Question about Kohanim halakha

[kyel]

If a non-jewish Cohen with a Jewish Cohen father marries a Jewish women does the Cohen status transfer to the Jewish women's sons?


Non-Jewish Paternal Cohen + Jewish Women -- Is the child a Cohen?

[kyel]

What if a non-jewish cohen converts?

[muman613]

If a non-jewish Cohen with a Jewish Cohen father marries a Jewish women does the Cohen status transfer to the Jewish women's sons?


Non-Jewish Paternal Cohen + Jewish Women -- Is the child a Cohen?

I do not think so... How can a Cohen be non-Jewish? He loses his Kohen status when his father marries a non-Jew... Kohens actually have more prohibitions concerning their wives (a Kohen may not marry a divorcee, he may not marry a widow, he may not marry a convert, etc.)

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/468267/jewish/Kohen-Marriages.htm


A kohen may not marry a ge’rusha (divorcee), chalalah (woman of defective kohen status), zonah (woman who previously violated certain sexual prohibitions), giyoret (convert) or chalutzah (a Levirate widow). If he does marry any of them, their children likewise become chalalim. Sons born do not have priestly status, and daughter may not marry kohanim.

The law of the kohen is essentially concerned with the pure status of the sons. The children follow the status of the father in terms of "tribe"—kohen, levi, or Israelite—unlike the determination of Jew or non-Jew, which follows the mother. The son, then, inherits the kohen status and bequeaths it in turn to his son. The offspring of a marriage between an Israelite male and a kohen’s daughter would be an Israelite and not a kohen. The reference in the Bible is to be’nei Aharon, the sons of Aaron. Therefore, a kohen daughter may marry any of those prohibited strictly to the kohen; she is subject solely to the laws that inform all Jewish marriages.

Divorcee (Ge’rushah)

The kohen may not marry a divorcee, regardless of the cause of the divorce, the circumstances, or the duration of the previous marriage. If a Jewish divorce was issued for any reason, even though the couple never lived together as man and wife, she may not be married to the kohen. This is true even if a divorce was not biblically necessary, but was required by the Rabbis to prevent public misconception. The issuance of a divorce always precludes marriage to a kohen. While it is a virtue for an Israelite to remarry the wife he divorced (if she had not married another man in the meantime), the kohen may not even remarry his own wife.

If the kohen marries a divorcee despite the restrictions, he has violated the law and is under constant obligation to terminate the marriage even though it is technically valid. Any offspring of the marriage are chalal, of defective kohen status. If the child is a girl, she is not permitted to marry a kohen; if it is a boy, he is prohibited from functioning as a kohen. The kohen’s wife becomes a chalalah as well. If he married a divorcee who was already pregnant, her child is not a chalal, regardless of who the father was. Since she was not married at the time, the child was not conceived in sin (lo ba mi-tipat aveirah).

Levirate Widow (Chalutzah)

The Levirate marriage is commanded by the Torah for widows whose late husband was childless. The husband’s brother is required to marry her in order to perpetuate the family of his late brother. In later years, however, the Rabbis saw this as a negative factor and required the ceremony of chalitzah to terminate the requisite marriage to her brother-in-law.

A rabbinic dictum holds that chalitzah is similar to divorce in regard to a kohen marriage, hence a chalutzah is not permitted to marry a kohen.

If a widow who is a doubtful chalutzah marries a kohen, no defect is ascribed to their children. Because it was a rabbinic decree and she is only technically a doubtful chalutzah, her offspring are considered full-fledged kohanim and no divorce is necessary.

Defective Kohen Status (Chalalah)

Chalalah is defined as a defect resulting solely from a specifically kohen violation. It pertains either to the offspring of a prohibited kohen marriage, or to a woman permitted to marry an Israelite but not a kohen, and who has married the kohen in disregard of the law. Technically, it signifies one who is "profaned" from the priesthood.

If the male offspring of the prohibited kohen marriage (the chalal) marries an Israelite woman, she becomes a chalalah. Thus the chalal male offspring continues to pass on the defective kohen status. The female offspring, when marrying Israelites, terminate the defective status. The children of that marriage may marry kohanim because the children follow the father’s lineage.

The kohen himself cannot have his priesthood removed. If he terminates the prohibited marriage, by death or divorce, he may resume his kohen privileges. There is no such thing as the "defrocking" of a kohen.

Zonah

A zonah is a woman who has had incestuous or adulterous relationships, or has had sexual relations with a non-Jew.

In the Halakhah, a zonah is simply one who enters into a sinful union. It is not like the sinful union of the chalalah which violates the specific kohen legislation, but one which violates the basic moral prohibitions (general illicit relations) that apply to all Jews.

There are two schools of thought as to which illicit unions are included under this term. Maimonides, Rashi, Rashba and others hold that all biblically-prohibited unions render the woman a zonah. These prohibitions include those which violate general negative laws (chayyvei lav) such as marriage to a mamzer; violations of positive laws, such as marriage to a Moabite convert; transgressions of those laws that incur the punishment of death or excision, such as incestuous relations; or the marriage of a kohen to a widow who had been guilty of adultery. (An adulterous wife may marry another Israelite even after compulsory divorce from her husband or his death, but she may not marry a kohen.) Each of these women is considered a zonah. There are exceptions to this rule: Prohibited unions, such as those with an animal, are considered criminal and punishable by death, but they do not brand the participant as zonah in a way that would prevent her marriage to a kohen.

