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PART II
For the previous article a great number of interfaith marriages and children of them sent us emails supporting the proposal that the government of Israel replaces the law of the womb, and asked us to enlarge the article because of the great significance of the matter, that is why we present the article but with further information.
What can be done in view of the demographical extinction of the Jewish in the world because of the rejection of the children of interfaith marriages?
The government of Israel must make the political decision of choosing between: the Law of the Womb or Jewish continuity.
By: Naum Kliksberg*
Psychologist and Sociologist
General Coordinator of the
Interfaith Marriages World Center
www.interfaithmarriagesworldcenter.info
www.matrimoniosmixtos.info
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This text sets forth, analyzes and interprets, the disquiets shown in the emails sent to this site from many countries, by thousands of interfaith marriages and their children.
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I. THE STATISTICS
In the year 1920 out of every 100 Jewish who married in the world only 2 % married non-Jewish.
In 2009, 67 % married non-Jewish (there are much more interfaith marriages among the population of university professionals than within that of non-University).
At this Site we take the number of 67 % because it is accepted and spread by important Jewish institutions and Jewish leaders (1), but it can be estimated that the actual number is already over 72 %.
Even if economic resources designed for Jewish education are increased as much as possible, which is convenient to be done, the number of interfaith marriages will continue increasing.
Jewish leaders recognize that the number of interfaith marriages increases rapidly every year. If the current rate of increase continues it can be estimated that in 15 to 20 years out of every 100 Jewish who marry, 90% or more shall marry non-Jewish, much earlier Jewish communities will collapse, if it is not achieved that a greater than the current number of the children of interfaith marriages approach Judaism.
So long as the current process of demographical extinction of Jewish communities continues growing, it can be expected that out of the number of members that is left in the Jewish group the percentage of religious orthodox Jewish increases. In this case it is a symptom of this process of extinction. In this demographical dynamics of the Jewish communities, the Jewish group of orthodox religious, although they are the ones who have more children per marriage, there shall come a point at which it shall not have like now a periphery from which to get nourished with new members who substitute those it loses, under such circumstances it shall be the last Jewish group that will reduce until it almost disappears.
(The aforementioned statistics exclude the population of the State of Israel).
II. THE DEMOGRAPHICAL EXTINCTION OF THE JEWISH OF THE DIASPORA
Even if in the next 20 years the current number of 67% could be kept without increasing, in a short time the demographical extinction of the Jewish of the Diaspora shall be inevitable, if a majority of the millions of people in the world who are or will be members of interfaith marriages and of those who are and shall be sons/daughters of them continue leaving Judaism.
The main reason of their withdrawal is the constant and aggressive discrimination and rejection towards them promoted by the orthodox Rabbis in the Jewish communities in the whole world, based on the existence of the Law of the Womb. For that reason the growing political power that the orthodox Rabbis are having in Israel and in the Jewish communities in the world, such is the case in Argentina (2), is a great worry for the interfaith marriages and their children.
So long as the political power of the orthodox Rabbis increases in the world, the withdrawal of interfaith marriages and their children from Judaism increases, and therefore the demographical extinction of Jewish people accelerates.
Even the marriages where the wife is Jewish leave (in these cases their sons/daughters are accepted as Jewish), because they feel the hostile rejection in the community because they form an “interfaith family”. Additionally, the sons of Jewish women, when they currently marry in a 67% non-Jewish women, will engender sons/daughters who shall not be recognized as Jewish by the Jewish communities, if the Law of the Womb is still in force, thus millions of children who could have the option of being Jewish are thus lost. Another reason why the Jewish woman engenders a fewer number of Jewish children and grand-children than the Jewish man could engender is that generally the man in the interfaith marriage defines more than the woman the religious identity of the children, that is to say that a majority of the Jewish women who marry non-Jewish tend to accept more the religious identity of their children according to his husband’s wishes, a trend that deepens much more in view of the hostility of the Jewish communities towards the interfaith family, which creates a factor of discomfort in the husband, in the children of the couple, in the couple, and in the Jewish woman herself. The Jewish is not incorporated because he has formed an interfaith marriage, he/she is incorporated by the rejection of the Jewish community.
