Tuesday, April 1, 2008

An unintentional intermarriage - Jewish Action Magazine

There is a good article on unintentional intermarriage in Jewish Action
concerning a woman who discovered that despite being raised as a Jew - she was not a Jew according to halacha.

3 comments :

  1. I feel for this woman because my sister in law is in the same boat.

    Our family discovered that she was not Jewish halachically 2 weeks before she was supposed to marry my brother, a frum from birth Orthodox Jew.

    Her mother was a Gentile but no one knew. The girl went to Orthodox school and blended into the community.

    A "kind" Orthodox Rabbi "fixed" things by assembling a Beis Din and "converting" my sister in law.

    My parents objected to this and did not attend the wedding. My father fired my brother from the family business and disinherited him. My parents sat shiva and erased my brother's name from the family tree and removed his picture from the house.

    One of the Rabbis in the community came to our house and told my father that he was an "Am Ha-aretz" for objecting to his son's marriage to this giyores tzedekkes who is surely more frum than our family.

    Fifteen years later when my brother decided to make aliyah to Israel he found out that his wife and children are not Jewish in Israel even though she had an "Orthodox" conversion because it was to facilitate an intermarriage.

    Not only are they not Jewish but the Office of the Rabbinate told my brother that they can never convert because her conversion would be to facilitate an intermarriage and the children cannot convert because it is presumed they would be doing so only for social reasons (to please him and the rest of the family).

    My brother has been frum his whole life. When he told his Rav about what had happened in Israel, his Rav told him that he could no longer take honors in his synagogue and also asked that he not bring his wife or children to shul.

    The boys' yeshiva told my brother that his children would not be returning the following year. And he could not get them into any other Jewish day school.

    The only Rabbi who will Bar Mitzvah my brother's son in a few months is Marc Angel.

    My brother was initially terribly distraught and was planned to leave his Gentile wife. He has been observant his whole life and his observance means a great deal to him, he does not know of any other way to live. He is also still young enough to marry and have Jewish children.

    We did not hear from my brother for a few months until his Gentile mother in law passed away. He had her buried by the Hevra Chadisha in an Orthodox cemetery in PA (they live in NY, she lived in NJ).

    He has also decided to move to Lakewood and enroll his children in summer camp there in hopes of getting them into a "kiruv" yeshiva.

    I guess Ted Floyd's story was an inspiration to SOMEONE.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The hypocrisy & self-righteousness of Jersey Girls and other arrogant Torah-rejecting so-called frum Jews astounds me.
    Since you are all the self-declared watchdogs of Taliban Jewry, do you even accept the geirus of the woman in the Jewish Action article, or even though she now did EVERYTHING correct according to all halacha, is she forever banned from being a Jew because she didn't emerge from a Jewish womb?

    Just admit that you hate all goyim and that all converts to Torah Judaism, no matter how sincere and no matter how halachachly correct their conversion was, will NEVER be acceptable Jews in your eyes and the other evil ones who simply HATE!

    ReplyDelete
  3. "
    I made this discovery about fifteen years ago at the happy and lively Shabbat table of an engaging kiruv rabbi and his family, another one of those inspiring Shabbat meals that had attracted us to greater Torah observance."

    "Kiruv" to people without even asking if they are Jewish??!!!

    " I had learned enough Torah to realize—and the gasp confirmed—that maybe something in addition to my dishes was going to need converting."

    As if conversion to Judaism is not more complicated than "dipping" your keilim.

    "To his credit, this rabbi had responded to our desire to learn even more by suggesting we attend classes taught by the local Orthodox kollel."

    The kollel men obviously did not ever ask any of the right questions to find out if the wife or children were even Jewish.

    "His verdict may have been true, but it was also harsh."

    When halacha becomes "harsh" we are not practicing Judaism any more.

    Halacha is how a Jew DEFINES right and wrong.

    ReplyDelete

ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE POSTED!
please use either your real name or a pseudonym.