Jessica Jacoby

Children of Jewish Fathers

[German]

When Jewish feminists appeal for equal rights and duties in the synagogue, they are often told Judaism places a very high value on women. After all, they are told, children are Jewish because their mothers are Jewish, not their fathers.

Many Jewish women use this argument to defend their faith against non-Jewish, Christian or matriarchal feminists, who happily hoöd forth that Judaism is the source of all patriarchal evils. It is true women feel an increase in their status through motherhood and their children, in particular sons. Jewish feminists began nevertheless to view the matrilineal nature of the faith as the remainder of a primal Israeli matriarchy. But viewed historically, this is out of the question.

The idea that being Jewish emanated from the mother was introduced relatively late, namely by the Pharisees, in talmudic times as part of a comprehensive package of reforms. The status of children from interfaith marriages is set out in the Mishnah and the Talmud. The passage, “Thy son by an Israelite woman is called thy son, but thy son by a heathen woman is not called thy son.” (Kid. 68b), makes it clear faith is handed down by the mother. Rabina said, “It can be inferred from this that the son of your daughter by a non-Jew is your son.”

Yet this was not to be construed as a license for spontaneous marriages with non-Jewish men. Such unions were usually followed by banishment from the community. At the same time, it was assumed non-Jewish women who married Jewish men were through their action adopting the faith of their husbands. Jewish husbands who allowed their non-Jewish wives to retain their religion, as did the wives of King Solomon, were blamed for the fall of Israel. That is also why the Kohanim [priests] may not marry a woman who has been previously married or served other gods.

A look at Roman law that was in force in Palestine in the time of the Pharisees provides insight. Roman law was based on patrilineal principles. Yet the status of the children of female slaves was matrilineal. Male slaveholders had no interest in conferring rights to offspring they had fathered with women who had no rights at all. Perhaps this particular bit of Jewish law came as a result of it being made consistent with the laws of the Roman occupiers, who drove the Jews from Palestine and collectively forced them into slavery.

Marriages between partners from different religions or the unaffiliated has at any rate only been possible since civil unions were introduced. In Germany, this began in 1876, with the opening of registry offices where couples, including Jewish-non-Jewish ones, could marry. Jewish efforts at reform made it possible for such couples to guarantee membership of their children in the Jewish community by declaring this intent in front of a Rabbi, for boys in connection with the Brit [circumcision] and for girls, at the naming ceremony.

After the Shoah, the Jewish communities in Germany were composed mainly of survivors who were refugees from Eastern Europe or had survived in the Third Reich itself in mixed marriages ("Mischehen") or as mongrels ("Mischlinge"). Both German terms originated with the Nazis. Most members of the community were men who were living in DP [displaced persons] camps. Statistics compiled after the war imply that the majority of survivors were men and that two-thirds of marriages between Jews and non-Jews at that time were unions between Jewish men and non-Jewish women. The situation in other European countries was similar.

In the community, these men’s wives (some of whom had converted to Judaism) and their children were silently tolerated at first, particularly when their husbands were active in the community or successful in business. Children resulting from these unions were accepted into the Jewish congregation in Berlin in the post-war period, for example. But later, children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers had a more difficult time becoming members of the community. An expensive conversion hearing before a rabbinical court, Bet Din, was required for those who could not prove their mother had been Jewish. Children of Jewish men who had been raised within the faith were as a result handled in exactly the same way as non-Jews who had for different reasons decided to convert to Judaism. At the same time, there were incidents in that the orthodox questioned the Jewishness of children whose mothers had been converted by rabbis from liberal congregations.

Today we are confronted with new problems. During the last decade, tens of thousands of immigrants have come to Germany from the former Soviet Union. They were able to enter the Federal Republic as a result of their Jewish nationality, which was entered in their Soviet passport. The authorities whose role it was to determine nationality did not make the distinction according to Halakhah [Jewish law]. According to that anyone who cannot prove they had a Jewish mother is not accepted as a member of the congregation.

If we are to build, in spite of the Shoah, vital Jewish communities in Germany and elsewhere, then we must be aware that the question “Who is Jewish?” can no longer be answered solely on the basis of the Halakha. It is much more a matter of working constructively with conditions that have been shaped by history and including insights from ongoing discussions about identity.

Jessica Jacoby founded the lesbian feminist Shabbes Circle in 1985 in Berlin and was one of the editors of "Nach der Schoah geboren. Jüdische Frauen in Deutschland" (Born After the Shoah. Jewish Women in Germany, Berlin 1994).