A.B. Yehoshua, in his article “Defining Who Is a Jew,” says: “To be Jewish, you don’t need to live in Israel, you don’t need to speak Hebrew, you don’t have to be formally part of a Jewish community, you don’t need to believe in the God of Israel and His Torah, and you don’t necessarily have to be the son of a Jewish mother. What, then, is being Jewish?” He continues: “It seems astonishing that a people that has existed for more than 3,200 years is still debating its self-definition.”

Halacha says that a Jew is a person born to a Jewish mother or who converted to Judaism. This was established at the end of the Second Temple period. A person is Jewish because their mother is or was Jewish. And this person is Jewish because their grandmother is or was Jewish. The problem arises when neither the daughter nor the granddaughter practices Judaism in any of its forms. Are they then Jewish?

Yehoshua says: Halacha defines a Jew strictly as part of a people, so Jewish is not equivalent to Christian, Buddhist, or Muslim, and yes to English, Norwegian, or Swiss. The sages decided to define Jewishness as a nationality and not as a religion. Two hundred years ago, they could have defined it as a religion, since practically all Jews of that time observed the commandments of the Torah, but they didn’t.

In the documentary film «Doing Jewish,» director Gabrielle Zikha tells us how she found, in the remote village of Sefwi Wiawso, Ghana, a group of people who for centuries practiced rites such as circumcision and eating with dietary laws equal to those of the Torah, and how this group had recently discovered that it was part of a people: the Jewish people. In the film, their leader, Alex Armah, tells us how his dream is to see his congregation officially recognized, in addition to knowing and understanding its history.

And Gabrielle Zikha asks: What truly makes someone considered Jewish? Does one have to be part of an accepted Jewish community, with a full-fledged synagogue and a formally educated rabbi, Or does believing and practicing Judaism, isolated in a small, humble hut, not qualify? Is an elaborate Seder in Montreal more authentic than a simple meal prepared with piety and devotion?

Raphael Patai, in his book «The Jewish Mind,» says that being Jewish is primarily a matter of feeling, of emotional commitment. And feeling Jewish can be the result of one or several factors, such as, for example: knowing oneself to be a descendant of the patriarch Abraham, practicing the Jewish religion, feeling part of the Jewish people, identifying with the State of Israel, having been affected by the Holocaust and antisemitism, being aware of Jewish history, among others. And Patai explains that the common denominator of all these Jewish «feelings» is that you acquire them through knowledge. But for Patai, that is not enough. He says that to be Jewish also requires that others consider you Jewish.

In short, to be Jewish requires two ingredients: knowing Judaism and belonging to a Jewish community. For the Conservative and Orthodox movements, being a child of A Jewish mother is essential to being considered Jewish. In reality, knowledge of Judaism and belonging to a community lie at its core.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: works cited.