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From: wkp@lanl.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Hypocrisy--or, who is a mamzer?
Message-ID: <22536@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 28-Feb-85 00:25:36 EST
Article-I.D.: lanl.22536
Posted: Thu Feb 28 00:25:36 1985
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Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
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[ARI GROSS:]               
>There is little in the way of Jewish scholarship
>among Ethiopian Jews (very few can read Hebrew). In the absence of
>Jewish scholars or those who knew halacha, can we assume that their
>marriages, divorces, etc, had religious validity to them? This is
>a serious problem for all Jews in Israel who want to make sure that
>there are uniform standards for ascertaining who is a Jew and who is
>not; to make a dichotomy between Zionist and anti-Zionist is really
>rather absurd. 

Ari, you miss the point.  [And by the way, calling my statements about the
Ultra-Orthodox "anti-semitic" is an obscene thing to do, but I will
follow Baruch's suggestions and think about Ahavat Yisrael and Derech Eretz
before I get angry.]      

My thesis is that THE ULTRA-ORTHODOX AUTHORITIES ARE BEING RACIST IN THEIR 
VIEW OF THE ETHIOPIANS.  Note I said "ultra-orthodox" since all kipa siruga
Jews (knitted kipa) and many other pro-Zionist orthodox elements in Israel
VIEW THE ETHIOPIANS AS JEWS.

I base my judgements on two simple examples:

1.  There are many Jewish men in this world who have not had a valid
    Brit Milah.  When my son Yonatan was born, I had an orthodox mohel
    flown in from Denver to perform the rites.  From my experience in
    living in Chicago, California, and New Mexico, most other Jews still have
    circumcisions done by gentile doctors in hospitals, i.e., non-kosher.

    To be consistent, I would assume that these same authorities (who surely
    know of this problem) would call for an "insurance Brit Milah" for all
    Jewish Americans.  Why haven't they done so, Mr. Gross?  And why do they
    pick on the Ethiopians?

2.  Why haven't these same authorities begun an anti-Mamzer campaign?
    Since most Jews today are born of parents not observing Taharat
    haMashpichah, they are technically mamzerim.  Still and all, orthodox
    rabbis marry these people to other Jewish people, even though such
    marriages are illegal.  To be consistent, all orthodox rabbis should
    check on the mikveh attendance of the parents of the engaged couple.
    If this is impossible, they should perform a token giyyur on ALL JEWS
    wishing to get married.

This is what needs to be done for me to agree that the Ethiopians are not being
specifically singled out for special discrimination.   Until such time, I will
refuse to judge other Jews by their lack of religiousness or Jewish education,
something that Messrs. Gross and Samet have shown themselves unwilling to do.
--
bill peter
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