In modern

Rabbinic Judaism Rabbinic Judaism (), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, Rabbanite Judaism, or Talmudic Judaism, is rooted in the many forms of Judaism that coexisted and together formed Second Temple Judaism in the land of Israel, giving birth to classical rabb ...

, the traditional method of determining Jewishness relies on tracing one's maternal line. According to , the recognition of someone as fully

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

requires them to have been born to a Jewish mother. A person who is born to a non-Jewish mother and a Jewish father is regarded as () and will only be accepted as ethnically Jewish and not as religiously Jewish. Thus, being Jewish through the paternal line typically necessitates

conversion to Judaism Conversion to Judaism ( or ) is the process by which non-Jews adopt the Jewish religion and become members of the Jewish ethnoreligious community. It thus resembles both conversion to other religions and naturalization. "Thus, by convertin ...

to validate one's identity as a Jew in the fullest sense. Matrilineal descent is observed in

Orthodox Judaism Orthodox Judaism is a collective term for the traditionalist branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Torah, Written and Oral Torah, Oral, as literally revelation, revealed by God in Ju ...

and

Conservative Judaism Conservative Judaism, also known as Masorti Judaism, is a Jewish religious movements, Jewish religious movement that regards the authority of Jewish law and tradition as emanating primarily from the assent of the people through the generations ...

, whereas

Reform Judaism Reform Judaism, also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism, is a major Jewish religious movements, Jewish denomination that emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism, the superiority of its Jewish ethics, ethical aspects to its ceremo ...

and

Reconstructionist Judaism Reconstructionist Judaism () is a Jewish religious movements, Jewish movement based on the concepts developed by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983)—namely, that Judaism as a Civilization, Judaism is a progressively evolving civilization rather ...

accept full Jewishness through either parent; Reform responsa, however, requires an exclusively Jewish upbringing. Patrilineal descent was observed by the ancient

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

and is still observed by the

Samaritans Samaritans (; ; ; ), are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah that ...

and in

Karaite Judaism Karaite Judaism or Karaism is a Rabbinic Judaism, non-Rabbinical Jewish religious movements, Jewish sect characterized by the recognition of the written Tanakh alone as its supreme religious text, authority in ''halakha'' (religious law) and t ...

, which asserts that only the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' oral traditions of Rabbinic Judaism—is legally and religiously binding. Historical evidence marshalled by Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen indicates that a change from a patrilineal to a matrilineal-based principle for the offspring of mixed unions of Jew and gentile took place in the

1st century File:1st century collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Jesus is crucified by Roman authorities in Judaea (17th century painting). Four different men (Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian) claim the title of Emperor within the span of a year; T ...

(c. 10–70 CE) times.Reviewed by Louis Jacobs

Originally published in Judaism 34.1 (Winter 1985), 55-59. Yet, the precise date of the shifting from patrilineality to matrilineality is disputed, according to many modern academic opinions, it was likely instituted in either the early Tannaim, Tannaitic period () or in the time of

Ezra Ezra ( fl. fifth or fourth century BCE) is the main character of the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was an important Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen'') in the early Second Temple period. In the Greek Septuagint, t ...

(). Louis Jacobs
There is no Problem of Descent
, ''Judaism'' 34.1 (Winter 1985), pp. 55-59

Contemporary Judaism

The practice of matrilineal descent differs by denomination. Each denomination has protocols for

for those who are not Jewish by birth. The

State of Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

adheres to the Jewish law of matrilineal descent for matters which could affect Israeli family law.