Without that rejection, and with proposals from Judaism that meet current man’s needs, a very important number of those who leave Judaism could integrate in it, and if the Law of the Womb is annulled, the sons, grandsons, and other descendants, of all the Jewish men, and of the Jewish women, who form interfaith marriages, would be Jewish and would always have the option of approaching Judaism.
The current process of demographical extinction of the Jewish of the Diaspora is the most serious problem that the Jewish people has today, solving it is the main challenge.
III. ISRAELI GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSIBILITY
The main problem is that while the government of Israel continues implementing officially the Jewish Law of the Womb, and thereby legitimating and strengthening in the whole world the orthodox Rabbis’ preach against interfaith marriages, most of the interfaith marriages continue leaving Judaism.
A few weeks ago the matter of interfaith marriages became more public and political, when the government of Israel studied an experts’ report. There it was shown that the current process of rapid demographical extinction of the Jewish in the Diaspora, caused by the growing number of the interfaith marriages who leave Judaism, reached alarming levels, which put the continuity of the Jewish communities in the world in danger. therefore something should be done immediately.
The government of Israel decided to consider the problem as a matter of State’s policy. But, instead of making actions in the direction recommended by the brightest intellectuals of Judaism: to facilitate and promote that the children of interfaith marriages approach Judaism. The government, pushed by the orthodox Rabbis, made the political decision of making an aggressive world campaign, even by television, against the interfaith marriages and their sons/daughters, which started in Israel on September, 2009.
This campaign caused indignation in the whole world. Israeli media said that it used the “tactics of fear”.
Millions of people who are currently members of interfaith marriages or are children of them and who chose to approach Judaism, felt hurt, and could leave Judaism for ever.
The government of Israel made a great mistake, with this campaign it made the situation worse. Instead of reducing the process of demographical extinction, this campaign would accelerate it.
A few days later, the government of Israel, seeing that it would fail in its purposes, interrupted the advertisement on television against the interfaith marriages and their sons/daughters.
IV. ONLY THE GOVERNMENT OF ISRAEL CAN AVOID THE DEMOGRAPHICAL EXTINCTION
The demographical extinction of the Jewish of the Diaspora shows a serious “political problem”, it can only be avoided if the government of Israel took two political steps:
1. Instead of recognizing, based on the Jewish Law of the Womb, only a son/daughter of a Jewish mother as Jewish, recognizing someone who is a son/daughter of a Jewish mother or father as Jewish (that is to say that the current Law of Return determines not only the Israeli citizenship, but also Jewish identity).
2. Making or promoting in the Jewish communities actions and proposals that move the children of the interfaith marriages to approach Judaism.
At the beginning of Hebrews’ history every son/daughter of a Hebrew father was considered a Hebrew.
Later the recognition of the children’s Jewish identity was made by the mother or the father.
The Jewish Law of the Womb was established in the Tenth Century in Europe, later in the whole Jewish world. It played 3 roles:
1. It moved the Jewish man to avoid forming an interfaith marriage, since as his children are not recognized as Jewish by the Jewish community, he would not have any other option, in most of the cases, than to leave the Jewish community and incorporate, something that they did not wish, especially when the non-Jewish social environment was very hostile towards the Jewish.
In effect, in order to avoid that rejection from the Jewish community, for hundreds of years most of the Jewish men avoided forming couples with a non-Jewish woman, the Law of the Womb was functional for that purpose.
The Jewish woman, who was generally obedient and docile to her father’s authority, also avoided to form a couple with a non-Jewish, because she was afraid of her family’s and of the Jewish community’s rejection, even if her son/daughter was accepted as Jewish.
2. At that time it could not be known who was the true father (today this is determined by a DNA test), the Jewish man could not be sure that he was the father if his wife became pregnant.
