Who Is a Jew?

An Introduction to a Complex Question (Introduction to Judaism Series, Book 3)

De: Rabbi Juan Bejarano-Gutierrez

Narrado por: Sam Rosenthal

Jewish identity is complicated because it entails religious, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and national components. Each of these contributes to the identity of who is a Jew. This book surveys biblical and rabbinic views on what constitutes Jewish identity within traditional Judaism but also reviews the positions of Reform and Conservative Judaism.

This book also discusses the problem of conversion to Judaism and the case of apostasy. Both of these issues have far reaching impact for American Jews as well as Jewish communities throughout the world.

©2016 Juan Marcos Gutierrez (P)2020 Juan Marcos Gutierrez

the depth of the subject

I learned a vast amount of usable knowledge that will help me in my own conversion.

Focused too much on Orthodox Judaism

While I realize that this topic is of greatest concern to the Orthodox community, which actively seeks to exclude non-Orthodox Jews, non-matrilineal Jews, and non-Orthodox Jews (e.g., Reform Jews) from Jewish identity to preserve a matrilineal bloodline, this treatment of the subject could really have benefited from additional perspectives from non-Orthodox Jews. Especially since many of us, non-Orthodox Jews consider the matrilineal bloodline as the determinant o Jewish identity as antiquated and uncomfortably approaching eugenic, which all Jews suffered from at the hands of the Nazis.