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From: segs@mhuxv.UUCP (slusky)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Simple Questions
Message-ID: <178@mhuxv.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Sep-84 10:45:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxv.178
Posted: Mon Sep 24 10:45:14 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Sep-84 08:18:27 EDT
References: <452@houxu.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 30

> As a non-Jew observing this debate on who is Jewish, I have some simple
> questions:
> 
> 	Who were the first Jews?  
> 	
> 	Were Adam and Eve Jews?  
> 	
> 	If Eve is a Jew then by Jewish law aren't we all Jews?
> 
> 
> 						Larry Welsch
> 						houxu!welsch


Sarah and Avraham were the first Jews.
Sarah and Avraham's son Yitzchok (Isaac) married his cousin
Rivkah (Rebekkah) who accepted Judaism in some poorly defined way.
Rivkah and Yitzchok's son Yaakov (Jacob) married his cousins Rachel
and Leah who also accepted Judaism as above.
Rivkah and Yitzchok's other son Esau rejected Judaism.
The decendants of Yaakov by Leah, Rachel and their "handmaidens"
are Jews. 
The insistance on Judaism being passed by the mother as well as
more formal conversion procedures are products of a later age.
However, Avraham's son Ishmael, whose mother was not Sarah but Hagar,
was not Jewish. 
This serves as part of the basis for insisting on matrilineal
religious determination.
-- 
mhuxv!segs