3. It prevented the children of Jewish mothers, who became pregnant due to Anti-Semites’ violations, from being rejected by their mothers and/or relatives, or by the Jewish community.
Those 3 aforementioned roles played by the Law of the Womb are no longer in effect today.
Of the three religious currents in Judaism, that of reformist Rabbis already annulled the Law of the Womb, that of conservative Rabbis might rapidly stop enforcing the Jewish Law of the Womb if the government of Israel did. If the government made this step, the orthodox Rabbis very probably, after a time, so as not to be totally overlooked, would also agree to annul the Law of the Womb, in doing so they will be forced to cause their ideology to evolve towards less fundamentalist positions.
But if the fundamentalist orthodox Rabbis wanted within a religious frame, to continue supporting the Law of the Womb and preach about its supposed advantages for the Jewish souls, in a democratic system it is fair that they are able to do so, but without compromising and using the legal and political system of the government of Israel, as they do today, in order to “force” all Jewish to be ruled by their beliefs and political needs.
V. THE ARGUMENTS OF THE “JEWISH SOUL” FOR SUPPORTING THE LAW OF THE WOMB
The Rabbis of the orthodox current energetically support the Law of the Womb because without it they lose their political and economic power.
Since there are no reasons to continue supporting the Law of the Womb, in order to justify its existence today, the orthodox Rabbis say that thanks to it the Jewish are born with a “different soul” from the soul all human beings have got, since only a Jewish mother’s womb can transmit a “Distinguishing Element” that gives “special characteristics to a Jewish person’s soul”, a “Distinguishing Element” that a non-Jewish mother does not have, and that is not generated in the woman by her husband even if he is a Jewish man.
Therefore if these children of interfaith marriages are accepted as Jewish, people who might have “souls with characteristics that are inferior to Jewish souls” might become members of the Jewish people, the role of the Jewish people as the “only universal vessel” of “different, special souls” would be lost. The orthodox Rabbis attribute to themselves the function of being the “guardians” of keeping that vessel uncontaminated, that non-Jewish souls do not enter in it, this would be the main reason that causes their aggressive opposition to interfaith marriages.
This “theory” about the Jewish’s soul, caused them problems that they had to solve, such as:
-If in spite of all the difficulties that they put in the way of someone who wishes to convert to Judaism, so that he gives up his desire, he still overcomes them, how do they convert him and accept him as Jewish if he was not born with a Jewish soul?
-How will a child adopted by Jewish parents be accepted as a Jewish if the child was born of a non-Jewish mother, that is to say he does not have a Jewish soul?
-In the cases of artificial insemination, how will that creature be accepted as a Jewish if in that procedure she does not receive the “distinguishing element” that generates a Jewish soul?
In order to answer questions like these ones, the orthodox Rabbis invented answers that compromised them even more in making a mystical-magical theoretical body, that very delirious and irrational, and that withdraws them increasingly more from their ancestors’ Jewish beliefs (the author is writing a book based on an investigation he is making about the orthodox Rabbis’ theory of the Jewish souls, the text shall be set forth in the magazine offered at this site).
The concept about the “superior soul” has very dangerous political effects, it attempts against the current concepts about human rights, against the essence of the democratic system, and promotes absurd racist psychological fantasies of superiority of some individuals or populations over others.
Only the orthodox Rabbis have this belief about the “special soul of the Jewish”, it is rejected by the reformist Rabbis, by the conservative Rabbis, and by non-religious Jewish.
VI. THE LAW OF THE WOMB IS UNJUSTIFIABLE
In the twenty-first century, to continue imposing the Law of the Womb on the Jewish people is an attitude of fundamentalist religious violence.
It causes every kind of discriminations between Jewish and non-Jewish, it is not ethical, it is suicidal, it is unjustifiable.
It separates the Jewish family (brothers from sisters, parents from their sons/daughters, cousins from cousins), it discriminates and violates Jewish men’s rights only because of their male condition, it is detrimental for the children’s psychological development, it causes the sons/daughters of interfaith marriages and their parents to leave Judaism, it causes unnecessary religious and political divisions in Judaism.
