Religion
Related: About this forumAre We Jews by Choice or Blood?
Judaism As Free-for-All Should Be What We Want
By Leonard Fein
Published January 14, 2013, issue of January 18, 2013.
Back when he was Israels Minister of Justice, the irrepressible and ever-creative Yossi Beilin put forward a proposal for secular conversion to Judaism. As he explained, It is simply unimaginable that in the 21st century, a time in which most of world Jewry is not religious, we should continue to grant certain religious establishments the right to define who is a Jew.
Beilins argument was straightforward: Why is someone like me allowed to be an agnostic Jew while a convert to Judaism is not? Why must a non-Jewish atheist or agnostic go to a rabbi in order to become a Jewish atheist or agnostic?
Or, more elaborately, We must
give people
who wish to be identified as Jews the right to join the Jewish people on the basis of their own self-definition. I envision a situation where a non-Jew who does not claim membership in another religion turns to the local Jewish community and asks to be registered as a community member. The community would ask for references from two Jewish community members, as is customary upon joining certain movements or clubs.
Once the community is convinced that the reasons for joining are pure and that the motivation is straightforward, it would register this new Jew within its ranks without providing her or him with a religious ceremony. If the new member later chooses to marry within a Reform context, the Reform movement would require a Reform conversion; similarly the Conservative and Orthodox movements. The new Jew would then decide whether to undergo that procedure. From the standpoint of the Jewish community, however, the individual would be considered a Jew based on self-definition.
http://forward.com/articles/169208/are-we-jews-by-choice-or-blood/
elleng
(131,107 posts)And then/now/anyway, let's STOP making people/families pay exorbitant fees to attend synagog, no doubt one of the reasons our numbers are decreasing.
Phillip McCleod
(1,837 posts)which rests too heavily on ethnicity.
too often we on the u.s. left fail to recognize the political diveristy of israel and the the obstacles which leftists face there. its a distraction maybe to keep u.s./israeli progressives from ganging up on the poor persecuted fundamentalists in each respective nation.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)When they meet other like-minded (but ever-so-slightly different) fundamentalists, all hell breaks loose. Keep them away from government, please.
Phillip McCleod
(1,837 posts)if a majority of the populace are fundamentalists then lacking a strong wall of separation theocracy can happen. israel in particular has a more direct democracy than the u.s. so the whims of the mob rule diplomacy making progress almost impossible. we are lucky to have a republic, if we can keep it.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)moves towards theocracy, and a very conservative one at that.
Phillip McCleod
(1,837 posts)just saying that democracy is no safeguard against theocracy and that the israel progressives are outnumbered but do exist and are every bit as liberal as you or me. there but for the wall of separation goes the usa.