What Is a Jew?

Your son's son, whose mother is a

stranger, is not your son. Your daughter's son, whose father is a

stranger, is your son.

--The Talmud

In the week when the rest of the Middle East was concerned with the question "What is an Arab?", Premier David Ben-Gurion's government faced a worrisome vote of confidence on the question "What is a Jew?" For thousands of years Jews have generally interpreted the Talmud to mean that only the offspring of a Jewish mother can be a Jew, and the orthodox consider the matter settled. But for the last four months the question "What is a Jew?" has been hotly debated in Israel.

The trouble started when Premier David Ben-Gurion's government announced that anyone may claim Jewish nationality, and be called a Jew on his identification card, who declares "in good faith" that he is a Jew and professes no other religion. Children, said the government, could be registered as Jews if both parents wished it, even if the mother was an unconverted gentile.

Outraged by this secular trespass on rabbinical authority, and fearful lest the new policy encourage "mixed" marriages, two orthodox members of Ben-Gurion's Cabinet resigned. Last week the National Religious Party introduced a motion of noconfidence. "We can retreat from the peninsula of Sinai," said one leader, "but not from the law of Sinai." Ben-Gurion won the vote of confidence, 60 to 41.

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