A Jewish man must be given the same right as a Jewish woman, that is that his sons/daughters are also recognized as Jewish, if they wish.
Those who support the Jewish Law of the Womb reach the immoral extreme denying the 250,000 Jewish assassinated in the Holocaust.
The president of Iran, Mahmud Ahmdineyad, in an absurd attitude, that is an insult to the intelligence of the whole world, and that shames his own people, denies that the holocaust where 6 million people were assassinated only because they were accused by the Nazis of being Jewish, occurred.
The Nazis considered someone who had a Jewish father or mother or grandfather or grandmother as a Jewish.
The Nazis assassinated, because they considered the sons/daughters of interfaith marriages as Jewish even if only their father was Jewish and their mother was not. Two hundred and fifty thousand people were in that situation, most of them babies, children and teenagers (the aforementioned number includes their fathers and grandfathers/grandmothers who in turn were also sons/daughters of interfaith marriages with a non-Jewish mother), they were among the 6 million people assassinated in the holocaust by the Nazis’ cruelty because they considered them as Jewish.
Not only the president of Iran has an immoral attitude in disown the 6,000,000 victims of the Jewish holocaust, those who by supporting the Law of the Womb disown 250,000, out of those 6 million people, victims of the Jewish holocaust, sons/daughters of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother those 6 million people, do not consider them as Jewish because they are not sons/daughters of Jewish mother, of a Jewish womb. That is to say that for them not 6 million, but 5,750,000 Jewish died in the holocaust.
Denying those Jewish assassinated in the holocaust, those sons/daughters of their own people, sons/daughters of Jewish men, is an insult for the memory of those 250,000 victims who died because they were Jewish and offends the entire Judaism.
To reflect and remember about the holocaust:
8 km away from Limburg to the North of Frankfurt, extermination center HADAMAR was built.
In the basements of the building two cremation ovens were built together with a gas chamber, disguised as a shower room.
The “grey buses” (they had the windows painted so that nothing could be seen from outside) transported, several times a week, the victims to Hadamar.
The bus entered the garage of the building and from there the victims were taken to the extermination area.
The assassination number 10,000 was celebrated by the staff as a celebration with music and drinking.
On April 15, 1943, a “special” room was created at the center for Jewish children who were sons/daughters of interfaith marriages.
Those children were assassinated with lethal injections, only because they were children of interfaith marriages where their mother or father were not Jewish.
In that way 250,000 sons/daughters of interfaith marriages with Jewish fathers died, rejected by the Nazis and by all those who defend the Jewish Law of the Womb.
No Jewish institution rescued the memory of these children, not even the museums of the Holocaust created to rescue the memory of that horror, only at this interfaith marriages’ site we do, we honor them and include them as Jewish martyrs among the 6 million Jewish assassinated by Hitler.
Let this be call to the attention to all Jewish’s conscience.
VII. THE BEST CONDITIONS MUST BE CREATED TO APPROACH THE CHILDREN OF INTERFAITH MARRIAGES
Edgar Bronfman, one of the most important leaders of Judaism of the recent 100 years, was during 27 years (1980-2007) the President of the World Jewish Congress (the most important Jewish institution in the world), said,
“It’s time to abandon racist ideas and to encourage the interfaith marriages to bring up their children in Judaism, the concept of pureness starts to sound as Nazism, that is to say racist, the interfaith marriages shall not disappear, they must be seen as a means to double the number of Jewish”.
(These statements were published at a renowned Jewish site, they could be viewed on October 20, 2009 at:
http://www.librosjudios.com.ar/cgi-perl/medios/vernota.cgi?medio=lavozjudia&numero=358¬a=358-17).
