Naomi@ You ought to have a bible stuty
Who is a Jew? is a question has was made prominent in the public press. From what has been published one thing is certain, and that is that neither the Jews in Israel nor the Jews scattered abroad are agreed on who is a Jew.
What started all the heated discussion was a verdict by the Israeli Supreme Court. In a 5-to-4 decision it held, in effect, that anyone was a Jew who claimed to be a Jew, even though he was an atheist and not born of a Jewish mother. However, Orthodox Jewry maintains that Jewish religion and nationality are inseparable. Because of the uproar that this verdict created in Israel a proposition was placed before the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, that the definition of Jewishness in the Halakah, the body of Jewish religious law, be henceforth declared the only legal one. The Halakah defines a Jew as one born of a Jewish mother or a convert to Judaism. This was made law on March 10, 1970.
Even today as the Jews in Israel are divided over this question, so are Jews in other lands. America’s largest Orthodox rabbinic body condemned the position taken by the Israeli Supreme Court. According to them, “without religious cohesiveness, the unifying bond of Jewish peoplehood will be diluted irreparably.”
So neither the Jews in Israel nor the Jews outside of Israel can agree on who is a Jew, where can we find a satisfactory answer? In God Word, the Bible, which contains the early history of the Jews. It tells us first of all that Abraham was a Hebrew. (Gen. 14:13)
All the descendants of his son Isaac also came to be known as Hebrews. Those who sprang from the family of Jacob or Israel, Abraham’s grandson, were also known as Israelites. So where does the name “Jew” come in?—Gen. 32:28; Ex. 9:7.So Naomi when you find that out, you know what Jew within the meaning of scriptures.