodox Judaism
, which also holds that anyone with a Jewish mother has an irrevocable Jewish status, and matrilineal descent is the norm in the Conservative movement
. Since 1983, Reform Judaism
in the United States of America
officially adopted a bilineal policy: one is a Jew if either of one's parents is Jewish, provided that either (a) one is raised as a Jew, by Reform standards, or (b) one engages in an appropriate act of public identification, formalizing a practice that had been common in Reform synagogues for at least a generation. Karaite Judaism
, which includes only the Tanakh
in its canon, interprets the Torah to indicate that Jewishness passes exclusively through the father's line, maintaining the system of patrilineality
that many scholars believe was the practice of ancient Israel
.
, Gershom
and Eliezer
, by his wife Zipporah
daughter of the Midian
ite priest Jethro
, are Jews. Within the Tanakh
(Hebrew Bible), The Book of Ruth
relates the story of a Gentile woman married to a Jewish man, whose children are considered Jewish.
Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen of Harvard University states:
In contrast, the Book of Ezra
relates that the prophet Ezra
, a Jewish priestly
scribe
, commanded his Jewish followers amidst the Babylonian captivity
(c. 459 BCE) to divorce their foreign wives, and this sometimes has been regarded as the foundation of the present rule. According to the Bible, Ezra resolved the identity threat which arose by the intermarriage between Jews and foreigners and provided a definite reading of the Torah.
(37 CE – c. 100 CE), in Antiquities of the Jews
, refers to marriages between Jewish men and Gentile women without much commentary and seems to assume that the offspring is Jewish (or, according to one of his statements, "half-Jewish"); as is usual in prerabbinic texts, there is no mention of conversion on the part of the Gentile spouse. In contrast, Philo of Alexandria
(20 BCE – 50 CE) calls the child of any Jewish intermarriage a nothos (bastard), regardless of which parent is not Jewish. In the same vein, the Mishnah raises the possibility that the child of a Gentile father and a Jewish mother is a mamzer
, though this is dismissed in the later stratum of the Talmud.
(Kiddushin 3:12) states that, to be a Jew, one must be either the child of a Jewish mother or a convert to Judaism. The Talmud (Kiddushin 68b) derives this law from the Torah, specifically from Deuteronomy
7:3–4, which 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." The Talmudic sages point out that only the child born to your daughter, though fathered by a non-Jew, is called "your son"; a child born to your son by a non-Jewish mother would not be called "your son," but rather "her son." Furthermore, the Torah is specifically concerned with a non-Jewish father turning away a Jewish child from Judaism, whereas there is no parallel concern for a non-Jewish mother turning a child from Judaism, presumably because the child is not Jewish.
Rabbi Louis Jacobs
noted,
In the Middle Ages
, there was a minority stream of rabbinic opinion arguing in theoretical terms for a rule that, to be Jewish by descent, both of one's parents must be Jewish. In practical terms, however, the matrilineal rule remained unchallenged from Talmudic times till the twentieth century.
" via descent.
. Orthodox Judaism holds that anyone with a Jewish mother also has irrevocable Jewish status; in other words, even if someone with a Jewish mother converts to another religion, that person still is considered Jewish.
is openly held by many scholars affiliated with the Conservative movement
: see the views of Shaye J. D. Cohen, below.
At the same time, matrilineal descent remains the norm in Conservative halakha. In 1986, the Conservative Movement's Rabbinical Assembly reiterated the commitment of the Conservative movement to the law of matrilineal descent. Furthermore, the movement stated that any rabbi who accepts the principle of patrilineal descent will be subject to expulsion from the Rabbinical Assembly. At the same time, it affirmed that "sincere Jews by choice" should be warmly welcomed into the community and that "sensitivity should be shown to Jews who have intermarried and their families." The Conservative movement actively reaches out to intermarried families by offering them opportunities for Jewish growth and enrichment.
