Schindler Urges Change in Jewish Law That a Child’s Religion is Determined Only by the Religion of T

A revolutionary change in Jewish Law that would regard the child of a mixed marriage as Jewish, if either parent was Jewish, was proposed by Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC), at the UAHC’s 55th General Assembly meeting here.

Some 4000 delegates, representing nearly 750 Reform synagogues in the United States and Canada, heard Schindler call on the Reform movement to change the 2000-year-old Jewish tradition that a child’s religion is determined by the religion of the mother. He urged the validation of Jewish lineage through the paternal as well as the maternal line.

Schindler’s proposal was rejected today by both Chief Rabbis of Israel but hailed by a leading American Conservative rabbi. Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren told reporters in Jerusalem that Schindler’s proposal was aimed at “the wind- pipe of Judaism.” Its meaning was the destruction of Judaism. Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said he was not surprised to hear such a proposal coming from the Reform movement. He cited the Talmud as saying: “The son born to a gentile, is likewise a gentile.”

HAILED AS A COURAGEOUS IDEA

Rabbi Harold Schulweis, of Encino, Calif. secretary of the Rabbinical Assembly, hailed Schindler’s proposal as “a courageous idea that goes to the heart of the struggle for Jewish survival.” Schulweis, who addressed the convention delegates on another subject, told reporters who asked him for his comment on Schindler’s proposal that it “deserves the most serious study and consideration.” He said the suggested change was “based on the reality principle – the growing intermarriage rate among young Jewish people.”

For this reason, Schulweis said, “I believe the Conservative movement is morally and judicially bound to respond to the deep concerns of the Jewish laity on this matter as expressed by a serious and responsible Jewish statesman.” Regarding the child of a mixed marriage as Jewish if either parent is Jewish also aims at overcoming “what amounts to a sexist distinction,” Schulweis said, adding that “limiting the child to the religion of the mother is in fact discriminatory against the father.”

“A child who is raised by a Jewish father who takes his or her father’s name, who adopts the Jewish lifestyle and Jewish identity of the father – this child has a right to be considered Jewish and in such a case the religion of the mother is no longer relevant,” Schulweis said.

CITES INTERMARRIAGE AS A MAJOR FACTOR

In his presidential address last Friday night, Schindler declared: “the status of Jew should be conferred on any child, either of whose parents is Jewish, provided they both agree to raise their child Jewishly and do so. “He called on the congregational, rabbinical and seminary bodies of Reform Judaism, in cooperation with the Conservative movement, to “initiate a decision-making process” that would lead to validation of Jewish lineage through the paternal as well as the maternal line.

A major factor cited by Schindler in urging the historic change is that the Jewish intermarriage rate is currently approaching 40 percent, with the “preponderant majority” of such marriages involving Jewish men and non-Jewish women.

“The right of these men to determine the religious character of their children must be secured,” he said. “Here is still another way to make certain that our grandchildren will be Jews, that they will remain a part of our community and share the destiny of this people Israel.” He added: “I want the child’s rearing and ultimately his or her self-definition to be on a par with geneological factors in determining Jewishness. And I want the geneological factors to be paternal as well as maternal.”

Schindler conceded that a “tradition standing two millenia should not be altered lightly” but he said that the circumstances which gave rise to that “time honored usage” no longer applies. The tradition of Jewish lineage on the maternal side only, he said, reflected a polygamous society In which the children of the various wives lived with their mothers.

“We no longer live in such a society, in part at least because in the 11th Century, Rabbi Gershom issued an edict that changed the Halacha and outlawed polygamy,” Schindler said. The matrilineal tradition was reinforced by “brutal persecution” during the Middle Ages,” Schindler said, when a “compassionate law” permitted children of women who had been raped to be considered as Jewish.

CONFRONTED WITH A DREADFUL ANOMALY

In the absence of such persecution today, Schindler said, “adherence to the matrilineal principle confronts us with a dreadful anomaly: the offspring of a mixed marriage, whether reared as a Jew or not, is automatically a Jew so long as the mother is Jewish. But if the mother is not Jewish, the child must ultimately undergo formal conversion even if he or she is raised as a Jew and lives in an intensely Jewish home,” he said. “This is nonsensical, absurd.”

Schindler said he also saw the issue as part of the “struggle for the equality of the sexes,” a major precept of Reform Judaism. In this instance, he said, “we are trying to protect the rights of men.” Citing rabbinic sources, he said that Jewish tradition provided “ample justification for a paternal as well as a maternal yardstick.” He explained that “tradition invokes the God of our fathers in prayer. It rules that we be summoned to the Torah by our father’s name. It reminds us that we live by Zechut Avot (the merits of our fathers).” Schindler also observed that in ancient Jewish Law, only the paternal line is held relevant in matters of inheritance and some aspects of geneology.

For example, he said, whether one is a Kohen (priest) or a Levite depends on the father’s priestly claim and not on the mother’s. “Thus does tradition offer a way to heal itself,” he said. In urging that the matter be studied by the Reform movement Central Conference of American Rabbis and by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, as well as by the Conservative movement, Schindler acknowledged that “we must always be restrained by a reverence for the sensitivity of Klal Yisroel, the Jewish people.”