csds703 said:
This is interesting to me. I know someone who was born jewish. When he got married he converted to catholicism, even became a deacon. Anyway, years later he divorced and decided to become jewish again, and according to jewish law his conversion was never recognized because they consider you to be whatever your mother is.
That is not totally correct. A Jew is any person whose mother was a Jew or any person who has gone through the formal process of conversion to Judaism. Judaism does not seek out converts, and actively discourages converts (because a person does not need to be a Jew to be righteous in G-d's eyes), but conversion to Judaism is possible.
And contrary to what most believe, being a Jew is not a religion, it is WHO you are, period. Even though he practised another faith for a time, he was still a Jew because he was born one. You can not seperate being a Jew from the religion, it just is. If you switch from Judaism to another religion, you are still a Jew, move to another country, yep, a Jew, change your hair color and your name...you got it, a Jew. You can not change a birthright.
Traditional Judaism maintains that a person is a Jew if his mother is a Jew, regardless of who his father is. The liberal movements, on the other hand, consider a person to be Jewish if either of his parents was Jewish and the child was raised Jewish.
Regarding conversion, the more traditional movements do not always acknowledge the validity of conversions by the more liberal movements. The more modern movements do not always follow the procedures required by the more traditional movements, thereby invalidating the conversion.
He may well have been in a position where a traditional movement was the only presence during his conversion. Though I have no idea why they would think it was not valid if he was born a Jew. A convert is just as much a Jew as a person born one. That's sorta like saying he's a Jew Jew, redundant lol
But even if he wasn't 'born' as in his mother wasn't one, his conversion stands if you are in a liberal movement and in most traditional movements. Like everywhere else, there are different degrees in every movement of every religion. You need not please them all.
