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So y'all are really out here debating converts' identities on an otherwise peaceful Thursday morning, huh?
All I'm going to say on the matter is that without knowing someone's reason/s for conversion, you cannot make any statements as to their identity.
I, for example, am a patrilineal Jew, but underwent the conversion process anyway. My Jewish ancestors, all the way to my father //
I, for example, am a patrilineal Jew, but underwent the conversion process anyway. My Jewish ancestors, all the way to my father //
// are and were Mizrachim.
My grandfather is Mizrachi. My father is Mizrachi. I myself am therefore Mizrachi, although I will always qualify that with "half-".
To deny the ethnic Jewishness of patrilineal converts or those with any other Jewish heritage is to deny their //
My grandfather is Mizrachi. My father is Mizrachi. I myself am therefore Mizrachi, although I will always qualify that with "half-".
To deny the ethnic Jewishness of patrilineal converts or those with any other Jewish heritage is to deny their //
// Jewishness, and to exclude them from our shared cultural heritage in an attempt to maintain what you see as the "purity" of the Jewish people. And as Jews, we all know where notions of "racial purity" can lead.
Let's consider Rambam's letter to Ovadiah the convert, below. //
Let's consider Rambam's letter to Ovadiah the convert, below. //
// Rambam makes it abundantly clear that, above all, converts ARE ethnically Jewish, alluding to the Jewish soul with which Gd blessed all converts: "While we are the descendants of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, you derive from Him through whose word the world was created." //
// If even in Rambam's time the approach was that converts are ethnically Jewish, then for y'all to change that is to break with the very traditions you claim to be safeguarding. Sure, a convert might not be genetically Ashke, or Mizrachi, or Sephardi, or Beta Yisra'el, but //
// they're still a Jew. And when they go before that Beit Din, when they immerse themselves in that mikveh, they become a part of Am Yisra'el, the Jewish people, with the same Halachic status as any other Israelite.
Converts have long brought richness and vibrance to our //
Converts have long brought richness and vibrance to our //
// tradition, so who the fuck are y'all to pit yourselves against them.
Heck, most of y'all are probably descended from converts, given that conversion has existed for almost as long as Judaism itself.
Does that make you any less Jewish?
Think on that.
Heck, most of y'all are probably descended from converts, given that conversion has existed for almost as long as Judaism itself.
Does that make you any less Jewish?
Think on that.
