Comparison With Jewish Law
All streams in Judaism agree that there are two routes to Jewishness: ancestry and conversion.
Regarding ancestry, Orthodox and Conservative Judaism consider the offspring of a Jewish mother to be Jewish (matrilineal descent): the ancestry of the father is irrelevant. In the postwar era, Reform Judaism adopted the innovation of patrilineal, or bilineal descent: a person with a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother may also be considered Jewish if he/she identifies as such.
Karaite Judaism, including only the Tanakh/Pentateuch in its canon, traces Jewishness exclusively through the father's line, (patrilineal descent).
Regarding conversion, the various streams of Judaism apply different levels of stringency with respect to the prospective convert's level of observance and commitment, but all agree that the ancestry of the convert is irrelevant. People of all parentage and backgrounds have joined and continue to join the Jewish religion.
The modern State of Israel allows anyone who does not practise a religion other than Judaism to settle in Israel as a beneficiary of the Law of Return, provided that the person has one Jewish grandparent, a Jewish spouse, or that the person is a valid convert to Judaism.
Finally, a person of Jewish ancestry who converted to another religion is still considered Jewish in Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, whereas Reform Judaism and the State of Israel consider such people not to be Jewish.
Read more about this topic: Mischling
Famous quotes containing the words comparison with, comparison, jewish and/or law:
“In everyone’s youthful dreams, philosophy is still vaguely but inseparably, and with singular truth, associated with the East, nor do after years discover its local habitation in the Western world. In comparison with the philosophers of the East, we may say that modern Europe has yet given birth to none.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For a Jewish Puritan of the middle class, the novel is serious, the novel is work, the novel is conscientious application—why, the novel is practically the retail business all over again.”
—Howard Nemerov (1920–1991)
“I am now quite lame, from scuffling, all my fingers stiffened by playing ball. Pretty business for a law student. Yes, pretty enough; why not? Good exercise and great sport.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)