Un-Reformed?
Why is patrilineal descent not catching on in Reform worldwide?
Sue Fishkoff
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
San Francisco
F
or three decades now, the
American Jewish Reform move-
ment has considered as Jewish the
child of a Jewish father and non-Jewish
mother who is raised as a Jew.
But most Reform Jews in the rest of
the world still do not accept "patrilineal
descent."
That makes the debate about "Who is
a Jew" not just between the Orthodox-
dominated Israeli Rabbinate and
American Jewish liberal movements, but
also between American Reform Judaism
and most of the diaspora.
That debate was on display recently at the
biennial conference of the World Union for
Progressive Judaism, the worldwide version
of the Reform movement, in San Francisco.
"The challenge of being one people yet
expressing our Reform identity is at the
heart of what we're discussing here said
Rabbi Andrew Goldstein, chairman of the
World Union's European region and mod-
erator of the Feb. 9 panel discussion.
Goldstein is a member of the British
Liberal movement, which accepts patrilin-
eal descent. But a second Jewish Reform
movement in Britain does not. Except for
one Liberal congregation each in Ireland
and Holland, no other Reform movements
in the diaspora or Israel accept patrilineal
descent. Patrilineal Jews are accepted as
full members of Progessive congregations
in the former Soviet Union but must con-
vert for marriage.
According to traditional Halachah, or
Jewish law, only those born of a Jewish
mother or having formally converted to
Judaism are considered Jewish.
Why has the doctrine of patrilineal
descent not spread further, particularly in
countries with high rates of intermarriage?
There is the need to "get along" with
other Jewish movements in their coun-
tries, concerns about Jews from other
denominations not being able to marry a
"patrilineal Jew" and the desire to avoid
the problems a patrilineal Jew might face
if he or she immigrates to Israel, according
to Reform leaders who were interviewed
at the San Francisco conference.
Rabbi Robert Jacobs is one of six
Reform rabbis in South Africa, where none
of the country's 10 congregations accepts
patrilineal descent as sufficient for Jewish
status even though the community there
is in rapid decline.
Most have moved to Israel, where the
Chief Rabbinate demands proof of mater-
nal Jewish ancestry for weddings and
burials. If the country's Reform Jews count
the child of a non-Jewish mother in their
ranks, that could jeopardize any com-
munity member's ability to make aliyah,
Jacobs said.
Finances can be a factor. In Germany,
the Reform community only recently
began to receive funding from the coun-
try's "religious tax," which is doled out
to Jewish communities by the Central
Council of Jews in Germany. If German
Reform congregations accepted patrilineal
descent, Goldstein says, that would jeopar-
dize the arrangement.
The Liberal Jewish Movement of France,
the Reform umbrella there, represents a
fraction of the country's 600,000 Jews.
Most French people, Jewish or not, don't
really understand what Reform is, accord-
ing to Jean-Francois Levy, a former presi-
dent of that organization.
Though the movement recently
reopened the question of patrilineality,
Levy says he doubts it will endorse the
position.
"We meet people sympathetic to us, and
I'm afraid that those who might join us
would not do so if we embrace patrilineal-
ity," Levy said. "They would say, `Look, they
don't even know the most basic Jewish
traditions:"
Some Reform congregations embraced
patrilineal descent only to reverse them-
selves later. That happened in Panama,
El Salvador and Costa Rica, said Rabbi
Joshua Kullock of Guadalajara, Mexico,
executive director of the Union of Jewish
Congregations of Latin America and the
Caribbean, the umbrella body for the
region's 11 Reform communities.
El Salvador began to accept the children
of non-Jewish mothers as Jews during the
country's civil war, when the congregation
was lay-led and desperate for members.
When the conflict ended, so did the practice.
The Reform congregations in Costa Rica
and Panama stopped embracing patri-
lineal Jews when they hired Conservative
pulpit rabbis — Costa Rica six years ago
and Panama eight years ago.
"It was more important for them to
have rabbinic leadership from South
Panelists at a Feb. 9 session of the
World Union for Progressive Judaism
biennial in San Francisco.
America, speaking Spanish, than to bring
in Reform rabbis from the United States:'
Kullock said.
Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus,
president of the Central Conference of
American Rabbis, the Reform rabbinical
body that passed the still-controversial
resolution in March 1983, said her col-
leagues at that landmark CCAR conference
were cognizant that other movements
would not adopt" the new practice and
that it would be controversial even within
the Reform movement.
"At the time, the Canadian rabbis made
it clear they would not accept it:' she said
of Reform rabbis in Canada. "So it's not
surprising that other Reform groups out-
side the U.S. don't accept it."
Dreyfus said the resolution simply codi-
fied what had been general Reform prac-
tice for decades and had been adopted as
a proposal by the CCAR back in 1947. The
Reconstructionist movement adopted a
similar position in 1948.
The 1983 resolution stated that the child
of one Jewish parent, father or mother, was
"under the presumption" of being Jewish,
but that Jewish status had to be "estab-
lished" through a Jewish upbringing and
life-cycle markers, such as a brit milah for
a boy and a bar or bat mitzvah.
In any case, Dreyfus said, the resolu-
tion is "not binding." Reform rabbis may
decide their own policies in their own
congregations. I 1
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