Conservative

The Conservative Movement practices matrilineal descent. In 1986, the Conservative Movement's Rabbinical Assembly reiterated the commitment of the Conservative Movement to the practice of matrilineal descent. Furthermore, the movement stated that any rabbi who accepts the principle of patrilineal descent will be subject to expulsion from the Rabbinical Assembly. Still, the Conservative Movement affirmed that "sincere Jews by choice" should be warmly welcomed into the community and that "sensitivity should be shown to Jews who have intermarried and their families." The Conservative Judaism movement actively reaches out to intermarried families by offering them opportunities for Jewish growth and enrichment. The Ratner Center for the Study of Conservative Judaism conducted a survey of 1,617 members of 27 Conservative congregations in the U.S. and Canada in 1995. 69% of respondents to the Ratner Center survey agreed that they would regard personally as a Jew anyone who was raised Jewish—even if their mother was Gentile and their father was Jewish (Wertheimer, 59). In this same survey, 29% of respondents indicated that they attended Jewish religious services twice a month or more and 13% that they engage in the study of a Jewish text once a month or more (Wertheimer, 55–57).

Karaite

The majority view in Karaite Judaism is that Jewish identity can only be transmitted by patrilineal descent. They argue that only patrilineal descent can transmit Jewish identity on the grounds that all descent in the Torah went according to the male line. Only someone who is patrilineally Jewish (someone whose father's father was Jewish) is regarded as a Jew by the ''Mo'eṣet HaḤakhamim'', or the Karaite Council of Sages based in Israel. Both Rabbinic and Karaite Jews lived in 12th century Egypt, and a number of marriage contracts between Karaite and Rabbinic individuals have been discovered in the Cairo Genizah. The Egyptian Karaites followed patrilineal descent, but forbade marriage with non-Jews and also did not allow converts into their community. In effect then, 12th century Egyptian Karaites required that ''both'' parents be Jewish, but they referred to this requirement as patrilineal descent. Thus, marriages between Karaites and the Rabbinic community did not violate the Rabbinate requirement of matrilineality. However, these marriages came to a halt when

Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...

(who led the Rabbinate Jewish community in Egypt in the late 12th century) prohibited them for a separate reason: while he considered Karaites Jewish, he also considered them to potentially fall within the category of '' mamzerut'', as their divorces were not conducted according to Rabbinate standards.

Orthodox

practices matrilineal descent. Orthodox Judaism holds that anyone with a Jewish mother also has irrevocable Jewish status; that even were such a Jew to convert to another religion, that person would still be considered Jewish by Jewish Law.

Reconstructionist

Reconstructionist Judaism was the first movement to adopt the idea of bilineal descent in 1968. According to Reconstructionist Judaism, children of one Jewish parent, regardless of gender, are considered Jewish if raised as Jews.

Reform

In 1983, the Central Conference of American Rabbis of

passed a resolution waiving the need for formal conversion for anyone with at least one Jewish parent, provided that either (a) one is raised as a Jew, by Reform standards, or (b) one engages in an appropriate act of public identification, formalizing a practice that had been common in Reform synagogues for at least a generation. This 1983 resolution departed from the Reform Movement's previous position requiring formal conversion to Judaism for children without a Jewish mother. The 1983 resolution of the American Reform movement has had a mixed reception in Reform Jewish communities outside of the United States. Most notably, the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism has rejected patrilineal descent and requires formal conversion for anyone without a Jewish mother. As well, a joint Orthodox, Traditional, Conservative and Reform Bet Din formed in Denver, Colorado to promote uniform standards for conversion to Judaism was dissolved in 1983, due to that Reform resolution. However, in 2015 the majority of Britain's Assembly of Reform Rabbis voted in favor of a position paper proposing "that individuals who live a Jewish life, and who are patrilineally Jewish, can be welcomed into the Jewish community and confirmed as Jewish through an individual process." Britain's Assembly of Reform Rabbis stated that rabbis "would be able to take local decisions—ratified by the Beit Din—confirming Jewish status." Other movements within the

World Union for Progressive Judaism The World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) is the international umbrella organization for the various branches of Reform Judaism, Reform, Liberal and Progressive Judaism, as well as the separate Reconstructionist Judaism. The WUPJ is based i ...

also adopted essentially the same position. These include: Liberal Judaism in England; Progressive Judaism in Australia; one congregation in Austria; some congregations in Eastern Europe. Note that Reform Judaism in Canada adopts a different position, similar to that of Conservative Judaism (though there may be an accelerated conversion process for the children of Jewish fathers).

