B”H
Unfortunately it isn’t only the Jews in the US having an extremely high rate of intermarriage. An incredible amount of Diaspora Jews is getting lost due to thousands intermarrying. No matter where you look. Except for South African Jewry, so I heard.
It is mainly Reform Jews marrying Gentiles and less Orthodox Jews. Those Jews intermarrying either claim that they couldn’t find a proper Jewish spouse or they just fell in love and marrying a Gentile wouldn't be that bad. The truth is that all of them are following their sexual desires and don’t think about the consequences. After some time the marriage may go down the drain because the Jewish partner is sick of his Gentile spouse or the children start searching for their own identity. Halacha says that Jewish men marrying a Gentile woman won’t have any Jewish kids coming from this marriage. Only a Jewish woman (either by birth or through a recognized Orthodox conversion) is able to have Jewish children. However, there are children from mixed marriages whose mother is a Gentile but they think that they are Jewish. Those children are NOT Jewish but just as non – Jewish as their mother. In order to become Jewish they need to undergo a proper conversion.
Last week, Israel’s Ministry of Absorption, once again, started a Campaign in order to bring more Israeli Jews living in the Diaspora back home to Israel. Furthermore, the campaign was also warning against intermarriage and that Israelis living abroad should keep their Jewish identity and not go for assimilation among the nations. Thousands of Israeli Jews live in the Diaspora and the main reason is money. A higher income abroad, a house and a nice car. All the conveniences of the Diaspora life. What those Israelis like to forget is anti – Semitism, millions of Arabs around them and the danger of assimilation. The next generation may not be Jewish anymore when it comes to intermarriage. Even if the parents are Jewish, children and grandchildren may forget about their Jewish heritage.
The Ministry of Absorption put a video into Youtube warning Israeli Jewry in the Diaspora. They should stick to their Jewish identity instead of loosing their soul. Israel is sick of having all kinds of Gentile spouses imported. Israelis marrying Gentiles abroad, then ship them over to Israel where the Jewish parents already freak out due to having a Schickse as a daughter - in - law. Then the Gentile spouse demands her rights from the State of Israel although their aren’t any. It the marriage falls apart, the Gentile spouse is staying in the country and, in the worst case, looking for another Jewish partner. Meaning, another Jewish soul to destroy.
Diaspora Jews don’t like to hear such opinions but keep on dreaming about a perfect intermarriage in order to forget about their conscience. It doesn’t surprise that especially Diaspora Jews started protesting against the Israeli campaign. In particular against the Youtube spot. Obviously it was too much "disturbing" Judaism for the Reform movement. On the other hand, Christian organizations saw their idol – worship festival “Xmas” discredited. The Youtube video run the slogan “… not to turn Chanukkah into Xmas !” and Christians got offended although the campaign wasn’t made for them but in order to protect Judaism.
Only a few days later, Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled the entire campaign and made the Ministry of Absorption to take down the video from Youtube. Apparently money was much more important to our prime minister than anything Jewish. Netanyahu loves to bend down to American Diaspora Jews, as they donate him millions of Dollars. The same with Christian organizations whose money he also loves to take. Just look at the vicious missionaries “Evangelical Christians” whose main goal it is to convert Jews into their idol – worship cult called Xtianity.
Netanyahu may have forgotten what the Torah commands the Jews: Marriages between Jews and Gentiles are forbidden by the Torah !!!
It is mainly Reform Jews marrying Gentiles and less Orthodox Jews. Those Jews intermarrying either claim that they couldn’t find a proper Jewish spouse or they just fell in love and marrying a Gentile wouldn't be that bad. The truth is that all of them are following their sexual desires and don’t think about the consequences. After some time the marriage may go down the drain because the Jewish partner is sick of his Gentile spouse or the children start searching for their own identity. Halacha says that Jewish men marrying a Gentile woman won’t have any Jewish kids coming from this marriage. Only a Jewish woman (either by birth or through a recognized Orthodox conversion) is able to have Jewish children. However, there are children from mixed marriages whose mother is a Gentile but they think that they are Jewish. Those children are NOT Jewish but just as non – Jewish as their mother. In order to become Jewish they need to undergo a proper conversion.