Polls conducted by the Conservative movement show that 68% of all regular attenders at Conservative synagogues would support changing the law to allow Jewish identity by patrilineal descent. However, there is little rabbinic support for such a change (and, if Cohen's argument is correct, such a change could not be made without also recognising the legality of mixed marriages.)
in the U.S. officially adopted a bilineal policy in 1983: one is a Jew if either of one's parents is Jewish, provided that either (a) one is raised as a Jew, by Reform standards, or (b) one engages in an appropriate act of public identification. This declaration formalized what had been Reform policy in practice for at least a generation. Clause (b) has been generally interpreted as making any form of public self-identification sufficient, though some congregations may make more formal requirements—especially if the individual in question has been raised as a Christian. In addition, the movement decided to accept people who were raised as Jews, such as adopted children, even if it was not certain that either of their parents were Jewish.
Other movements within the World Union for Progressive Judaism
have adopted essentially the same position as U.S. Reform Judaism. These include: Liberal Judaism
in England; Reconstructionist Judaism
in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere; Progressive Judaism in Australia; one congregation in Austria; some congregations in Eastern Europe. Note that Reform Judaism in Canada and England adopts a different position, similar to that of Conservative Judaism (though there may be an accelerated conversion process for the children of Jewish fathers).
includes only the Tanakh
in its canon, excluding the Talmud. Karaite Judaism interprets the Torah to indicate that Jewishness passes exclusively through the father's line. Maintaining the system of patrilineality
, that many scholars believe was the practice of ancient Israel.
, the status quo is that the Orthodox definition is followed: the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother may immigrate to Israel (and may claim rights under the Law of Return
), but will be registered in official documents as a non-Jew. The consequences are various: he/she may not be wedded inside the state to anybody considered to be officially a Jew, and he/she may not be buried in the Jewish section of a cemetery.
Some groups of Jews have historically recognized only patrilineal descent, e.g. the Juhurim
of the Northern Caucasus, and other Jewish groups of Central Asia. This is also the majority view in Karaite Judaism
, though some require both parents to be Jewish.
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 Council of Jamnia
, 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,although some like Zipporah
and Rebecca
were still insisting in the practices of their former families. For example, Isaac
, Jacob
until Moses
himself later and Samson
and many of the Israelite kings married foreign princesses, and this does not seem to have prevented the children of these marriages from being considered among the Children of Israel and even 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.
The Orthodox answer is that both Ruth and Naamah were converts to Judaism: the Talmud derives the laws of proselytes from the exchange between Naomi and Ruth.
Historians, however, believe that the very notion of conversion with a mikvah
is postbiblical. It must also be pointed out that, even if Ruth never became Jewish, this would not affect the Jewishness of King David on either a pure patrilineal or a pure matrilineal rule, as Ruth was King David's paternal great-grandmother.
A reconciliation of the evidence has been offered by Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen. The original rule was patrilineal, but only applied to cases where the parents were legally married, or could lawfully have married, as it is only in these cases that the child legally has a father at all. So in the case of an all-Jewish or all-Gentile marriage, the child inherits his or her Jewish or Gentile status from the father. In Biblical times, the same rule would have applied to marriages with Kutim, as such marriages were frowned upon but not regarded as legally impossible. However, since the time of Ezra, Jewish law has held that mixed marriages are not only forbidden but void. Accordingly, the child of such a union has no legal father, and takes the status of the mother by default; just as in English custom a legitimate child takes his or her father’s surname but an illegitimate child takes his or her mother’s. In the result, it is only in the case of a mixed marriage that the child inherits its Jewish status from the mother; in the normal case of two Jewish parents a child inherits his or her status from the father, but the Jewishness of the mother is a necessary condition for this to happen. The practical result of this is the same as that of a purely matrilineal rule.
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
. The Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
does not explicitly discuss the conferring of Jewish status through matrilineality
Matrilineality
Matrilineality is a system in which descent is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors. Matrilineality is also a societal system in which one belongs to one's matriline or mother's lineage, which can involve the inheritance of property and/or titles.A matriline is a line of descent from a...
, and in apparent contrast to this position, the Tanakh
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
(Hebrew Bible) provides many examples of Israelite men whose children by foreign women appear to have been accepted as Israelite. However, Jewish oral tradition
Oral Torah
The Oral Torah comprises the legal and interpretative traditions that, according to tradition, were transmitted orally from Mount Sinai, and were not written in the Torah...
codified in Mishnah
Mishnah
The Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. It was redacted c...
by the 2nd century CE maintains that matrilineality was always the rule, and adduces indirect textual evidence from the Torah, with the implicit assumption that the women in question converted to Judaism.