Rabbinic outlook

Orthodox Judaism maintains that the law of matrilineal descent in Judaism dates at least to the time of the covenant at Sinai (). This law was first codified in writing in the Mishna (), and later in the

Mishneh Torah The ''Mishneh Torah'' (), also known as ''Sefer Yad ha-Hazaka'' (), is a code of Rabbinic Jewish religious law (''halakha'') authored by Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon/Rambam). The ''Mishneh Torah'' was compiled between 1170 and 1180 CE ( ...

(c. 1170–1180 CE) and

Shulchan Aruch The ''Shulhan Arukh'' ( ),, often called "the Code of Jewish Law", is the most widely consulted of the various legal codes in Rabbinic Judaism. It was authored in the city of Safed in what is now Israel by Joseph Karo in 1563 and published in ...

(1563 CE), without mention of any dissenting opinion. According to one opinion, Jewish descent was patrilineal before the giving of the Torah, and only since then has been matrilineal. The

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

adduces the law of matrilineal descent from , which warns that as the consequence of intermarriage "he (the gentile father) will turn away your son (i.e., the child born to your Jewish daughter) from following Me". Since only "he" (a non-Jewish father) is mentioned and not "she" (a non-Jewish mother), the Talmud concludes that "your (grand)son who comes from an Israelite woman is called 'your son' (and warned about in the verse), while your (grand)son who comes from a foreign woman is not called 'your son'". Thus, Jewish descent is through the mother. The Matriarchs of Israel are considered ''the mothers of'' the Tribes of Israel; for those who adhere to Jewish Law, Israelite Nationhood or belonging to the Jewish People via descent exclusively follows the mother's line. Some Hasidic Jewish groups propose that matrilineality and matriarchy within Judaism are related to the metaphysical concept of the Jewish soul.

History

Biblical period

Patriarchs and Matriarchs

The stories of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Genesis are generally compatible with matrilineal descent, if one makes the assumption that Abraham's extended family was "Jewish": * Abraham fathered children with three wives or concubines: Sarah, Hagar, and Keturah. According to Jewish tradition, Sarah was a member of Abraham's extended family, and her descendants became Jewish. Hagar and Keturah's descendants were considered non-Jewish. * Isaac had one wife (Rebecca, a member of Abraham's extended family) and two sons, Jacob and Esau. Jacob's descendants became Jewish. Esau's descendants were non-Jewish: assuming matrilineality, this was a result of his wives being Hittite and Ishmaelite. * Jacob had two wives (Leah and Rachel, members of Abraham's extended family) and two concubines (Zilpah and Bilhah, who entered the family as maidservants of Leah and Rachel). All of Jacob's children were considered Jewish. As for why Zilpah and Bilhah's children were considered Jewish despite their mothers having unspecified ancestry, rabbinic sources posit that Zilpah and Bilhah were actually the half-sisters of Leah and Rachel. Alternatively, as Zilpah and Bilhah were maidservants, their children were considered to belong to their mistresses Leah and Rachel. The stories are generally incompatible with patrilineal descent, in that a single father (Abraham or Isaac) had children, some of whom were considered the ancestors of Jews and others of non-Jews. In God refers to Hagar's son as "the son of the maidservant" rather than "your vraham'sson" (while also referring to Hagar's son as Abraham's seed); later rabbinic sources deduce from this that a Jewish man's child is considered "his" child only if the mother is Jewish.

Moses

Moses married

Zipporah Zipporah is mentioned in the Book of Exodus as the wife of Moses, and the daughter of Jethro (biblical figure), Jethro, the priest and prince of Midian. She is the mother of Moses' two sons: Eliezer and Gershom. In the Book of Chronicles, two of ...

