r/JewsOfConscience • u/AutoModerator • 2d 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 2d 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/PlinyToTrajan Non-Jewish Ally (Jewish ancestry & relatives) 1d ago

But the question was about reconnecting with heritage, not about becoming a Jew.