The Mishnah
Mishnah
The Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. It was redacted c...
(Kiddushin 3:12) states that, to be a Jew, one must be either the child of a Jewish mother or a convert to Judaism
Conversion to Judaism
Conversion to Judaism is a formal act undertaken by a non-Jewish person who wishes to be recognised as a full member of the Jewish community. A Jewish conversion is both a religious act and an expression of association with the Jewish people...
, (ger tzedek, "righteous convert"). The Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
(Kiddushin 68b) derives this law from the Torah, specifically Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy
The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch...
7:3–4: "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." This rule was clearly accepted by the 2nd century CE, with virtually no debate over it appearing in the Talmud. Orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
opinion regards this rule as dating from receipt of the Torah at Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai , also known as Mount Horeb, Mount Musa, Gabal Musa , Jabal Musa meaning "Moses' Mountain", is a mountain near Saint Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. A mountain called Mount Sinai is mentioned many times in the Book of Exodus in the Torah and the Bible as well as the Quran...
, but most non-Orthodox scholars regard it as originating either at the time of Ezra
Ezra
Ezra , also called Ezra the Scribe and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible he returned from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem...
(4th Century BCE) or during the period of Roman rule in the 1st–2nd centuries CE.
In the Hellenistic period
Hellenistic Judaism
Hellenistic Judaism was a movement which existed in the Jewish diaspora that sought to establish a Hebraic-Jewish religious tradition within the culture and language of Hellenism...
of the 4th Century BCE – 1st Century CE some evidence indicates that the offspring of intermarriages between Jewish men and non-Jewish women were considered Jewish; as is usual in prerabbinic
Rabbinic Judaism
Rabbinic Judaism or Rabbinism has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Talmud...
texts, there is no mention of conversion on the part of the Gentile spouse. On the other hand, Philo of Alexandria
Philo
Philo , known also as Philo of Alexandria , Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew, was a Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher born in Alexandria....
calls the child of a Jew and a non-Jew a nothos (bastard), regardless of whether the non-Jewish parent is the father or the mother.
With the emergence of Jewish denominations and the modern rise in Jewish intermarriage
Interfaith marriage in Judaism
Interfaith marriage in Judaism was historically looked upon with very strong disfavour by Jewish leaders, and it remains a controversial issue amongst Jewish leaders today. In the Talmud, interfaith marriage is completely prohibited, although the definition of interfaith is not so simply expressed...
in the 20th century, questions about the law of matrilineal descent have assumed greater importance to the Jewish community at large. The heterogeneous Jewish community is divided on the issue of "Who is a Jew?
Who is a Jew?
"Who is a Jew?" is a basic question about Jewish identity and considerations of Jewish self-identification. The question is based in ideas about Jewish personhood which themselves have cultural, religious, genealogical, and personal dimensions...
" via descent; matrilineal descent still is the rule within Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
, which also holds that anyone with a Jewish mother has an irrevocable Jewish status, and matrilineal descent is the norm in the Conservative movement
Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism,...
. Since 1983, Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
in the United States of America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
officially adopted a bilineal policy: one is a Jew if either of one's parents is Jewish, provided that either (a) one is raised as a Jew, by Reform standards, or (b) one engages in an appropriate act of public identification, formalizing a practice that had been common in Reform synagogues for at least a generation. Karaite Judaism
Karaite Judaism
Karaite Judaism or Karaism is a Jewish movement characterized by the recognition of the Tanakh alone as its supreme legal authority in Halakhah, as well as in theology...
, which includes only the Tanakh
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
in its canon, interprets the Torah to indicate that Jewishness passes exclusively through the father's line, maintaining the system of patrilineality
Patrilineality
Patrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well....
that many scholars believe was the practice of ancient Israel
History of ancient Israel and Judah
Israel and Judah were related Iron Age kingdoms of ancient Palestine. The earliest known reference to the name Israel in archaeological records is in the Merneptah stele, an Egyptian record of c. 1209 BCE. By the 9th century BCE the Kingdom of Israel had emerged as an important local power before...
