Any Hebrew Catholics here?

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Please no one take any offense, but the only reason I asked if there were any Catholics of Jewish heritage here is to discuss issues peculiar to us.

I was raised a very Orthodox Jew (Chasidic, to be more precise), and after spending my formative years there and seeing and finding out so much that was disillusioning and disheartening, I just want to be a Catholic at this point…with no additives.

I am very interested in, in an historical way, the connections between ancient Judaism and the early Church, but apart from that, that’s just about it for me. After all, if I’d wanted to remain Jewish by religion, I would not have become Catholic, eh?
 
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I’m not offended. I created this thread though and my line of questioning is primarily about Catholics, both Jew and gentile, practicing Jewish traditions for a number of possible reasons.

I don’t think my being drawn to the beauty and presence of God thru Jewish traditions takes away from your heritage. Being Jewish isnt genetic, anyone can join the Jewish people thru conversion. Any gentile can be a noahide thru observance of the naohide laws and be a follower of Judaism without being a Jew. But that’s what the Rabbis say and we aren’t under their authority as Christains anyways.

Maybe it would help if shared my story of why I became drawn to judaism, then you’ll see it is a genuine calling to faith that is separate from cultural Judaism, which I respect but do not belong.

One of biggest moments of my life, my born again moment, was saying the Shema for the first time. I was a Buddhist and my teacher had passed away, I had hit bottom. I was looking for any kind of spirtual fix, anything. I found a YouTuber who was a NaNach Jew, he wore strange clothes and said even stranger things. But me taught he this mantra, the Shema. Its no mantra, the moment I prayed it I felt the presence of HaShem over me more intensely than any meditation. The God I had lost and was looking for, had found me.
 
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I’m very much a cultural Jew, actually; I speak Yiddish and love Yiddish film, as well as both Ashkenazi and Sephardi food (I’m also a good cook, lol).

My problem was the religion as it has been since the destruction of the Second Temple, as well as rabbinic casuistry.
 
The Catholic Church does not get involved in determining who is or who isn’t Jewish. By what you have written, according to most modern standards you are Jewish (especially by Reform and Reconstructionist standards).

According to most Jews as long as you come from Jewish stock through either parent, then you are Jewish. Neither parent nor you have to be practicing either. It is determined by lineage.

The only group of Jews who will give you a problem with this are the Orthodox–unless you are Sephardic Bnei Anusim (children of the forced converted during the Spanish Inquisition). Anusim can automatically be recognized and welcomed upon their request and even treated as Jews while practicing Catholicism (if unaware of their origins) because they had no control of their circumstances. But these strict standards apply only in the world of the Jewish Orthodox.

Since you have a desire to become Catholic, you should speak to a priest. But you should mention that you are practicing Judaism. Judaism, remember is not a religion of belief but of practice. If you practice Judaism to any small extent then you are an observant Jew. You are just without affiliation. If you do any Jewish rituals on a regular basis, you cannot join the Catholic Church freely without telling them you are Jewish because, by Jewish standards and by lineage you are Jewish. You are what is known as a Post-denominational Jew. Yep, unknowingly you belong to the Tribe.

So if from here you join the Church, it becomes a bit more complicated. Your grandfather was Jewish making your father Jewish making you Jewish, and you are practicing. Guess what? You’re Jewish. Non-affilated, like many Jews are, but just as Jewish as I am.

While the Church will be happy to have you, since 2015 it made a new decision to seek to officially stop converting Jews as a practice. The Church sees that Catholics are called to work with Jews together though each has a separate part to play. It is no longer eager to purposefully pull Jews away from the part God has called them to play. So while you are welcome to join the Church if you wish, you now have a lot more you want to talk to a priest about.
 
I thought Judaism was passed down through the mother, not the father. Personally I don’t see why it would matter. It seems like it could be passed down through either one.
 
A lot has changed in Judaism in modern times. Rabbinical thought and rabbis no longer hold central control over the individual lives of the majority of Jews and liberal Jewish denominational movements. There is even a post-rabbinical movement in Judaism, even though they still have rabbis within it to serve the needs of the congregants as necessary.

