An interesting piece from Forward; the short is that the government of Israel is adding new guidelines on time spent/studying in a Jewish community. The proposed policy includes not only a quota system for time spent as a Jew and restrictions on relatives living in Israel, but also sets the precedent for future qualifications on Jewish identity; as determined by the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel.
Personally, I’d LOVE to able to log 350 hours of study with my rabbi/variety of rabbis in my conversion process. But such quotas miss the point. Attempting to answer the ‘who is a Jew?’ question on the basis of “graduation requirements” waters down both the spiritual actions of individuals, but attempts to quantify a part of life/identity that is wholly qualitative. Heschel would certainly not agree with such a quota, despite his strong opinions about how watered-down American Jewry had become in the middle of the 2oth century-but I digress.
The author nails it on the head when he states that, “Jewish philanthropies have spent millions of dollars in recent years trying to reverse the assimilation and reclaim the allegiance of American Jews. In light of those efforts, shouldn’t we do everything we can to remove the obstacles before those who want to become Jews, and want to take the profound step of living in the land of their new ancestors?” I can’t see the logic in a minority-group’s attempts at determining I should connect with G-d.
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What constitutes a ger tzedek?
In Commentary on 29/07/2009 by Charles Gleek
An interesting piece from Forward; the short is that the government of Israel is adding new guidelines on time spent/studying in a Jewish community. The proposed policy includes not only a quota system for time spent as a Jew and restrictions on relatives living in Israel, but also sets the precedent for future qualifications on Jewish identity; as determined by the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel.
Personally, I’d LOVE to able to log 350 hours of study with my rabbi/variety of rabbis in my conversion process. But such quotas miss the point. Attempting to answer the ‘who is a Jew?’ question on the basis of “graduation requirements” waters down both the spiritual actions of individuals, but attempts to quantify a part of life/identity that is wholly qualitative. Heschel would certainly not agree with such a quota, despite his strong opinions about how watered-down American Jewry had become in the middle of the 2oth century-but I digress.
The author nails it on the head when he states that, “Jewish philanthropies have spent millions of dollars in recent years trying to reverse the assimilation and reclaim the allegiance of American Jews. In light of those efforts, shouldn’t we do everything we can to remove the obstacles before those who want to become Jews, and want to take the profound step of living in the land of their new ancestors?” I can’t see the logic in a minority-group’s attempts at determining I should connect with G-d.
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