.
Biblical references
In the Torah, the sons of MosesMoses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
, Gershom
Gershom
According to the Bible, Gershom was the firstborn son of Moses and Zipporah. The name appears to mean a sojourner there , which the text argues was a reference to Moses' flight from Egypt; biblical scholars regard the name as being essentially the same as Gershon, and it is Gershom rather than...
and Eliezer
Eliezer
For the mathematician and Tamil activist see C.J. Eliezer; for the AI researcher and writer on rationality see Eliezer Yudkowsky; for the Levite priest of the Hebrew Bible, see Eleazar...
, by his wife Zipporah
Zipporah
Zipporah or Tzipora is mentioned in the Book of Exodus as the wife of Moses, and the daughter of Reuel/Jethro, the priest or prince of Midian...
daughter of the Midian
Midian
Midian , Madyan , or Madiam is a geographical place and a people mentioned in the Bible and in the Qur'an. It is believed to be in northwest Saudi Arabia on the east shore of the Gulf of Aqaba and the northern Red Sea...
ite priest Jethro
Jethro
In the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible, Jethro |Shu-ayb]]) is Moses' father-in-law, a Kenite shepherd and priest of Midian. He is also revered as a prophet in his own right in the Druze religion, and considered an ancestor of the Druze.-In Exodus:...
, are Jews. Within the Tanakh
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
(Hebrew Bible), The Book of Ruth
Book of Ruth
The Book of Ruth is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament. In the Jewish canon the Book of Ruth is included in the third division, or the Writings . In the Christian canon the Book of Ruth is placed between Judges and 1 Samuel...
relates the story of a Gentile woman married to a Jewish man, whose children are considered Jewish.
Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen of Harvard University states:
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 were not Israelite if the women did not convert.
In contrast, the Book of Ezra
Book of Ezra
The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible. Originally combined with the Book of Nehemiah in a single book of Ezra-Nehemiah, the two became separated in the early centuries of the Christian era...
relates that the prophet Ezra
Ezra
Ezra , also called Ezra the Scribe and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible he returned from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem...
, a Jewish priestly
Kohen
A Kohen is the Hebrew word for priest. Jewish Kohens are traditionally believed and halachically required to be of direct patrilineal descent from the Biblical Aaron....
scribe
Scribe
A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
, commanded his Jewish followers amidst the Babylonian captivity
Babylonian captivity
The Babylonian captivity was the period in Jewish history during which the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon—conventionally 587–538 BCE....
(c. 459 BCE) to divorce their foreign wives, and this sometimes has been regarded as the foundation of the present rule. According to the Bible, Ezra resolved the identity threat which arose by the intermarriage between Jews and foreigners and provided a definite reading of the Torah.
Hellenistic period
JosephusJosephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
(37 CE – c. 100 CE), in Antiquities of the Jews
Antiquities of the Jews
Antiquities of the Jews is a twenty volume historiographical work composed by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in the thirteenth year of the reign of Roman emperor Flavius Domitian which was around 93 or 94 AD. Antiquities of the Jews contains an account of history of the Jewish people,...
, refers to marriages between Jewish men and Gentile women without much commentary and seems to assume that the offspring is Jewish (or, according to one of his statements, "half-Jewish"); as is usual in prerabbinic texts, there is no mention of conversion on the part of the Gentile spouse. In contrast, Philo of Alexandria
Philo
Philo , known also as Philo of Alexandria , Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew, was a Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher born in Alexandria....
(20 BCE – 50 CE) calls the child of any Jewish intermarriage a nothos (bastard), regardless of which parent is not Jewish. In the same vein, the Mishnah raises the possibility that the child of a Gentile father and a Jewish mother is a mamzer
Mamzer
The Hebrew noun mamzer in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish religious law, is a person born from certain forbidden relationships, or the descendant of such a person. A mamzer is someone who is either born of adultery by a married woman, or born of incest , or someone who has a mamzer as a parent...
, though this is dismissed in the later stratum of the Talmud.
Talmudic period
The MishnahMishnah
The Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. It was redacted c...
