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About half of those who considers themselves “Jewish”, albeit non-Orthodox, are in fact Gentiles. Due to close to two (or more) centuries of intermarriage, false “conversions” as well as patrilineal descent, the latter primarily among the Reform “Jews” but the first two issues among all of the heterodox movements, including Conservative/Masorti and “Open Orthodox” (with the Orthodox belonging in quotation marks), as well as among secular and non-affiliated Jews, today a large portion, potentially even a majority of the non-Orthodox, of those who personally call themselves “Jewish” are halachicly Goyim.
So when we attempt Kiruv with people who claim to be Jewish, how do know if, in fact, they’re really Jewish?
Being, at least some of, the above has been ongoing for centuries (at an accelerating pace, with it being more pronounced in recent decades), a break in person’s Jewish status may have occurred 50 years, 75 years, or even 100 or more years ago, making identifying the problem genealogically very difficult, if not impossible.
Most people who claim to be Jewish but aren’t halachically Jewish aren’t interested in Kiruv organizations to begin with. In general the Kiruv movement no longer has as many interested customers as they once did because secular American Jews younger than forty don’t identify as being Jewish like they did in the heyday of the Kiruv movement. Or if they do identify as being Jewish, their “Judaism” is little more than the official position of the Democratic party (that they call tikkun olam) with some holidays thrown in. Their focus and success even in the US is mostly with Israeli immigrants. The Kiruv groups also use techniques to ensure the people they are dealing with are halachically Jewish. They do not take everyone claiming to be Jewish at their word. Of sad and ironic note is that if someone claims to be Jewish and has a Jewish name like Goldberg they assume the person is NOT halachically Jewish until further verification whereas if the person has a clearly non-Jewish last name like Hendricks there is a larger likelihood the person is in fact halachically Jewish.
statistically, as most marriages are between a jew and a non-Jew, the one with the Jewish last name is Goyish (Jewish father), and the one with a non-Jewish last name is Jewish.
Seriously, distribution is uneven. There are whole pockets of Jews where most are non-Jews (Reform temples in the south?) and pockets where there is rov yehudim: Israelis, Brooklynites, Russians from smaller towns in Ukraine. Uzbekistan, etc …
ujm – The Kiruv movement has a much bigger problem than what you mention – the fact that the Kiruv movement is past its prime. The effect of several generations of intermarriage and assimilation among the Conservative and Reform combined with the disproportionate and outsized growth of Kollel as a de facto way of life and “education” (or lack thereof) for chareidim have resulted in a Kiruv situation with too few candidates for kiruv and too many chariedi candidates to work in kiruv. As Rabbi Adlerstein so eloquently wrote (https://cross-currents.com/2012/12/19/klal-perspectives-the-kiruv-issue/):
“Today, kiruv is a job description. For a yungerman on the cusp of leaving kollel to earn a living, and without any specific career training, one of the options for consideration is kiruv.”
Even the classic “proofs” for Orthodox Judaism a la Rabbis Kelemen, Gottlieb, and Mechanic are totally passe. As an article in the Jewish Action a few months ago put it” “Proofs for the Torah?! That is so 90’s!”
So before patronizing us with your chareid self-righteous attitude of who’s in and who’s out, it’s time to look in the mirror and start doing a serious cheshbon hanefesh.
ujm – The Kiruv movement has a much bigger problem than what you mention – the fact that the Kiruv movement is past its prime. The effect of several generations of intermarriage and assimilation among the Conservative and Reform combined with the disproportionate and outsized growth of Kollel as a de facto way of life and “education” (or lack thereof) for chareidim have resulted in a Kiruv situation with too few candidates for kiruv and too many chariedi candidates to work in kiruv. As Rabbi Adlerstein so eloquently wrote (https://cross-currents.com/2012/12/19/klal-perspectives-the-kiruv-issue/):
“Today, kiruv is a job description. For a yungerman on the cusp of leaving kollel to earn a living, and without any specific career training, one of the options for consideration is kiruv.”