Last week, Israel’s Ministry of Absorption, once again, started a Campaign in order to bring more Israeli Jews living in the Diaspora back home to Israel. Furthermore, the campaign was also warning against intermarriage and that Israelis living abroad should keep their Jewish identity and not go for assimilation among the nations. Thousands of Israeli Jews live in the Diaspora and the main reason is money. A higher income abroad, a house and a nice car. All the conveniences of the Diaspora life. What those Israelis like to forget is anti – Semitism, millions of Arabs around them and the danger of assimilation. The next generation may not be Jewish anymore when it comes to intermarriage. Even if the parents are Jewish, children and grandchildren may forget about their Jewish heritage.
The Ministry of Absorption put a video into Youtube warning Israeli Jewry in the Diaspora. They should stick to their Jewish identity instead of loosing their soul. Israel is sick of having all kinds of Gentile spouses imported. Israelis marrying Gentiles abroad, then ship them over to Israel where the Jewish parents already freak out due to having a Schickse as a daughter - in - law. Then the Gentile spouse demands her rights from the State of Israel although their aren’t any. It the marriage falls apart, the Gentile spouse is staying in the country and, in the worst case, looking for another Jewish partner. Meaning, another Jewish soul to destroy.
Diaspora Jews don’t like to hear such opinions but keep on dreaming about a perfect intermarriage in order to forget about their conscience. It doesn’t surprise that especially Diaspora Jews started protesting against the Israeli campaign. In particular against the Youtube spot. Obviously it was too much "disturbing" Judaism for the Reform movement. On the other hand, Christian organizations saw their idol – worship festival “Xmas” discredited. The Youtube video run the slogan “… not to turn Chanukkah into Xmas !” and Christians got offended although the campaign wasn’t made for them but in order to protect Judaism.
Only a few days later, Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled the entire campaign and made the Ministry of Absorption to take down the video from Youtube. Apparently money was much more important to our prime minister than anything Jewish. Netanyahu loves to bend down to American Diaspora Jews, as they donate him millions of Dollars. The same with Christian organizations whose money he also loves to take. Just look at the vicious missionaries “Evangelical Christians” whose main goal it is to convert Jews into their idol – worship cult called Xtianity.
Netanyahu may have forgotten what the Torah commands the Jews: Marriages between Jews and Gentiles are forbidden by the Torah !!!
Link:
"Marriages between Jews and Gentiles are forbidden by the Torah !!!"
ReplyDeleteWhat's your source for this?
Also, what business is it of the Israeli government who Israelis marry? The state has absolutely no role in religious preaching.
Also again, what diaspora Jews object to is not the preachy tone of the ads it is the implication that diaspora life is not sustainable and leads to assimilation. It is a sort of patronising contempt for the diaspora which is never exhibited at UJIA fundraisers.
B'H
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect, the Medinah is not much better. Maybe there are much less antisemitism there than here, and you have a deepest Jewish atmosphere there, but except that, the Medinah is not much better than living here. In some aspects, it is even worse to be there. Read HaRav Lipschitz's words here: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144645
Maybe many Jews are turning to other religions and have a higher rate of intermarriage here than there, but the level of assimilation in the Medinah is also frightening. In the Medinah, there is also another religion which is leading Jews far from G-d. That religion is called "Zionism." And its effect on Jews is the same than X-tianity.