, a

Midian Midian (; ; , ''Madiam''; Taymanitic: 𐪃𐪕𐪚𐪌 ''MDYN''; ''Mīḏyān'') is a geographical region in West Asia, located in northwestern Saudi Arabia. mentioned in the Tanakh and Quran. William G. Dever states that biblical Midian was ...

ite woman. They had two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, both born before the Exodus. The sons of Moses—with an Israelite father and Midianite mother—are absent from the genealogies of Levi, which do include the sons of Moses' brother

Aaron According to the Old Testament of the Bible, Aaron ( or ) was an Israelite prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of Moses. Information about Aaron comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament ...

(whose wife was Israelite).

Ruth and Naamah

In the accounts of the Prophets and Writings (which covers a time period of nearly a millennium) there are two cases of non-Israelite women who voluntarily (not resulting from conflict) married Israelites where their children were considered Israelite. According to the Talmud, both of these women, Ruth and Naamah, formally converted. Both the Moabite and Ammonite nations were descended from Lot, the nephew of Abraham. In the Book of Ruth, Naomi and her husband Elimelech were a Judean couple. Their family moved to Moab during a famine, but Elimelech died there. Naomi's two sons married Moabite women, named Ruth and Orpah. Naomi's two sons then died. Naomi and Ruth then journeyed back to Judah. Then in selling her late husband's land in Judah and the estates of her sons, Naomi set up the stipulation that her financial redeemer also marry her former daughter-in-law. The first potential redeemer declined, lest this marriage "ruin isinheritance". Boaz, the next of kin, became Naomi's redeemer, married Ruth and became the father of Obed, who was the ancestor of

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

. Ruth was the mother of Obed, but Naomi cared for the child, and their neighbors would say "A son has been born to Naomi". Solomon "loved many foreign women". Among them was Naamah the Ammonite. Solomon and Naamah's son Rehoboam was a Judean king of the Davidic line.

Tamar bat David

Tamar, daughter of King David attempted to persuade her half-brother Amnon not to rape her, by suggesting that he could legitimately marry her instead. This suggestion is difficult to understand, as prohibits marriage to half-siblings by either father or mother.

Rashi Shlomo Yitzchaki (; ; ; 13 July 1105) was a French rabbi who authored comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Hebrew Bible. He is commonly known by the List of rabbis known by acronyms, Rabbinic acronym Rashi (). Born in Troyes, Rashi stud ...

(1040–1105 CE) attempted to resolve this problem by noting that Tamar's mother was a non-Israelite—Maacah, daughter of Talmai king of Geshur. If Jewish descent is matrilineal, and Maacah was not converted to Israelite religion at the time Tamar was conceived, then Tamar would be born non-Israelite, legally unrelated to Amnon (despite being his half-sister) and thus permitted to marry him.

Ezra

describes how many Israelite men had intermarried with non-Jewish women, and tells the story of their renunciation of intermarriage and separation from the non-Jewish wives and from their children. While Ezra and

Nehemiah Nehemiah (; ''Nəḥemyā'', "Yahweh, Yah comforts") is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, Persian Judea under Artaxer ...

prohibited intermarriage by both men and women, only regarding intermarriage between a Jewish man and non-Jewish woman was it necessary to separate from the children. The necessity of separating from the children as well as the wives suggests that the children were not considered Jewish despite having Jewish fathers. In rabbinic sources, this verse is understood to be proof of matrilinearity.

Jewishness of half Israelites

Several Biblical individual appear to have been treated as Jewish despite having a non-Jewish father. Hiram the craftsman was employed to build Solomon's Temple despite having a Phoenician father (and Israelite mother). Amasa was entrusted with control of an Israelite army, despite having a non-Israelite father (and Israelite mother).

Post-biblical

The Hellenistic Jewish philosopher,

Philo of Alexandria Philo of Alexandria (; ; ; ), also called , was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. The only event in Philo's life that can be decisively dated is his representation of the Alexandrian Je ...

