There is something that I want to say, but it's hard for me to articulate. Maybe I haven't thought it through enough myself yet. But I'll make a first attempt.
There is something suspect, too contemporary and leftist, in the current propensity toward "culturalism" and anti-racial-solidarity and affinity mentality. It is not a matter of principle, but one of degree. I think that the pendulum has swung too far. It should return to somewhere closer to the middle.
Nobody argues that Judaism is a religion. Granted. But it is a religion grafted onto a specific tribe connected by blood ties - the tribe that has not lost its racial, blood-related continuity since ancient times. Looking at Jewish faces is strong enough evidence. But today's DNA studies provide irrefutable evidence that Jews are related and form an ethnic group.
Now, I wholeheartedly agree with the possibility open to non-Jews to be converted to Judaism. Surely, if a family can adopt a child, who is not blood-related to them, then a national family should be able to accept new members, just as nation states give new citizenships to foreigners. But these conversions should be done on an individual basis. Orthodox Rabbis should make it difficult to convert (which they do today, as I understand). The convertee must be "tested," as it were. The Rabbi should make sure that this person really wants to convert, that he is a Gentile born with the Jewish soul. The rabbi should first say "no" several times and then agree reluctantly (which they also do, as I understand). As far as I know, Orthodox conversions take between 6 and 10 years. And that is as should be!
Who are these Ethiopians? Who converted them en masse? Rabbi Miller is asking these questions. His doubts are warranted, it seems to me. Genetic studies show that Ethiopian Jews are not as closely related to the Jewish genotype as the Ashkenazi and Sefardic Jews between themselves.
Should their Jewishness be recognized? I don't know, I am not a Rabbi. But I am concerned about the hysterical reaction to this Rabbi's comment. I have often noticed that it is people of mixed blood who become bent out of shape at every mention of ethnicity and blood ties. This is a very modern attitude, and I don't like it. And this will happen more and more if nations become more and more mixed. I think we should find a golden middle.
And finally, I find such vehement insistence on the "proposition nation" aspect of Judaism personally threatening to my sense of identity. If everybody is a Jew, then who am I? Chopped liver? If my uninterrupted lineage from Abraham-Isaac-Jacob doesn't matter, if there is no name for who I am and how I feel towards people who look like me and share my genetic heritage, then I am a non-person, a non-entity. No, I insist that a Jew is as much of an ethnic designation as it is a religious one, and I insist that my ethnicity matters! It was very heartening to find that a real Orthodox Rabbi feels similarly. We are barraged today with liberal and politically correct rabbinical opinions. Thank G-d, there are dissenters!
Topic: Rebbe warned about the Ethiopians (Read 16550 times)