Jewish Lineage

My father is Jewish and mother is Christian. I was raised Jewish. Taken to temple and had my bar mitzvah. Recently I was told by another Jewish person I am not Jewish because of my mother. I am interested in your prospective ty Rabbi

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. That's all that halacha cares about.

Allow me to share with you some of the 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