Does this still make me technically Jewish?
Question: I was talking to my mom,, and we got into discussing religion.
She was raised super Catholic, but apparently my dad made the family convert to Judaism a year BEFORE I was born.
She said it was his idea, because he thought being Jewish would open up "career options & chances to network"!
(Yes, I know dad's a selfish racist moron, I don't talk to him).
The actually conversion was done by Conservative stream rabbis, she said it took about a year to complete..And they practiced for a few years after my birth.
Answer:
by Jewish law, if your mother is Jewish, you are Jewish.
Judiasm is really three things. It's a religion, a culture, and your ancestry. So- it sounds like you really have none of the above. So- like the rest of us, you can be whatever you want to be.
Oh- How did that networking thing work out for dad?
It would just be a label. If you want to call yourself Jewish, call your self Jewish.
You were born to a Jewish mother. That makes you Jewish. But how were you raised? Were you baptised and confirmed? Of course even if you were not you can convert back to your mother's origanal Catholisism.
Being Jewish is just as much cultural as religious. Technically yes, if your parents converted you're Jewish. The only real question however is YOUR opinion. If you identify yourself as being Jewish, you are. If you decide NOT to be, you're not. Like many things, your religion is a state of mind, not blood.
If you have a relationship with God you will know what your religion is. But don't ever tell anyone you talk to God
That depends on who you ask. Your Jewishness is dependent upon the validity of your mother's conversion. As I understand it, the Orthodox do not recognize Conservative or Reform conversions.
I recognize the above poster, Meg M, as a religious hoe.
that really depends on if your mother's conversion was valid or not, and from the sounds of it, it was not valid, due to the fact that your father manipulated her into it.
as well, since it was done through the conservative branch, traditional jews would not consider it valid even if your mother WAS sincere in her conversion.
you should probably talk to a rabbi in order to be sure. to be on the safe side, my guess is that he will probably ask you yourself to convert just to be certain things are all on the up and up.if you want to continue being a jew, that is.
JewishGirl's answer is quite correct. Forced conversions--which it sounds like your mother had--would not be likely recognized by any branch of Judaism, and the Orthodox movement does not recognize Conservative or Reform (or the other flavors like Renewal or Reconstructionist) conversions.
One other thing--Judaism is a religion, not a culture or an ethnicity or anything else. To the extent that Judaism has a culture, it's different for different regions where Judaism has flourished--Sephardic Jews, for example, would have a hard time understanding many Ashkenazi Jewish customs, foods, and even their pronunciation of Hebrew (well, they wouldn't really have a hard time but the pronunciation of some vowels and consonants is different).
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