Yossi Beilin, one of the most renowned current personalities of Israel, former minister of the cabinets of Rabin, Peres and Barak, was: Minister of Justice, Minister of Economy, Minister of Religious Affairs and Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, has very bright concepts about the matter of interfaith marriages and the Law of the Womb, on which a great majority of the Jewish who are not orthodox religious agree, said,
“We must reinvent for ourselves an ideological and organizational level in order to ensure the Jewish continuity in a world that, in spite of all anti-Semitic phenomena, is ready to accept the Jewish as it had never done before, and where forming a couple with a non-Jewish is usually considered as something positive”. “Someone who gives importance to the Jewish continuity like I do, must make a great effort to preserve it in the Diaspora, therefore orthodox religious Judaism cannot be given the monopoly of defining who is a Jewish. It is not possible that a child of a Jewish father and of a non-Jewish mother who wishes to be a Jewish is rejected and that he is required to go through a hard process of religious conversion”.
Grandfathers/grandmothers, fathers/mothers, should you support those who reject or those who accept their sons/daughters, grandsons/granddaughters, great-grandsons/great-granddaughters and other descendants of yours?
Jewish grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers, who have or do not have sons/daughters and grandsons/granddaughters of interfaith marriages, you should energetically reject those who accept your sons/daughters and grandsons/granddaughters, you should defend the right of your sons/daughters and grandsons/granddaughters to be Jewish if they wish to be so, it is absurd not to give that choice to all your descendants.
If a Jewish man formed an interfaith marriage, and if later he and his children and grandchildren left Judaism, and a great-grandchild wishes to choose to be a Jewish, which is very possible that it happens because there are already millions of people who on their own decide to change their religion, we are in a world where the concept of a religion for life is quickly changing, there started to exist a great “religious mobility” in the world, why should that great-grandchild be denied the choice of being a Jewish if that were his will?
This new concept of “religious mobility”, that has already caused that in the recent years tens of millions of people in the world change their religion, offers a new and great chance to approach the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and other descendants of Jewish men and Jewish women who formed and will form interfaith marriages, to Judaism, the existence of the Law of the Womb prevents from taking advantage of this chance.
Spreading and reflection on ideas such as Bronfman’s and Beilin must be supported enthusiastically, in that way Judaism shall rescue the best of its millenarian history, it shall revitalize, and it shall solve the most serious danger it is facing in this century, that of the rapid demographical extinction it is suffering and that in the next years shall cause the Jewish communities of the world to disappear if the government of Israel continues supporting the Law of the Womb, a legal-political tool that causes the children of the interfaith marriages to leave Judaism.
The best solution, as it was mentioned, would be that the government of Israel takes the political step of establishing that the current Law of the Return, which grants Israeli citizenship to all those who have a Jewish father or a Jewish mother, shall also grant Jewish identity. It must do this quickly, because in a few years it can be too late to avoid the demographical extinction of the Diaspora, since every year the number of interfaith marriages and of their children who leave Judaism increases considerably.
After millennia during which there are Jewish communities in many countries in the world, and that they survive to many threats, their continuity is in danger like never before, the historical responsibility of being able to avoid the Jewish demographical extinction of the Diaspora fell to the current government of Israel.
The renowned Jewish intellectuals, of Israel and of the Diaspora, have also got a historical responsibility in this matter, they must cause their voice to be listened so that it is clear for the Jewish public opinion. Through their word they must help to make the psychological change required that makes it possible for the Jewish to adapt to the new needs of the Jewish people, that needs for its continuity to approach the children of the interfaith marriages.
Since the creation of the State of Israel, the brightest politicians and intellectuals of Israel and of the Diaspora have always thought that in order to determine the Jewish identity the fairest, most ethical and convenient was to substitute the Law of the Womb with the Law of the Return. An example of that is that Golda Meir in 1971 proposed to the Israeli Parliament an amendment of the Law of the Return, wherein under that law every son/daughter of a Jewish mother or father was defined as a Jewish. The orthodox Rabbis political operations have always prevented this change from being made.
But never before like today was there a situation in which a government of Israel has to make the political decision of choosing between the Law of the Womb or Jewish continuity. If it does not annul the Law of the Womb, Israel and the whole Jewish people will suffer the consequences that shall be caused by the disappearance of the Jewish communities of the world.