(c. 20 BCE–50 CE) calls the child of a Jew and a non-Jew a ''nothos'' (bastard), regardless of whether the non-Jewish parent is the father or the mother. A recent article shows that Philo was at least considering the matrilineal principle. Flavius

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

(c. 37–100 CE), the Romanized Jewish historian, describes

Antigonus II Mattathias Antigonus II Mattathias ( ''Antígonos''; , ''Mattīṯyāhū''), also known as Antigonus the Hasmonean (died 37 BCE) was the last Hasmonean dynasty, Hasmonean king of Judea. He was the son of King Aristobulus II of Judea. In 37 BCE Herod the Grea ...

(c. 63–37 BCE) denigrating Herod—whose father's family were Idumean Arabs forcibly converted to Judaism by

John Hyrcanus John Hyrcanus (; ; ) was a Hasmonean (Maccabee, Maccabean) leader and Jewish High Priest of Israel of the 2nd century BCE (born 164 BCE, reigned from 134 BCE until he died in 104 BCE). In rabbinic literature he is often referred to as ''Yoḥana ...

and whose mother, according to Josephus, was non-Jewish (either an Idumean Arab or Arabian (Nabatean-Arab))—by referring to him as "an Idumean i.e. a half-Jew" and as therefore unfit to be given governorship of Judea by the Romans (as requires the king to be Jewish).

Modern period

Dr. Immanuel Jakobovits offers some possible reasons for the law of matrilineality: Rabbi Louis Jacobs wrote in a review of an article by Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen on matrilineal descent in Judaism:

There has been a development of the law in these instances from Biblical and pre-Rabbinic times. The attempt to find reasons for the change, however, has proved to be elusive and is quite unnecessary since it can be explained entirely economically by the logic of the law itself and is typical of Rabbinic thinking in general. But the development in the law had already taken place before the redaction of the Mishnah at the very latest. With the exception of the Rabbi in the Jerusalem Talmud (Qiddushin, 3:12) who permitted the child of a gentile mother and Jewish father to be circumcised on the Sabbath and whose opinion was vehemently rejected, the law is accepted unanimously in both Talmuds. It is recorded as the law in all the Codes without dissenting voice and has been the universal norm in all Jewish communities. For such a law to be changed, only the weightiest religious and ethical advantages will suffice and it is difficult indeed to discover any such in the change in this particular instance. To change this particular law would strike at the heart of the whole halakhic process and would involve a theological as well as an halakhic upheaval. And for what? The potential loss is great. The gains, if any, are few and the price is far too high.

Cohen himself questions the date of origin of matrilineal descent as follows:

The preexilic portions of the Hebrew Bible are not familiar with the matrilineal principle. Numerous Israelite heroes and kings married foreign women; for example, Judah married a Canaanite, Joseph an Egyptian, Moses a Midianite and an Ethiopian, David a Philistine, and Solomon women of every description. Although Exod. 34:16 and Deut. 7:1–3 prohibit intermarriage only with the Canaanites, a prohibition that was supposed to have originated with the patriarchs Abraham (Gen. 24:3) and Isaac (Gen. 27:46–28:1), some Israelites extended the prohibition to include all foreigners (Judg. 14:3). But it never occurred to anyone in preexilic times to argue that such marriages were null and void. Marriage was the non-sacramental, private acquisition of a woman by a man, and the state had little or no legal standing in the matter. The foreign woman who married an Israelite husband was supposed to leave her gods in her father's house, but even if she did not, it never occurred to anyone to argue that her children were not Israelites. Since the idea of conversion to Judaism did not yet exist, it never occurred to anyone to demand that the foreign woman undergo some ritual to indicate her acceptance of the religion of Israel. The woman was joined to the house of Israel by being joined to her Israelite husband; the act of marriage was functionally equivalent to the later idea of conversion. In some circumstances biblical law and society did pay attention to maternal identity–the children of concubines and female slaves sometimes rank lower than the children of wives–but it never occurred to anyone to impose any legal or social disabilities on the children of foreign women.''The Origins of the Matrilineal Principle in Rabbinic Law'', Shaye J.D. Cohen, AJS Review, V. 10.1, 1985, 19-53

