r/JewsOfConscience • u/AutoModerator • 1d ago

Discussion r/JewsOfConscience Free Discussion Thread

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This is our weekly 'Free Discussion' thread, where you can discuss anything. Tentatively this includes meta-topics as well, but as always our rules still apply.

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u/EntertainmentDry4360 Non-Jewish Ally 1d ago

It was confirmed recently by 23& me that at least one of my dad's grandparents was Ashkenazi Jewish. We have an 100+ year old baptismal certificate that is dated from when they were an adult but I had originally thought they might have just been a German Protestant marrying into a hardcore Irish Catholic family.

Is there a way to reconnect with this heritage without a full conversion?

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u/BolesCW Mizrahi 1d ago

Jewish affiliation is matrilineal. The parts of the Jewish world that accept patrilineal descent are clear that the home must have a consistent level of observing Jewish ritual and tradition. You need to go through a formal conversion if you want to be accepted as a Jew; vague ancestry determined by a percentage of similarity to others in a proprietary database is definitely not enough.

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u/EntertainmentDry4360 Non-Jewish Ally 1d ago edited 1d ago

You know that this great grandparent never asked my opinion on their conversion, right?

Also just saying, my fathers grandparent's birth religion would have been enough for many antisemitic regimes to have targeted him in the past.

"Vague ancestry " lol bruh I have their adult baptismal certificate issued in NYC. This isn't Cherokee princess grandma nonsense, this a traceable person who definitely existed.

I literally said this is my heritage, I'm not planning on going to Israel or being a rabbi.