Who counts as a Jew

What it is

"Who is a Jew" gets argued as theology and settled as paperwork. At least three different offices issue answers, and they do not agree.

The oldest answer comes from Jewish law. The Mishnah, in Kiddushin 3:12, sorts out how the status of a child is assigned when the parents' union is not a valid betrothal under Jewish law, and rules that where the mother cannot contract a betrothal with the father or with any other Jew, "the offspring is like her." ¹ That is the text rabbinic authorities read as the rule of matrilineal descent, and the case it addresses directly is the child of a gentile mother, who takes her status rather than the father's. ¹ A child born to a Jewish mother is Jewish. A child born to a Jewish father and a gentile mother is not, absent conversion. Conversion is the other way in, and nearly every modern fight over the definition is a fight about conversion.

The second answer is American and recent. In March 1983 the Reform movement declared that "a child born of one Jewish parent, whether it is the mother or the father, is under the presumption of being Jewish." ⁴ Under the resolution, birth alone does not settle it. The child has to establish Jewish identity through "appropriate and timely" public acts. ⁴ Reform justified the change partly on biblical precedent for patrilineal inheritance, pointing to figures like Joseph and Moses, who married outside Israelite lines. ⁴

The third answer belongs to a state, and it was written for immigration rather than for religion. The Law of Return, enacted July 5, 1950, says every Jew has the right to come to Israel as an oleh. ² For twenty years it did not define the noun. ² Amendment No. 2, passed March 10, 1970, added section 4B: a Jew is "a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion." ² The same amendment added section 4A, which extends the right of return to "a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew." ²

Two court cases pushed the Knesset into writing that down. In 1962 Oswald Rufeisen, known as Brother Daniel, born to a Jewish mother and by then a Carmelite monk, was denied citizenship under the Law of Return; the Supreme Court held he was not to be recognized as a Jew by the state. ³ Later, Benjamin Shalit, an Israeli atheist married to a non-Jewish Scottish woman, asked that his children be registered with Jewish nationality on their identity cards while leaving the religion field blank. The court ruled for him, and the backlash produced the 1970 amendment. ³ The amendment required conversion but never specified what kind of conversion counted. ³

Why it still matters

The whole dispute lives in that omission. Inside Israel, the Chief Rabbinate controls conversion and recognizes only Orthodox conversions performed there, even as courts have permitted non-Orthodox conversions to count for citizenship purposes. ³ Religious parties in the Knesset have repeatedly tried to amend the law so that only Orthodox conversion qualifies, and the Reform and Conservative movements in the United States have read those attempts as an effort to delegitimize them. ³

Both sides of this have a real case.

The traditional argument is about the value of a shared definition. Matrilineal descent has been the operative rule for most of recorded Jewish history, grounded in a text every stream of Judaism inherited. ¹ A criterion that any one movement can amend on its own stops functioning as a common standard, and the practical cost lands on marriage between communities, which then requires genealogical vetting instead of assumption.

The Reform argument is about arithmetic and about children. Among American Jews married in the past decade, 60% married a non-Jewish spouse, and among non-Orthodox Jews the figure is 72%. ⁶ A rule that treats a Jewish father as legally irrelevant writes off a large share of the households raising Jewish children, which is why the resolution set a standard of active identification rather than pure descent. ⁴

Pew counted roughly 5.8 million Jewish adults in the United States in its survey fielded from November 2019 to June 2020, of whom 37% identified as Reform, 17% Conservative, 9% Orthodox, and 32% with no particular branch. ⁶ The largest denomination in American Jewish life recognizes patrilineal Jews. ^{6 4} Israel's rabbinate does not. ³ Add that 27% of American Jewish adults are "Jews of no religion," a figure that reaches 40% among those under 30. ⁶

Israeli Jews are not of one mind either. Pew's face-to-face survey of 5,601 Israeli adults, including 3,789 Jews, conducted from October 2014 through May 2015, found the Jewish population splitting 49% hiloni, 29% masorti, 13% dati, and 9% haredi. ⁵ Among hilonim, 83% said being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry or culture; among haredim, 70% said it is mainly a matter of religion. ⁵ Asked whether halacha should be state law for Jews, 86% of haredim agreed and 90% of hilonim disagreed. ⁵ A majority of hilonim favored changing the law to let Reform and Conservative rabbis perform weddings. ⁵

Our view: the broad Law of Return is right, and section 4A's inclusion of grandchildren and spouses is the part of the statute doing the most good, because excluding anyone who isn't halachically airtight defeats the purpose of a refuge. ² The Chief Rabbinate's monopoly over conversion inside Israel is a separate question, and there we think the rabbinate is wrong. ³ A definition worth defending does not require that every rival conversion be void on arrival, and Israeli public opinion has not been on the rabbinate's side for a long time: 90% of hilonim, who are 49% of Israeli Jews, reject halacha as state law. ⁵

The words you'll hear

Matrilineal descent. The rule that Jewish status passes through the mother, read out of Mishnah Kiddushin 3:12, which holds that where the mother cannot contract a valid betrothal, "the offspring is like her." ¹

Patrilineal descent. The Reform movement's March 1983 position that a child of one Jewish parent of either sex is presumed Jewish, provided the identity is established through appropriate and timely public acts. ⁴

The Law of Return. Israel's 1950 statute granting every Jew the right to immigrate as an oleh, amended in 1970 to define a Jew as someone born of a Jewish mother or converted, and not a member of another religion. ²

The grandchild clause. Section 4A of the Law of Return, added in 1970, which extends immigration rights to the child and grandchild of a Jew and to their spouses. ²

Giyur. Conversion. The 1970 amendment requires it but never says which kind counts, which is why the Chief Rabbinate's recognition of only Orthodox conversions performed in Israel remains contested. ³

Hiloni, masorti, dati, haredi. The four self-descriptions Israeli Jews use, at 49%, 29%, 13%, and 9% of the Jewish population in Pew's 2014 to 2015 survey. ⁵

Jews of no religion. Pew's category for people who identify as Jewish ethnically, culturally, or by family background while describing themselves as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular; 27% of American Jewish adults. ⁶