Thus, the question continues to rise: "How can one know if a person is Jewish or not?" The Israeli Knesset and court system must decide who does or does not receive Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return. Likewise, for the Messianic Jew, there are numerous commands in Scripture to treat Jews differently than non-Jews. For example, "the Gospel....to the Jew first and foremost."
At the time of Yom Kippur, the Jewish New Year, it is read out of the Torah:
Atem nitzavim, You are standing here this day, all of you, before Adonai, your God -- your tribal chieftains, your elders and your officers, everyone in Israel, men, women and children, and the strangers in your camp -- from the woodcutter to the water carrier -- to enter into the sworn covenant which Adonai your God makes with you this day."
In his controversial book The Vanishing Jew, Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz we must accept the reality of intermarriage, but not fear that these marriages will necessarily lead to total assimilation. In order to stem that tide it will take a change in attitude toward mixed marriages and "toward the tribalism that has... characterized Jewish attitudes toward outsiders for...
For such a future, he states, "We will have to educate our children differently, allocate our charitable giving differently, select our leaders differently -- even define our very Jewishness differently...Theodor Herzl called for a new Jewish state. As we approach the close of this cataclysmic century, I believe we need a new Jewish state of mind if we are to define and ensure the Jewish future..." Dershowitz concludes that historically what has been "Jewish Law" has been an ever-changing phenomenon and hardly written in stone: "
The point is that change has been a dominant theme running through the history of Judaism, seen, for example, in patrilinial/matrilineal descent. This, I agree, is indeed the "historical basis" of Judaism. For three thousand years, despite its "tribal attitudes" as Dershowitz notes, Judaism has survived through cataclysmic situations because it has changed. The tree that moves with the wind is the one that will survive. It is not that Judaism should radically alter its basic tenets, but rather continue to evolve along with societal changes. Today, that means an emphasis on inclusion.