(Kiddushin 3:12) states that, to be a Jew, one must be either the child of a Jewish mother or a convert to Judaism. The Talmud (Kiddushin 68b) derives this law from the Torah, specifically from Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy
The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch...
7:3–4, which 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." The Talmudic sages point out that only the child born to your daughter, though fathered by a non-Jew, is called "your son"; a child born to your son by a non-Jewish mother would not be called "your son," but rather "her son." Furthermore, the Torah is specifically concerned with a non-Jewish father turning away a Jewish child from Judaism, whereas there is no parallel concern for a non-Jewish mother turning a child from Judaism, presumably because the child is not Jewish.
Rabbi Louis Jacobs
Louis Jacobs
Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs was a Masorti rabbi, the first leader of Masorti Judaism in the United Kingdom, and a leading writer and thinker on Judaism...
noted,
"There has been a development of the law in these instances from Biblical and pre-Rabbinic times [from patrilineal to matrilineal descent]. The attempt to find reasons for the change, however, has proved to be elusive...[b]ut the development in the law had already taken place before the redaction of the Mishnah at the very latest. With the exception of the Rabbi in the Jerusalem Talmud (Qiddushin, 3:12) who permitted the child of a gentile mother and Jewish father to be circumcised on the Sabbath and whose opinion was vehemently rejected, the law is accepted unanimously in both Talmuds. It is recorded as the law in all the Codes without dissenting voice and has been the universal norm in all Jewish communities.
In the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, there was a minority stream of rabbinic opinion arguing in theoretical terms for a rule that, to be Jewish by descent, both of one's parents must be Jewish. In practical terms, however, the matrilineal rule remained unchallenged from Talmudic times till the twentieth century.
Modern views
With the birth of alternative branches of Judaism and the rise in intermarriage in the 20th century, questions about the law of matrilineal descent arose. Children born to Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers, in particular, were asking why they were not accepted as Jews. As of today, Judaism is divided on the issue of "Who is a Jew?Who is a Jew?
"Who is a Jew?" is a basic question about Jewish identity and considerations of Jewish self-identification. The question is based in ideas about Jewish personhood which themselves have cultural, religious, genealogical, and personal dimensions...
" via descent.
Orthodox Judaism
Matrilineal descent still is the rule within Orthodox JudaismOrthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
. Orthodox Judaism holds that anyone with a Jewish mother also has irrevocable Jewish status; in other words, even if someone with a Jewish mother converts to another religion, that person still is considered Jewish.
Conservative Judaism
The view of matrilineal descent as originating at the time of the Council of JamniaCouncil of Jamnia
The Council of Jamnia or Council of Yavne is a hypothetical late 1st-century council at which it is postulated the canon of the Hebrew Bible was finalized....
is openly held by many scholars affiliated with the Conservative movement
Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism,...
: see the views of Shaye J. D. Cohen, below.
At the same time, matrilineal descent remains the norm in Conservative halakha. In 1986, the Conservative Movement's Rabbinical Assembly reiterated the commitment of the Conservative movement to the law of matrilineal descent. Furthermore, the movement stated that any rabbi who accepts the principle of patrilineal descent will be subject to expulsion from the Rabbinical Assembly. At the same time, it affirmed that "sincere Jews by choice" should be warmly welcomed into the community and that "sensitivity should be shown to Jews who have intermarried and their families." The Conservative movement actively reaches out to intermarried families by offering them opportunities for Jewish growth and enrichment.
Polls conducted by the Conservative movement show that 68% of all regular attenders at Conservative synagogues would support changing the law to allow Jewish identity by patrilineal descent. However, there is little rabbinic support for such a change (and, if Cohen's argument is correct, such a change could not be made without also recognising the legality of mixed marriages.)
Reform Judaism
Reform JudaismReform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
in the U.S. officially adopted a bilineal policy in 1983: one is a Jew if either of one's parents is Jewish, provided that either (a) one is raised as a Jew, by Reform standards, or (b) one engages in an appropriate act of public identification. This declaration formalized what had been Reform policy in practice for at least a generation. Clause (b) has been generally interpreted as making any form of public self-identification sufficient, though some congregations may make more formal requirements—especially if the individual in question has been raised as a Christian. In addition, the movement decided to accept people who were raised as Jews, such as adopted children, even if it was not certain that either of their parents were Jewish.
