Who is a Jew? It’s an age-old inquiry, one that has for decades (if not centuries) provoked debate, discussion and too many punch lines to count ”” all inspired by what many assumed was the question’s essential unanswerability. But if developments this week are any indication, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, might soon offer an official, surprising answer: almost no one.
On Monday, a Knesset committee approved a bill sponsored by David Rotem, a member of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, that would give the Orthodox rabbinate control of all conversions in Israel. If passed, this legislation would place authority over all Jewish births, marriages and deaths ”” and, through them, the fundamental questions of Jewish identity ”” in the hands of a small group of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, rabbis.
The move has set in motion a sectarian battle that is not only dividing Israeli society but threatening to sever the vital connection between Israel and the American Jewish diaspora.
The only parts of Judaism worldwide which are growing both in numbers and as a proportion of World Jewry are the Orthodox bodies, especially the so-called ultraOrthodox/Haredi, and also the various Hasidic schools of Judaism. Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionism are dying, and a very large proportion of their children are, in essence, completely assimilating into the dominant non-Jewish culture.
Who is a Jew? Jesus the Christ and all whom he has adopted into the kingdom.
Unfortunately, Sick & Tired, the State of Israel doesn’t recognize that kind of adoption.