VIII. THERE IS LITTLE INFORMATION ABOUT INTERFAITH MARRIAGES AND THEIR CHILDREN
The Jewish leaders and newspapers, many times hide the actual numbers and try to give little information about the current process of demographical extinction of the Jewish of the Diaspora. This is not ethical, because the Jewish are entitled to be informed deeply about the most serious problems they must face. When the matter is analyzed in the Jewish newspapers it is usually done superficially, the interfaith marriages’ and their children’s view and how they see their integration or lack of integration to Judaism and how they see themselves, is not set forth.
Now much more children of Jewish’s interfaith marriages, than Jewish children of non-interfaith marriages are being born, this is the reason why it is indispensable that Jewish leaders, if they want to approach them to Judaism, are well advised about how the children of interfaith marriages think, how they manage their identities, on what they base to make their decisions, which are their groups of reference and of belonging, which is the psychological dynamics in the interfaith family, what the special characteristics of the relationship of these children to their grandfathers, cousins, uncles, how they cause their religious beliefs to be compatible, etc.
IX. KNOWING THE INTERFAITH MARRIAGES BETTER
Those of us who form interfaith marriages we make true an act of love that must face prejudgments and tear down cultural and religious barriers, those are the reasons why we face challenges and risks different from those of other couples.
Therefore, in interfaith marriages we strengthen our couple by developing human beings’ best capacities to understand and cohabit. This is frequently a process that is carried out in front of the prejudging and accusing look of our most loved relatives, influenced by sociological factors on which they themselves did not have the chance to reflect based on deep information to which they did not have access.
The members of interfaith marriages, from their experience of life at their homes, and in the close relationship to the relatives of both spouses, cohabit with various cultures and religions. From that place they build the best ties of communication between people with different religions, cultures and populations. That is why, the greatest human expression of the capacities to: tolerate, accept, respect, love, “the different one”, comes true in each interfaith marriage.
Interfaith marriages contribute to build a better human ecology in the world in which the bases for understanding, tolerance, respect and harmonious cohabitation between people, can grow stronger, reducing intolerance, prejudgment, and discrimination in the populations.
Interfaith marriages are an important example for building a better world, since we show that differences can be positive, that each one contributes with his singularity to the other one, thereby building enriching common spaces.
Those who are members of interfaith marriages or children of them form a model of family that overcomes the differences, which is unbearable for the psychology of the minor fundamentalist religious sectors that exist in all religions, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, etc., that is why those groups promote that we are rejected.
X. THE FEAR THAT DISCRIMINATION AND HOSTILITY INCREASE
Today, that rejection to interfaith marriages and their children, is much greater in the Jewish communities than in the Christian ones, because although there are Jewish institutions that receive them without discriminations, the effect of the Law of the Womb in the Jewish people and based on it the unpunished and constant aggressive preach of the orthodox Rabbis towards interfaith marriages and their children in the Jewish communities, keep in the whole Jewish people a hostile environment towards interfaith marriages and their children. This causes most of the children of the interfaith marriages to leave Judaism. This withdrawal becomes greater in view of the justified fear, even in those who converted to Judaism, that this hostility towards them becomes worse the orthodox Rabbis’ political power increases in Israel and/or in the Diaspora.
Interfaith marriages ask of the government of Israel that it substitutes the Law of the Womb with the law of the return, it is an indispensable step to prevent the current process of rapid demographical extinction of the Jewish from continuing, it would create the minimal conditions required that would make it possible that, with suitable motivational proposals, millions of children of interfaith marriages approach more to Judaism.
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*) The author also directs the site:
In English:
www.cancerandotherseriousdiseases.blogspot.com
In Spanish:
www.canceryotrasenfermedadesgraves.blogspot.com
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1) References about sources of the aforementioned statistics and about Jewish leaders’ statements alerting about the seriousness of the process of demographical extinction, can be read at this site in the text: Enlarging Notes Annex Text, see Note 4.I: http://www.matrimoniosmixtos.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=51&Itemid=71#punto7
When it passes an inflection point (when it reaches 75% to 80%) the growth of the number of interfaith marriages will accelerate greatly as the Jewish group in which they can form non-interfaith couples reduces significantly.