The Central Conference of American Rabbis declares that the child of one Jewish parent is under the presumption of Jewish descent. This presumption of the Jewish 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. The performance of these mitzvot serves to commit those who participate in them, both parent and child, to Jewish life.
Other movements within the World Union for Progressive Judaism
World Union for Progressive Judaism
The World Union for Progressive Judaism describes itself as the "international umbrella organization for the Reform, Liberal, Progressive and Reconstructionist movements." This overall Jewish religious movement is based in about 40 countries with more than 1,000 affiliated synagogues...
have adopted essentially the same position as U.S. Reform Judaism. These include: Liberal Judaism
Liberal Judaism
Liberal Judaism , is one of the two forms of Progressive Judaism found in the United Kingdom, the other being Reform Judaism. Liberal Judaism, which developed at the beginning of the twentieth century is less conservative than UK Reform Judaism...
in England; Reconstructionist Judaism
Reconstructionist Judaism
Reconstructionist Judaism is a modern American-based Jewish movement based on the ideas of Mordecai Kaplan . The movement views Judaism as a progressively evolving civilization. It originated as a branch of Conservative Judaism, before it splintered...
in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere; Progressive Judaism in Australia; one congregation in Austria; some congregations in Eastern Europe. Note that Reform Judaism in Canada and England adopts a different position, similar to that of Conservative Judaism (though there may be an accelerated conversion process for the children of Jewish fathers).
Reconstructionist Judaism
Reconstructionist Judaism, which values equity and inclusivity, also adopted the idea of bilineal descent. According to Reconstructionist Judaism, children of one Jewish parent, of either gender, are considered Jewish if raised as Jews.Karaite Judaism
Karaite JudaismKaraite Judaism
Karaite Judaism or Karaism is a Jewish movement characterized by the recognition of the Tanakh alone as its supreme legal authority in Halakhah, as well as in theology...
includes only the Tanakh
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
in its canon, excluding the Talmud. Karaite Judaism interprets the Torah to indicate that Jewishness passes exclusively through the father's line. Maintaining the system of patrilineality
Patrilineality
Patrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well....
, that many scholars believe was the practice of ancient Israel.
Other views
Many secular and non-religious Jews in America, Israel and elsewhere adopt a bilineal view similar to that detailed above. In IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, the status quo is that the Orthodox definition is followed: the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother may immigrate to Israel (and may claim rights under the Law of Return
Law of Return
The Law of Return is Israeli legislation, passed on 5 July 1950, that gives Jews the right of return and settlement in Israel and gain citizenship...
), but will be registered in official documents as a non-Jew. The consequences are various: he/she may not be wedded inside the state to anybody considered to be officially a Jew, and he/she may not be buried in the Jewish section of a cemetery.
Some groups of Jews have historically recognized only patrilineal descent, e.g. the Juhurim
Mountain Jews
Highland Jews, Mountain Jews or Kavkazi Jews also known as Juvuro or Juhuro, are Jews of the eastern Caucasus, mainly of Azerbaijan and Dagestan. They are also known as Caucasus Jews, Caucasian Jews, or less commonly East Caucasian Jews, because the majority of these Jews settled the eastern part...
of the Northern Caucasus, and other Jewish groups of Central Asia. This is also the majority view in Karaite Judaism
Karaite Judaism
Karaite Judaism or Karaism is a Jewish movement characterized by the recognition of the Tanakh alone as its supreme legal authority in Halakhah, as well as in theology...
, though some require both parents to be Jewish.
The historical debate
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 KohenKohen
A Kohen is the Hebrew word for priest. Jewish Kohens are traditionally believed and halachically required to be of direct patrilineal descent from the Biblical Aaron....
or Levi
Levite
In Jewish tradition, a Levite is a member of the Hebrew tribe of Levi. When Joshua led the Israelites into the land of Canaan, the Levites were the only Israelite tribe that received cities but were not allowed to be landowners "because the Lord the God of Israel himself is their inheritance"...
must be the son of a Kohen or Levi. The child of a mixed Sephardi
Sephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
-Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
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 Council of Jamnia
Council of Jamnia
The Council of Jamnia or Council of Yavne is a hypothetical late 1st-century council at which it is postulated the canon of the Hebrew Bible was finalized....