Even the classic “proofs” for Orthodox Judaism a la Rabbis Kelemen, Gottlieb, and Mechanic are passe. As an article in the Jewish Action a few months ago put it” “Proofs for the Torah?! That is so 90’s!”
So before patronizing us with your chareid self-righteous attitude of who’s in and who’s out, it’s time to look in the mirror and start doing a serious cheshbon hanefesh.
Whether doing Kiruv, or running a yeshiva aimed at Baalei Tseuvah, one has to be prepared for the possibility that someone raised in a non-frum background is not Jewish, or at least, there is no way of determining if they are Jewish. One should note that in the case of Baalei Tseuvah who are already doing mitsvos, and then discovers they may, or perhaps definitely, are not Jews, conversion is greatly simplified by the fact they are already adopting a Jewish lifestyle. At this point, anyone who is of German descent (i.e. from the 1848 waive of immigration) or Sefardi (from those fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese in the 16th and 17th centuries), whose family has not remained at least nominally Orthodox, probably is a safek goy, and this will soon be the case, if it isn’t already, of the waive of East European Ashkenazim who came in the late 19th and early 20th century.
On the bright side, during the first generation or two of going “off the derekh” people often had arguably valid marriages but rarely bother with a “get” when they got divorced – but if it turns out they are goyim that solves the problem (since it is lot easier to convert that to deal with mamzerus).
There is a view that it is prohibited from trying to convince goyim to convert, but it isn’t clear how that appears to non-Jews of Jewish descent. It needs to be remembered that until recently, it was a capital offense for a goy to become a ger, so any Jews openly encouraging goyim to convert would be executed.
I asked this one time, and the professional answer I got was “don’t worry, they never stay ‘Jewish’ for more than one generation anyway.”
The idea that someone who thinks they’re Jewish had a “patrilineal descent” situation a hundred years ago that they aren’t aware of might seem scary, but it just never happens. They always assimilate into the goyim before it gets to that point.
there’s enough kiruv to be done with the amount of kofrim who call themselves “frum”
Kiruv workers are paid. Can we follow the money?
Diluted
a somewhat cynical answer is that these days kiruv is mostly geirus. when they become serious they could do geirus lechumra
another answer might be that there is halacha about how many generation you need to look back for marriage
>>>Kiruv workers are paid. Can we follow the money?
It’s very rare for anyone to make a parnosha off Kiruv. No kollel yungerman would consider being a Kiruv worker as a future career option. Best case scenario it is a part time job. The few who do make a parnosha off Kiruv are very talented people who would have a let easier ways of making money without it . I know two children of people who were major figures in the Kiruv world. Neither of them are are in Kiruv themselves as Kiruv is not an industry you can hire your children in and anyway there isn’t enough business for them anymore . Their father’s institutions are largely defunct today. Neither of these people are known to be more talented than their fathers are. Both are mega millionaires. One of them started such a successful business that he was once featured on the cover of a major business magazine.
Joseph, please note that just because a family lineage back 3 or 4 generations may be frum. they still may not be halachically Jewish. lots of strange things have happened to us during our long golus.
ujm (re: shidduchim), if someone is considering a shiduch and they don’t have a clear idea of their ancestry back to the point when their ancestors were frum, they will probably be considered a safek Jew, and asked to convert. This does cause a minor problem if the person is a male Kohen or a male Levi, and especially if the person is a female marrying a Kohen. Of course if the person is unable to be certain if any of their Jewish ancestors had kosher marriages before being totally OTD, and then a civil divorce, being a safek Jew as well as a safek Mamzer is resolved by conversion (cf: issues raised with remote communities whose marriages were kosher and whose divorces were not). NOTE that if some who is already Shomer Mitsvos, and discovers they may not be Jewish, wishes to convert, it isn’t a big problem since they already have the Jewish education and Torah lifestyle requried.
Wow, most posters here don’t seem to know the first thing about kiruv.
“the fact that the Kiruv movement is past its prime.”
