Am I Jewish?
Question
Shalom, I found out about 3 years ago after my grandmother died she was secretly Jewish, but she’s my father’s mother. Even if that’s so I still feel Jewish, and I also do the best I can to do Jewish things. My friends and family consider me Jewish except my dad, who doesn’t even consider himself Jewish despite proof of it. Even if through Jewish law I’m not considered Jewish, can I say I am?
Answer
Shalom!
Thank you for your question.
One whose mother is Jewish, is also Jewish. One whose mother is not Jewish, is not Jewish even if the father is Jewish. Therefore, one who can trace one’s lineage back through Jewish women is Jewish no matter what religion these people did or did not practice. You are either Jewish or your not. That's all that halacha cares about. As such, it appears that you are not Jewish.
There are a number of sources that point to matrilineal lineage as being the determining factor if one is Jewish.
One source for this is the Mishna which clearly sates (Kiddushin 66b) that if the mother is not Jewish then the offspring is not Jewish. The Talmud (Kiddushin 68b) cites a verse to prove this “And you shall not marry with the non-Jews. Do not give your daughters to his sons; and do not take his daughters for your sons. For he will turn your son away from me and they will worship other gods” (Deut. 7:1-5). The Talmud elaborates on how this verse proves that lineage is determined by the mother.
There is another source cited to prove linage follows the mother. There is a verse in the Torah that states, “The son of an Israelite woman…who was the son of an Egyptian man” (Leviticus 24:10). The Torah tells us that even though his father wasn’t Jewish he was still “a member of the community of Israel” implying that lineage follows the mother.
In the book of Ezra we also find support for matrilineal descent. Regarding the Jews who returned from the Babylonian exile it says, “We have sinned against our God and have taken foreign wives of the people of the land….Let us make a covenant with our God to send away all the foreign wives and those who were born from them… let it be done according to the law” (Ezra 10:2-3). Here we see that the children of the “foreign wives” were “foreign” as well.
There are other sources, as well. I trust that this suffices.