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(2) For example, it is unacceptable that in the Argentine Jewish community, in the AMIA, the main Jewish institution that represents Argentine Jewish, that according to its bylaws is not religious, is pluralist, the Law of the Womb is enforced in the criteria of who is accepted or not accepted as a member, whereby the spouses and the sons/daughters of interfaith marriages are rejected, although most of Argentine Jewish would not agree with that attitude, which they consider discriminatory, if they were consulted democratically and they had the chance to get suitably informed about the matter, instead of keeping most Jewish uninformed in order to avoid a democratic discussion. Since neither interfaith marriages, nor the children of interfaith marriages can become members, it is easier for a few leaders to keep the political control of the institution, it avoids their renewal, makes democratic dynamics poorer, which made it easier for the religious orthodox to direct the institution today.
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(3) In the Holy Scriptures there is more than enough evidence that God approves of interfaith marriages, and not only that, He gives them a very important role for the development of humanity, believers must understand that God thereby says that vital contributions to a better world can be expected from the interfaith marriages, so is shown by the historic accounts about: Jacob, Ruth, Moses, Esther and others.
- Jacob, the Israelite people’s father, with two non-Jewish women, Bilhah and Zilpah, gave birth to 4 children who generated four of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Believers must wonder, What message does God, who permitted or promoted that such an important historic event as 4 of the twelve tribes of Israel result from non-Jewish women, want to give us?
- Ruth, was a non-Jewish woman, she was Moabite. She married a Jewish, when the latter died and she became a widow, her mother-in-law told her, “return to your parents’ home” (a phrase that shows that she did not accept her as a Jewish, that was why she sent her to integrate again to her people, that was not Jewish), Ruth answered..., “your people shall be my people”. She did not say “IS” my people, that is to say that although her husband was a Jewish she psychologically did not assume herself as a Jewish. Later she married the Israelite Boaz. Ruth was the great-grandmother of David, the great King of Israel.
Among Ruth’s descendants King Solomon was also born (known for his wisdom, who also formed an interfaith marriage), and according to the Holy Scriptures from his offspring the Messiah will be born at end of the times. Jesus is also Ruth’s descendant.
Believers must wonder, What message does God, who permitted or promoted that from a non-Jewish woman, married in an interfaith marriage with a Jewish, result such important characters for the history of humanity, want to give us?
- Moses, the greatest liberator of the Jewish people, lawmaker and prophet of Israel, married Tzipora, a non-Jewish, a Midianite, daughter of a priest from another religion. He had one child with her.
Miriam, Moses’ sister lamented at that interfaith marriage, that was why God punished her making her ill with leprosy.
Thanks to that interfaith marriage Moses was able to perform his liberating exploit of the Jewish people, because he had the valuable advise of his father-in-law, who was very wise and expert in religious matters.
After leaving Egypt God appointed him as the maximal authority to organize the Jewish judges’ system.
Believers must wonder, What message does God, who permitted or promoted that Moses, the greatest Jewish leader of all times, does not marry a Jewish as he could have done, formed an interfaith marriage, where God gave him in his father-in-law the help to perform his mission, want to give us?
- Queen Esther, very remembered and praised each year on the holiday of Purim, because she saved the Jewish people from death, leaves another message from God of acceptance of interfaith marriages, since God wanted the Jewish people to be saved thanks to the fact that she formed an interfaith couple, with the non-Jewish Persian King Ajashverosh, whom she married.
That King, in order to form with her an interfaith couple, listened to and accepted his request to save the Jewish people while others had prepared his bloody extermination.
Believers must wonder, What message does God, who permitted or promoted that it is again an interfaith marriage that generates a contribution of vital significance in the history of the Jewish people, want to give us?