This has been true for decades now. I can’t provide stats for this, but it seems like over the past 10 years, Chofetz Chaim has abandoned more communities than they’ve established.“Even the classic “proofs” for Orthodox Judaism a la Rabbis Kelemen, Gottlieb, and Mechanic are passe. As an article in the Jewish Action a few months ago put it” “Proofs for the Torah?! That is so 90’s!””
I don’t know that they were even a good idea in the 90’s. I think they’re more stuck in the 60’s and 70’s when there were socially liberal, hippie baalei teshuva. That’s over. If they want to have any success today, I need to go after the weird kid with no friends who gets made fun of for wearing a MAGA hat in public. B’zman hazeh, those are the only people who are going to give up a secular life for an extremely rigid religion.“So before patronizing us with your chareid self-righteous attitude of who’s in and who’s out”
This was unnecessary and downright confusing. All he pointed out was that the Conservative/Reform movements have created people who identify as Jewish even though they are not. He’s not saying “who’s in and out.” The halachah is.R Zeira (Babylonian) avoided marrying his teacher’s R Yohanan’s daughter because he thought his yichus was better.
I agree with akuperma, everyone who was in USA for several generations and not within strictly O community is a suspect. Most people from other countries are in a better position, either having local batei dinim, like Israel/UK or government papers like USSR.
“Even the classic “proofs” for Orthodox Judaism a la Rabbis Kelemen, Gottlieb, and Mechanic are passe. As an article in the Jewish Action a few months ago put it” “Proofs for the Torah?! That is so 90’s!””
I don’t know that they were even a good idea in the 90’s. I think they’re more stuck in the 60’s and 70’s when there were socially liberal, hippie baalei teshuva. That’s over. If they want to have any success today, I need to go after the weird kid with no friends who gets made fun of for wearing a MAGA hat in public. B’zman hazeh, those are the only people who are going to give up a secular life for an extremely rigid religion.It would be more accurate to say that people aren’t giving up hedonistic lifestyles no matter how much you try to reason with them. I googled this alleged recent Jewish Action article but could not find it on their website. If it does exist I’m confident it was not written in the same context as presented here The argument of “proofs of Torah don’t work” is not stuck in the 60s and 70s . That mindset is about as old as Judaism itself. Ever since then in free societies like the US people claimed that Orthodox Judaism has no answers so as truth seekers who did their own independent research they can not avoid coming to the conclusion that whatever was believed by the intelligentsia in the time and place they happened to have been was the ultimate truth. It made no difference what that belief actually was and what nonsense it is considered today. In not free societies they joined activist political and social movements who falsely promised the world will be a utopia when they take over
ujm: The issue of safek goy, safek mamzer arose recently with the Ethiopian Jewish community, and there seems to have been a consensus reached that a nominal conversion would work to remove both safekos.
In America, where someone with non-frum ancestors applies to go to a frum school (not to mention, if they get married), the standard practice has been to chat about their ancestors enough to know that they can trace their ancestry back to someone frum, and to be able to determine if there are any issues. At this point the question is only about a few generations (excluding the early 19th century Germans, and the colonial era Sefardim). In the foreseeable future that will be very hard to do, especially with families that had been non-frum for four of five generations, in which “kiruv” for all purposes evolves into a “conversion” movement. It also should be noted that already the percentage of Americans with Jewish ancestors is rising steadily so that increasing we are in a world where all goyim are safek Jews (perhaps an argument against use of a Shabbos Goy).
Two centuries of intermarriage? 200 years? Seriously? If you think everyone intermarried in the shtetl in 1824 I think we have another big issue to discuss than your subject or even the oddball math this implies. Amongst non-orthodox people, I didn’t even know anyone with intermarried parents until I reached college in another state. The idea of being “half Jewish” was still foreign even to me.
You still have issues with kriuv regardless because everyones idea of “religion” is based upon what Hollywood puts out post 2015. All arguments and references are a cartoon version of being a xtian. Whatever you are offering to them is beyond alien and they cannot process.smerel – The exact quote, from the Fall 2022 Issue, is (https://jewishaction.com/religion/outreach/the-state-of-jewish-outreach/):
“Remember all the books and lectures “proving” Torah is true? That was so “1990s”! ”
Next time try searching with Microsoft Bing 🙂
jdf, think western europe and USA where assimilation was in mid 1800 already.