Some people, like you, feel better and more Jewish in the Medinah. And it's a great thing. Living in EY can be a safeguard for them as it enables them to live a more Jewish life. But living in Chutz Lo'oretz does not mean that you are less Jewish or that you will automatically end up assimilated. In many cases, people were religious here and ended up assimilated after having made their "aliyah". So, it's not all black or all white. Moreover, antisemitism is not so high. It depends where you live. Theodore Herzl's theory that all non-Jews are inherently antisemitic is not true at all. It is just a tool to pressure Jews to emigrate to the Medinah. There are many nuances to make, even among the Muslim community. Moreover, living in the Medinah does not guarantee a life without antisemitism, and many self-hating Jews also live there. Just see how the Secular Zionist media treat the haredim...
B"H
ReplyDeleteThe Ministry video was referrring to Israelis living abroad and also trying to get them back move to their home country. Too many well - educated Israelis are leaving every year and although it is also the country's fault, Israel cannot afford loosing all kinds of academics.
There is lots of assimilation in Israel but the Jewish touch is still around. It is not that Judaism is completely wiped out of our lives. Furthermore, most Israelis want their children marrying a Jewish partner and remain Jewish. Abroad Jews may see this a bit more relaxed and use all kinds of excuses, as I said.
The source for Jews not marrying Gentiles:
Interfaith Marriages
The Torah does not permit or even recognize marriages between Jews and Gentiles, if performed despite the prohibition. The punishment for Jews for such marriages is being cut off from the Jewish people and any part in the World to Come, whether the couple formally marries according to secular law or they just live together.
The Written Torah states that the children of such marriages would be lost to the Jewish people (Deuteronomy 7,3-4), and experience has shown the truth of this passage all too well: Children of intermarriage are rarely raised Jewish; they are normally raised in the faith of the non-Jewish partner or non-religious. This may reflect that Jews who intermarry are not deeply committed to their religion in the first place (if they were, why would they marry someone who did not share it?), but the statistics are sufficiently alarming to be a matter of great concern to the Jewish community.
Some Orthodox Jews go so far as to state that intermarriage is accomplishing what Hitler could not: the destruction of the Jewish people. That may seem an extreme view, but it vividly illustrates how seriously many Jews take the issue of intermarriage. Nonetheless, currently most Jews outside the Land of Israel are taking non-Jewish marital partners.
If the non-Jewish spouse truly shares the same values as the Jewish spouse, then the non-Jew is welcome to convert, and if the non-Jew does not share the same values, then the couple should not be marrying in the first place. While conversion just to allow a Gentile to marry a Jew is not legitimate, many a Gentile initially considered conversion after finding a Jewish potential marital partner, and then in the end became a sincere convert before the marriage.
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/jewfaq/gentiles.htm
But there are other sources too. A marriage between a Jew and a Gentile is not recognized by Torah law either.
G - d created Jews and Gentiles; meaning each of them has his individual task and Jews have a different task in this world than Gentiles.
As I said, the Ministry was referring to Israelis living abroad and we have the right to say something when a Jew cannot keep his shorts together, jumps on any girl and imports it to Israel where she, as a Gentile, doesn't belong.
... But does this seem fair that the son of a stable marriage where the father is a Jew who happened to fall for a respectful gentile woman and married her, and so their child feels proud of his/her Jewish ancestry and wants to follow judaism won't be considered Jewish, whereas the child of a (hypothetically) slutty Jewish woman who cannot be even sure of which of her gentile lovers is the father, and that her child even if disregarding, disrespecting and ignoring his/her jewish roots, is after all considered fully Jewish?!
ReplyDeleteLaw is law, but not all laws are always right and good. Who is put to death nowadays for commiting adultery, sodomy, rebelling against parents or violating Shabat, for exemple ?
And on a more shallow point of view, what about censorship, income tax, speed limits, import taxes ... Are laws about such always fair just because they are "law" ?
It's not even guaranteed that the child will have the same blood type as the mother's. Sometimes it's the father's. And both genes are transmitted.
What's it that is "special" in a woman when Judaism has mostly been a men's religion ?
I'm NOT defending inter-marriage, but once it bore a child, the same child later in life should have the right to chose , and if he/she had just a Jewish father, that this should be considered positively in his/her favour.