- All these stories are set forth in the holy books with true parts of history, but when it is taught about them the aspects related to interfaith marriages are not emphasized, although they played decisive role in the events.
Today, interfaith marriages, from interfaith marriages’ view, rescue what has been silenced.
To believers and non-believers,
What an extraordinary lesson we find in these texts! About not discriminating the other because he comes from another religion, and about the capacity that we have to contribute to humanity when we add the differences in order to build, which in these parts of history are symbolized in the interfaith marriages’ contributions to the world.
What a powerful teaching to promote the interfaith dialogue!
In spite of the evidence mentioned, the Rabbis say that God does not want interfaith marriages to be formed because he forbids them in text 7:3 of the Deuteronomy, which they construe in a mistaken and deliberately distorted way. In order to understand it properly let us see the historical context in which it is presented.
DEUTERONOMY
7:1 When Jehovah your God brings you into the land you will enter to posess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you,
7:2 and Jehovah your God delivers them before you, and you beat them, you shall completely destroy them; you shall make no alliance with them, nor shall you have mercy on them.
7:3 Nor shall you make marriages with them; you shall not give your daughter to their son, nor shall you take their daughter for your son.
7:4 For they will turn away your son from following me, and they will serve different gods; and the anger of Jehovah will kindle against you, and he will destroy you suddenly.
7:5 But thus shall you deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their statues, and cut down their images of Asherah, and burn their sculptures in fire.
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Analysis: It is clear that what is intended is to go to war and destroy 7 peoples who lived in the region. Thus it is logical to expect that those peoples hate the Jews, a reason why it was suitable, as a political and military action, to prevent the integration into the Jewish of people who would be furious enemies. Therefore it is understood that under those special historical circumstances couple relatonships with members of those seven enemy peoples who lived in the same geographical region are forbidden.
It is clear in the text that God never says that forming couples with members of peoples other than these seven with which they are at war, is also forbidden, nor does God say that the prohibition is for every time. The prohibition refers only to those seven peoples and it is in effect only for those years.
There are sites on Internet and books that set forth arguments against the interfaith marriages with a Jewish member, generally written by orthodox Rabbis, additionally to the concepts about: the Jewish’ special soul, item 7:3 of the Deuteronomy, and the fear that they put the people’s survival at risk, they say that the interfaith marriages create great couple conflicts, that their children have problems in their development, etc., Naum Kliksberg is preparing a book that answers each of those arguments, showing that today they are not in force, that the interfaith marriage with a Jewish member and its sons/daughters can be so happy as a non-interfaith marriage, and that in the current century it is indispensable to approach interfaith marriages and their sons/daughters to Judaism in order to avoid the demographical extinction and to achieve the development of the Jewish communities. The book will be set forth in chapters in the free Magazine that is offered at this site.
Each reader will be able to compare the arguments of the sites and the books against interfaith marriages, to Naum Kliksberg’s arguments, in that way he will be able to make his own evaluation and to draw his conclusions. Today there is no text, in any language, that gives that chance.
For interfaith marriages where there is no Jewish member, the information about this comparison of arguments will also be of great use, since they will find many elements applicable to their situation.
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(4) The psychological fantasy of a pure race is absurd, because throughout its history, not only individuals, but also great human groups have joined the Jewish people, let us see some examples:
- When the Jews, led by Moses, were liberated from Egyptian slavery, a great number of non-Jewish accompanied them who later incorporated to the Jewish people.
- In the ancient world slaves were usually forced to accept their masters’ religion. The same happened that the rich Jews had.
- Between the eighth and the tenth centuries of the Christian era, the King of the Cuzares and his subjects, massively adopted the Jewish religion. In the thirteenth century Genghis Khan, leader of the Mongols, defeated the Jewish Cuzares, who fled and arrived as refugees in Russia, they interspersed with the Ashkenazi Jewish communities, established in Kiev, they spread throughout the Russian territory in general. For that reason most of the Ashkenazi Jewish of today descend from the Cuzares.
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