The LR clarified the issue of מיהו יהודי הלכתי in Eretz Yisrael. Yeshivas deal with this problem often and in one situation required the family to undergo 4 conversions. JTS used RBC to do גיטין and I was told the Rav approved. There has been controversy in conversions lacking frumkeit for a long time. The Russian minyan in Flatbush closed as did so many other Russian educational institutions. Very few remain. There is almost no kosher food in Brighton. BHG is running an advertising campaign to recruit just as Dr. Schiff ( אי”ש) did years ago.
To all the negative comments suggesting that kiruv isn’t worthwhile anymore: Kiruv is hatzalas nefashos mamash. It’s not a numbers game. If a building collapsed with hundreds of people inside c”v, would we say it’s not worth trying to rescue them because most of them are probably dead already? If course not! We would say that if even one of them can be saved, it’s worth the effort. So too, if even Jewish neshama can be saved, then it’s worth the effort. And there are lots of ways of figuring out if a person is really Jewish Al pi halacha. People whe engage in kiruv regularly have methods that I’m sure they can describe if you’re interested in talking to them.
@jdf007
you didn’t know anyone with intermarried parents until you reached college in another state………………………….I have no idea how old you are. I might guess your home state is NY
I have an 81 year old sister in law whose Jewish mother married an Italian Catholic in NYC in 1932 with the agreement that the children would be raised as observant Jews and Kashrus and Shabbos observed in home.
I had a number of classmates in elementary school (1950s) with only one Jewish parent.
Not all of us came from families who were living in a Shtetl back in 1824, my maternal side was living in a city in Germany. My paternal side lived in a provincial capital in Congress Poland (formerly Lithuania) within the Russian Pale. The Town had 4000 inhabitants in the 1820s, half Jewish.
“jdf, think western europe and USA where assimilation was in mid 1800 already.”
Yeah, but so what? If they assimilated, they assimilated. That means they aren’t going around identifying as Jewish nowadays. This idea that you’ll have a family line falsely identifying as Jewish, remaining secular all the while for 200 years is just implausible. At some point, they’ll just start identifying (correctly) as goyish or as nothing. It usually only takes 1 or 2 generations for that you happen, so nobody has to look back centuries.“you didn’t know anyone with intermarried parents until you reached college in another state………………………….
I have no idea how old you are. I might guess your home state is NY”
Why is this hard to believe? If he grew up in a frum community, there’s no reason he would have met anyone “half Jewish.” Then he went off to college and met “the others…”UJM’s question about kiruv with Counterfeit Jews
has been on my mind for more than 25 years.MY SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM:
Every large kiruv organization (NSCY, Aish HaTorah, etc)
should employ a team of highly-qualified genealogists,
to investigate the ancestry of every Baal Teshuvah.This investigation by expert genealogists should be provided
free-of-charge to every Baal Teshuvah, but the organization
should hold those records permanently, for future reference.This investigation by genealogists should be done
as soon as possible, even before the Baal Teshuvah
is admitted to the kiruv programs.Some will be revealed to be Gentiles.
Some will be revealed to be mamzerim.
Some will be revealed to be chalalim.This makes kiruv more expensive, but it cannot be avoided.
Last but not least, it would be praiseworthy if every Baal Teshuvah
(and every Jew in general) would take a DNA test that proves
that he [or she] really is the son [or [daughter] of his [or her] father.Without this DNA test, this person could be a mamzer and not know it,
and unintentionally become the ancestor of thousands of mamzerim.Neville > they’ll just start identifying (correctly) as goyish
Often true but depends on environment. Jews in Western Europe often continued marry mostly within their own, even when assimilated, secular, or even baptized. Same in interwar Poland and USSR (and Israel, of course). I’ve seen with my own eyes a Baal Teshuva from an old-times multi-generational German Reform family.
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