Cohen does admit one circumstance in which the Bible accepted the matrilineal status of children of an Israelite woman and non-Israelite man: a "matrilocal" marriage in which the husband moved to the wife's location and joined her clan, rather than the more typical reverse. In his review of Cohen's article, Rabbi Jacobs accepts that the law may have changed in the early Tannaitic period (c. 10–70 CE): "From the historical evidence marshalled by Professor Cohen it would appear that the change from the patrilineal to the matrilineal principle for the offspring of mixed unions of Jew and gentile took place in the early Tannaitic period." Other modern scholars believe that the matrilineal principle dates at least to the time of Ezra, Lawrence H. Schiffman, "At the Crossroads: Tannaitic Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Schism," in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, ed. E.P. Sanders with A.I. Baumgarten and A. Mendelson (Philadelphia: Fortress Press; London: SCM Press, 1981), 2.121 and Cohen himself does not rule this out as a possibility. Jacobs dismisses Cohen's suggestion that "the Tannaim were influenced by the Roman legal system..." and contends that "even if the Rabbis were familiar with the Roman law, they might have reacted to it nsteadby preserving the patrilineal principle, holding fast to their own system." Cohen's proposed connection to Roman law was also rejected by , who noted a fundamental difference between Roman and rabbinic law: Roman law assigned matrilineal status in cases where no marriage exists and therefore the child is considered to have no father, whereas in rabbinic law a child's status is unaffected by whether the parents are married to each other. Instead, Jacobs offers another explanation. Jacobs believes that an Israelite man who married a non-Israelite woman and had a child, that woman and child were considered not part of the "family clan" and therefore were not considered Israelite: "A child born of a Jewish father and a gentile mother cannot be given the status of the father since the patrilineal principle is stated only with regard to unions within the clan. How can the father who steps out of the clan bestow a clan status on the child whom he sires?" Cohen, too, suggests another possible explanation: that rabbinic thought viewed maternal descent to be biologically fundamental, as shown by the

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

(though not the

Tosefta The Tosefta ( "supplement, addition") is a compilation of Jewish Oral Law from the late second century, the period of the Mishnah and the Jewish sages known as the '' Tannaim''. Background Jewish teachings of the Tannaitic period were cha ...

or Babylonian Talmud), in which the species of animals for purposes of kilayim follows the mother, and applied the same standard to humans as well. Cohen's position was also criticized by Robert Gordis, who questioned whether such a dramatic change (i.e. from patrilineality to matrilineality) would have been occurred without being mentioned in the extensive sources from the time.

Lawrence Schiffman Lawrence Harvey Schiffman born in 1948, is a professor at New York University (as of 2014); he was formerly Vice-Provost of Undergraduate Education at Yeshiva University and Professor of Jewish Studies (from early 2011 to 2014). He had previously ...

noted that Josephus described Herod as being criticized as unsuitable for Jewish monarchy, due to his non-Jewish mother and the Biblical prohibition () on installing a non-Jewish king. According to Schiffman, this indicates that matrilineality was a broadly accepted norm at the time, assumed by Josephus as well as the Mishnah. Schiffman further asserted that a matrilineal principle likely already existed at the time of Ezra, due to the natural relationship between mother and child. According to Schiffman, in the First Temple period those women who moved to Israelite territory effectively underwent "informal conversion" to join the Jewish people. But upon the loss of national territory with the

Babylonian captivity The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurred ...

