From First Things.
Alarming link of the week- The British Supreme Court has ruled that preferential enrollment in Jewish schools for Jewish children is racist. An Orthodox Jewish day school in England was sued for denying enrollment to the child of a woman who converted to Judaism in a "progressive synagogue" who did not fit their criteria for conversion. The ruling effectively makes it impossible for Jewish law, which traces descent matrilinealy, unable to determine who is considered Jewish in a legal sense. Jewish schools will now have create other criteria than religious law which has been in place for some 3,500 years to determine the legal status of Jews; essentially a "non-Jewish definition of who is Jewish."
Bad stuff in Britain. The Catholic Church there has been pretty vocal in their support for the Jewish position; the Anglicans have been said to remain "smugly silent", which seems unfair, I doubt Rowan Williams sat around suppressing a smirk as he resolved not to speak out on the travails of Jewish day schools, but I really don't know. The law may be changed in the future, but in the meantime it makes things very difficult for the Jewish community. It would be nice to see common-sense prevail here, but that's probably a bit too much to ask.
I'm not sure where the line is being drawn here between the Jewish race and the Jewish religion. If it is only based on being a Jew by birth and not be faith, the government might have a more appropriate reason for getting involved.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it seems here that the criteria used to judge the "Jewishness" of somebody in terms of faith is no longer of the Jews. Sure, there could be Jews who are a part of the British Supreme Court, but any kind of judiciary residing over the Jews on the matter of religion seems like it should come from the Jews. I'm not sure how a government can concurrently remain secular and dictate matters of religion (other than abstaining from religion).
Whether this "Jewishness" is secularized, or the government gets religious, the Jewish faith cannot be dissected from association with the divine. It intrinsically cannot be secularized.
This post is reminds me of the Church and homosexual marriage. Regardless of whether or not correct Church practice is involved, marriage is an institution of the Church and should be in submission to the Church. It's a little bit hairier now though since 'marriage' also acts as an institution granted by the government, whether or not the act be ascribed to "Holy Matrimony". If we're arguing semantics, it seems like the Church would have first dibs.
Yeah, I think part of the problem is Judaism is very much centered on a specific ethnic group. Dr. Isbell, one of my old profs at LSU and a rabbi used to say that Judaism is not so much a religion as it is a civilization. The roots of alot of anti-Semitism is the how unassimilatable the Jewish religion and race seems to be. As you said they cannot be secularized, hence the Nazi's "judenfrage".
ReplyDeleteAs to marriage, I agree that the question of Christian marriage is one to be determined by the Christian Church. When it comes to civil unions the question gets more difficult. My problem with much of the rhetoric that comes out of pulpits is that it credits the state with power it cannot have, "preserving the sanctity of marriage". The reason marriage is performed in the church before witnesses is that marriage calls upon others members of the Body to provide accountability and even help preserve the marriage which has been sanctified by God. So whether or not the state definition of marriage lines up with the Church is irrelevant to whether or not the marriage is sanctified.