Pledges of Jewish Allegiance: Conversion, Law, and by David Ellenson, Daniel Gordis

By David Ellenson, Daniel Gordis

Since the overdue 1700s, whilst the Jewish group ceased to be a semiautonomous political unit in Western Europe and the USA and person Jews grew to become integrated—culturally, socially, and politically—into broader society, questions surrounding Jewish prestige and id have occupied a favorite and contentious position in Jewish criminal discourse. This booklet examines a wide range of felony critiques written through 19th- and twentieth-century orthodox rabbis in Europe, the U.S., and Israel. It argues that those rabbis' divergent positions—based at the related criminal precedents—demonstrate that they have been doing greater than offering felony evaluations. in its place, they have been crafting public coverage for Jewish society in line with Jews' social and political interactions as equals with the non-Jewish folks in whose midst they dwelled.

Pledges of Jewish Allegiance prefaces its research of contemporary critiques with a dialogue of the classical Jewish assets upon which they draw.

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Additional info for Pledges of Jewish Allegiance: Conversion, Law, and Policymaking in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Orthodox Responsa

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If he replies, “I know and yet I am unworthy,” he is accepted immediately and is given instruction in some of the minor and some of the major commandments. He is informed of the sin [of the neglect of the agricultural commandments of] Gleanings, the Forgotten Sheaf, the Corner, and the Poor Man’s Tithe. He is also told of the punishment for the transgression of the commandments. ” And as he is informed of the punishment for the transgression of the commandments, so is he informed of the reward granted for their fulfillment.

57 Immediately thereafter, Maimonides quotes the well-known elements of the ceremony as described in Yevamot, including the details of some commandments, their rewards and punishments, the same four agricultural laws, and so on. From the Mishneh Torah, it would appear that Maimonides follows the second of the three positions outlined above. The intentions of the convert are not irrelevant (except in the case of Solomon cited above, where the conversions were apparently sham), but neither are they sufficiently critical to invalidate the conversion retroactively.

After all, his mother was a Gentile and his father nonobservant. Even if the mother were to convert, there was virtually no possibility that such people would give their son a proper Jewish education and establish a household where the boy would be brought up to observe the commandments. Hirsch stated that if the baby were to be circumcised ritually and immersed for the sake of conversion, the baby would be burdened with obligations that he would have no need to fulfill as long as he was a Gentile.

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