Nothing will change because I have this opinion ... But some things in life seem unfair. No?
B'H
ReplyDeleteAvi, are you Jewish? The Torah clearly state: וְלֹא תִתְחַתֵּן, בָּם: בִּתְּךָ לֹא-תִתֵּן לִבְנוֹ, וּבִתּוֹ לֹא-תִקַּח לִבְנֶך
Which means: "Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons"
And do you remember the story with Ezra the Scribe? When the Jewish Peop^le returned from the Babylonian exile, Ezra asked that all Jewish men who married with Goyish women shall divorce them and abandon the sons and daughters they have with those un-Jewish women, as their children ARE NOT JEWISH. Read the story in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, in the Bible. We cannot be clearer than that: inttermarriage with Goyim is forbidden!
Miriam and Moshe - the verse you cite clearly refers to the 7 Cananite tribes only. Read the chapter.
ReplyDeleteThe verses you are after are 1 Kings 11:1-3 which purports to quote the pasuk in Devarim (7:3) but really extends the prohibition beyond the 7 tribes if you read it carefully (a bit like rabbinical law putting a fence around the torah).
Ezra 9 and 10 is the clearest source of a post-exilic prohibition but compare the views of the books of Esther and Ruth to this seeming blanket ban. Far from clear really despite the common sense view.
Moshe,
ReplyDeleteSince you can't even bring yourself to pronounce the name of the State of Israel but refer to it as "the medina" like some polisher rebbele, I suggest you heed your "gedolei yisroel" and refrain from using the internet as a matter of urgent sacanat hanefesh! Lest you stumble of a bas kol or worse...
Avi
PS - you should probably hit the books a bit more too if you think Devarim 7 is a blanket ban on intermarriage.
B"H
ReplyDelete@ Avi
It doesn't matter what you say, marriages between Jews and Gentiles are not accepted as such. Even a secular government, hence the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, doesn't recognize such marriages. Lets say you are Israeli, marry a Gentile woman abroad, have children with her and, later on, get a divorce and return to Israel, the Ministry will still keep you as a single without children in your IDcard.
The Torah warns the Jews explicitely not to get involved with Gentiles and if the sources are not enough for you, the Talmud says it even more clearly.
B'H
ReplyDeleteSo, if I understand Avi, he claims that because many jews were marrying un-jewish women, it means that it was permitted and that the prohibition came later. With such logic, we could say that because most Jews do not celebrate Shabbes nowadyas, it means that they'd never been a Mitzvah of observing Shabbes but that it is a Chidush from the few Shabbes observant Jews. We don't bring a proof by pointing to the fools and sinners.
B'H
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I still wonder what the Polisher Rabbis have to do with the discussion....
B"H
ReplyDeleteOne cannot change G - d's decisions by saying that the majority does so, so I am allowed to do the same. And G - d has to accept this; whether he likes it or not. This just sounds ignorant and the question is "Why do I need a G - d then ?"
Never too late, I do thank you for the "initial spark" leading to my final understanding of why definitely the righteous son of a jewish father and non-jewish won't be considered jew-by-birth unless converting.
ReplyDeleteI now came to understand that it's all in the SOUL that you so many times write about.
When looking at the Chabad website after receiving a reply from one rabbi, it got explained about the Kabbalistic view that whatever gives the jewish status can only be transfered from a female (the mother).
So, even though I never thought much about souls, I now have nothing more to question and wonder.
It's always very good to know the positions of Traditional Judaism. So, I praise your knowledge and thank you once more.
B"H
ReplyDeleteThank you for the compliment.
If you look into the Lubavitcher TANYA book, you will find all kinds of definitions about souls. Further it is mentioned that Jews and Gentiles do have different souls.
Once I came across a Jew and he asked me whether this concept wouldn't be racist. I told him that it says that a Jew has an additional soul on Shabbat. Does a Gentile have that ?
From there you can see that the concept is true.