, 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,although some like Zipporah
Zipporah
Zipporah or Tzipora is mentioned in the Book of Exodus as the wife of Moses, and the daughter of Reuel/Jethro, the priest or prince of Midian...
and Rebecca
Rebecca
Rebecca a biblical matriarch from the Book of Genesis and a common first name. In this book Rebecca was said to be a beautiful girl. As a name it is often shortened to Becky, Becki or Becca; see Rebecca ....
were still insisting in the practices of their former families. For example, Isaac
Isaac
Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau. Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites...
, Jacob
Jacob
Jacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...
until Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
himself later and Samson
Samson
Samson, Shimshon ; Shamshoun or Sampson is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Tanakh ....
and many of the Israelite kings married foreign princesses, and this does not seem to have prevented the children of these marriages from being considered among the Children of Israel and even succeeding to the throne. An example is Rehoboam
Rehoboam
Rehoboam was initially king of the United Monarchy of Israel but after the ten northern tribes of Israel rebelled in 932/931 BC to form the independent Kingdom of Israel he was king of the Kingdom of Judah, or southern kingdom. He was a son of Solomon and a grandson of David...
, who was the son of Solomon
Solomon
Solomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
by the Ammonite
Ammon
Ammon , also referred to as the Ammonites and children of Ammon, was an ancient nation located east of the Jordan River, Gilead, and the Dead Sea, in present-day Jordan. The chief city of the country was Rabbah or Rabbath Ammon, site of the modern city of Amman, Jordan's capital...
princess Naamah
Naamah (wife of Solomon)
Naamah was the wife of King Solomon, and mother of his heir, Rehoboam, according to both , and in the Hebrew Bible. She was an Ammonite, and the only one of Solomon's wives to be mentioned, within the Hebrew Bible, as having borne a child....
. Another example is the Book of Ruth
Book of Ruth
The Book of Ruth is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament. In the Jewish canon the Book of Ruth is included in the third division, or the Writings . In the Christian canon the Book of Ruth is placed between Judges and 1 Samuel...
, which seems to claim such ancestry for King David himself.
The Orthodox answer is that both Ruth and Naamah were converts to Judaism: the Talmud derives the laws of proselytes from the exchange between Naomi and Ruth.
Historians, however, believe that the very notion of conversion with a mikvah
Mikvah
Mikveh is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism...
is postbiblical. It must also be pointed out that, even if Ruth never became Jewish, this would not affect the Jewishness of King David on either a pure patrilineal or a pure matrilineal rule, as Ruth was King David's paternal great-grandmother.
A reconciliation of the evidence has been offered by Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen. The original rule was patrilineal, but only applied to cases where the parents were legally married, or could lawfully have married, as it is only in these cases that the child legally has a father at all. So in the case of an all-Jewish or all-Gentile marriage, the child inherits his or her Jewish or Gentile status from the father. In Biblical times, the same rule would have applied to marriages with Kutim, as such marriages were frowned upon but not regarded as legally impossible. However, since the time of Ezra, Jewish law has held that mixed marriages are not only forbidden but void. Accordingly, the child of such a union has no legal father, and takes the status of the mother by default; just as in English custom a legitimate child takes his or her father’s surname but an illegitimate child takes his or her mother’s. In the result, it is only in the case of a mixed marriage that the child inherits its Jewish status from the mother; in the normal case of two Jewish parents a child inherits his or her status from the father, but the Jewishness of the mother is a necessary condition for this to happen. The practical result of this is the same as that of a purely matrilineal rule.
External links
- Basis for matrilineality in Judaism
- The origin of Matrilineal Descent in Judaism
- Why is Judaism passed on through the mother?
- Louis Jacobs, "There is No Problem of Descent"
- Matrilineal or Patrilineal Descent Lisa Katz
- Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen, "The origin of the Matrilineal rule in Rabbinical Judaism"
- Reform Movement's Resolution on Patrilineal Descent, March 15, 1983. "The Status of Children of Mixed Marriages"