Another school of thought was that of the Tosafists, Raavad, Rosh and Tur. They held that only violations of prohibitions that incur death and excision, such as incest and adultery, brand a woman zonah. But violating general negative or positive commandments does not categorize the woman as zonah, although she is nonetheless prohibited from marrying the kohen. But if she is prohibited to a kohen, what difference does it make if she is technically a zonah or not? The answer is that the child of a zonah may not marry a kohen, while the child of a prohibited but non-zonah marriage may marry a kohen.

The following are additional instances of zonah: (I) A Levirate widow who marries without the necessary chalitzah is considered a zonah, since her marriage was not valid, and she may not marry a kohen. (2) A woman, divorced from her husband, who marries another man who then dies or divorces her, and she subsequently remarries her first husband. She has violated a biblical law but she is not a zonah, and her child is permitted to marry a kohen. (3) A woman who has committed secondary (rabbinically-legislated) incest is not a zonah, and she is biblically permitted to marry a kohen.

Female Convert (Giyoret)

Converts, because they come from diverse cultures, are all classed in the category of statutory zonah. This is no reflection whatsoever upon the integrity of the convert; on the contrary, righteous converts were held in great personal esteem. But the law had to pronounce on converts as a group, because no investigation could prove totally reliable. Also, one must remember that the boundaries of the zonah category were not those of the harlot, but were related to the peculiar kohen requirements.

The codifiers disagree as to whether the classification of giyoret as zonah is biblical or rabbinic. Indeed, according to Raavad, it reflects only the kohen’s concern with the purity of his lineage. Thus a child of parents who were both converts before they married is technically permitted to marry a kohen because horatah ve’ledatah bi-kedushah (she was conceived and born in sanctity as a Jew). But the kohanim took upon themselves an extra stringency and did not permit it. The blemish here is not zonah, as one can become a zonah only as a consequence of a willful act—one is not born a zonah. It was then decided that the kohen should preferably not marry her but, having done so, he need not be compelled to divorce her. Such a marriage is legal and their child is not a chalal.

[muman613]

What if a non-jewish cohen converts?

Still not a Kohen...


A Kohen (Priest class of Israel) must be born of a Male Jewish Kohen and a wife which is permitted to a Kohen... Otherwise he is just a person named Cohen..

[kyel]

Still not a Kohen...


A Kohen (Priest class of Israel) must be born of a Male Jewish Kohen and a wife which is permitted to a Kohen... Otherwise he is just a person named Cohen..
[/quote)

Thank you. I figured it was that way. I can see how this can further confuse the cohen status since we can't tell who the real Cohens are at this time..

[edu]

If a Jewish man marries a non-Jewish woman, the child takes on the non-Jewish status of the mother.
In that situation we completely disregard the status of the father. That is to say the father can not confer his tribal or Cohen status to the child.

[Sveta]

Yes, I agree with Muman and Edu on the matter. A Jewish man who has a non-Jewish child with a Goya is as if he were not the father at all. 

If the child chooses to convert, he is not turned away because he is Zera Yisrael BUT upon completing the conversion, the child is still NOT the spiritual son of the Cohen, instead he becomes the spiritual son of Avraham Avinu. I guess legally, the child would inherit the father's "cohen" last name but would not be Halachicaly a Cohen, not even a Chalal Cohen.

[Binyamin Yisrael]

I do not think so... How can a Cohen be non-Jewish? He loses his Kohen status when his father marries a non-Jew... Kohens actually have more prohibitions concerning their wives (a Kohen may not marry a divorcee, he may not marry a widow, he may not marry a convert, etc.)

A Kohen CAN marry a widow. He can only not marry a divorcee or a woman who lived with a goy as if they were married. Only the Kohen Gadol must marry a virgin.

[ChabadKahanist]

Actually I know of a case like this where a Cohen married a convert.
The cohen was a nephew of one of the gedolim.
To make a long story short Benny asked me if he was a Cohen I told him no & anyway I told the story to a cousin of his & the cousin laughed & said not a Cohen & not even a Jew has mother had a reform conversion.
I figured something was fishy because no orthodox rabbi would marry a cohen to a convert & the cousin conformed my suspicions .

[Sveta]

I know cases where a Cohen falls in love with a giyores and is unable to marry, but then finds out a deep family secret that he is actually a disqualified Cohen and can marry her. Two cases I know of.

On the other hand, I know of a case where a Cohen in Israel was denied marriage to an Ethiopian Jewish lady because of the question about her giur le'chumrah. In the end, he was allowed to marry her legally in Israel because she is an Ethiopian Jew. I'm not sure if their sons would be Kohanim.

On the other hand, the actor Sasha Baron-Cohen married a supposed "giyores" actress who supposedly did a very public conversion and they did a very public marriage.