, Jewish status became an individual matter, and the matrilineal principle was established. According to Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, in a polygamous setting like Biblical society, identity was more closely tied to the mother than the father. Each wife had her own dwelling which was shared with her children, and where the husband was a visitor. The rabbinic principle of matrilineality was an adaptation of this model to a reality in which polygamy had become rare. Arnold Goodman argued that the halakhic norm of patrilineal tribal descent and matrilineal Jewish status is a logical one: Children naturally take the status of their mother, except when the mother has been "acquired" as wife by the husband, in which the status is that of the husband. But as marriage between Jew and non-Jew is invalid in halakha, the father has no connection to the children, and status remains with the mother. Avi Shveka argued that in both the Hebrew Bible and records of other

Ancient Near East The ancient Near East was home to many cradles of civilization, spanning Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran (or Persia), Anatolia and the Armenian highlands, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula. As such, the fields of ancient Near East studies and Nea ...

societies, clan status was transmitted patrilinearly while "social" status (e.g. status as a slave or free-born) was transmitted matrilinearly; and when a father and mother separated or divorced (breaking up the clan), the children followed the mother both physically and in status. Thus, examples of "patrilineal" status in the Bible (e.g. Solomon and Naamah, or normal tribal membership) involve intact couples within the clan, while examples of "matrilineal" status (e.g. Hagar and Ishmael, or Ezra's expulsion of both the foreign wives and their children) involve couples that separate or divorce.

Effect of matrilineality on personal Jewishness

In the United States

A 2013 Pew Research Center survey shows that American children of interfaith marriages are more likely to have been raised Jewish and identify as Jewish than in the past, which some scholars attribute to more welcoming and inclusive attitudes among Jewish organizations. The increasing awareness and social validation of

self-concept In the psychology of self, one's self-concept (also called self-construction, self-identity, self-perspective or self-structure) is a collection of beliefs about oneself. Generally, self-concept embodies the answer to the question ''"Who am I? ...

as defining one's identity may also be a contributing factor. Studies have shown that American adults whose fathers are Jewish and whose mothers are not can readily identify lasting damage to their identity formation, family relations and faith due to patrilineal rejection, regardless of whether they were raised as Jews. Experiences include being singled out and made to feel unwelcome at Jewish events, sites and schools; pressure to disguise their heritage; being bullied or isolated; uncertainty regarding their personal identity; and narrowed access to a Jewish education and a community of faith. It is not uncommon for interfaith families and their offspring rejected by matrilineal devotees to simultaneously suffer external discrimination on the basis of being Jews.

In Europe

Researcher Sergio Della Pergola found that in English-speaking countries, "the mother is the dominant parent in transmitting a group identity to the children of ntermarriages If the mother is Jewish, the child tends more often to be identified as Jewish, and if the mother is not Jewish, the child tends to be non-Jewish." Progressive writers Elana Maryles Sztokman and Jessica Fishman view matrilineality as an outdated patriarchal form of control over women's bodies. Fishman labels matrilineality a fundamental denial of the right of personhood. Legal scholar Reut Paz views matrilineality as a form of "legal privilege" for women, which offers the potential for increasing gender equality in a world where power is generally patriarchal.Paz, Reut Yael
The Stubborn Subversiveness of Judaism’s Matrilineal Principle
, VerfBlog, 2021/9/29, DOI: 10.17176/20210930-004728-0

References

External links

*Immanuel Jakobovits, "The Timely and the Timeless", London 1977, pp. 199–20

* Judith Olszowy-Schlanger
"Karaite Women: Permissibility of Marriage"Louis Jacobs, "There is No Problem of Descent"
*Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen, "The origin of the Matrilineal rule in Rabbinical Judaism" *Sorek, Susan. "Mothers of Israel: Why the Rabbis Adopted a Matrilineal Principle." "Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary e-Journal", 2002

* Reform Movement's Resolution on Patrilineal Descent, March 15, 1983
"The Status of Children of Mixed Marriages"
{{Women in Judaism, state=expanded Jewish marital law Judaism and women Kinship and descent