By the 1800s, individual autonomy became the rule in Judaism. Reform Judaism and Zionism made great strides in making this possible. Later, in the United States, Reconstructionist Judaism was developed were rabbis were caretakers but not masters, developing the rule that tradition had a vote but not a veto on how Jews would live their lives in modern times.

Conservative Judaism has made similar advances beginning in the 1980s, and believe it or not by the beginning of the 21st century certain quarters of Orthodox Judaism have made some modern advances (just not as radical).

In many ways Judaism has returned to its autonomous roots of Biblical times while advancing enough to be useful and practical for our modern age. And it continues to do so. Gone is the sophistry of yesterday you are speaking of.
 
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Midge, that’s well said. My favorite modern Judiasm is the na Nachs who reject Rabbis entirely advising their followers to follow the teaching of Rebbe Nachman (who is deceased) andeir own relationship with God. I also love the essenes who wrote the books of Enoch and other works and no longer exist.

Also it is Rabbincial Judaism that says you must have a Jewish maternal link (because you can prove the mother but not necessarily the father). Yet Torah Judiasm was always thru the Father. The gospels are an example of this Jesus, is in the Davidic line primarily thru his adopted father joseph.
 
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That is the rule in Orthodoxy ONLY.

In the rest of the Jewish world, especially the secular Jewish world, you are Jewish if you are born to any parent descended from a Jew, whether or not they practice Judaism.

You are a member of Judaism if you are a Jew who practices any of the cultural spiritual-religious practices to any extent. You need not have to be affiliated with any synagogue or temple or Jewish denomination. In fact, it is estimated that in the United States most Jews are practicing to some extent but non-affiliated.
 
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Thank you all for the words of wisdom, encouragement and sharing your knowledge. It has greatly helped my discernment.
 
Okay. Thanks for the advice. That is certainly different from what I have heard!
 
I don’t mean to offend, but I grew up as a Chasidic Jew, and to me, even now, what the non-religious Jews and non-Orthodox call “Orthodox”, to me is authentic Judaism. I would never have considered any other form. We called it Torah Judaism.

Reform, conservative, etc hold to liberal views that I could never condone, notably politically. I am very much pro-life and pro-family, this did not change when I changed religions.

I’m a very traditional person, regardless of religious faith, lol…its no wonder when I became Catholic I chose traditional Roman Catholicism (pre-Vatican II practices/beliefs, Tridentine Latin Mass, modesty in dress, and so on.)

AnnetteJoan (formerly known as Khana Yehudis)
 
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In traditional, Torah Judaism, it is. The Reform, etc have changed that but it is only recognized by them. Not even Conservative Judaism (which despite its name is not conservative politically or religiously) recognizes a patrilineal descent, or conversion.
 
Unfortunately for those of patrilineal descent and who have had non-Torah conversions, that doesn’t work in Israel.
 
Actually that’s not the reason. If you study Ezra, you will find that he commanded the Jewish men to put away their non-Jewish wives AND THEIR CHILDREN (Ezra 9-10). The rabbis determined that Ezra would not have ordered the Israelite men to put away the children also, unless they were not Jewish.
 
Interestingly, what are today called “Orthodox” by non-religious Jews (they call themselves Torah observant Judaism) may today make up only 10% of the Jewish population (they were once the majority until a couple hundred years ago, I might add)…however because they have large families (10 children is average among the Chasidim), and because they are very committed to their faith, they seem to be the ones insuring the survival of Judaism. I may not be part of them anymore but I will give them credit for that! Most non-Orthodox synagogues, at least that I have been exposed to, are in the same boat as liberal protestant mainline churches…their membership is dying and today is mostly the elderly.
 
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Then are you aware of Noahides? The Noahide laws have been given a special empahsis by Chabad in particular.

Also if you ever been to Israel have you met any na Nachs? They are famous for dancing in the streets. They say the teachings of Nachman and the Song of Remeption are available to all people.

And finnaly the essenes believed that God gave the same covenant to Enoch and then to Noah that He gave to Moses. The Torah evidence for this strong, Abraham is Torah observant before the Torah and be Shavuot (Mt Sinai)

Judaism as a religion has many different traditions with different understandings of these things. I don’t claim to be a Jew, I never converted to a Jewish congregation and my grandfather was non-observant and I know nothing of his heritage. But I’m a child of God, am a Noahide (unless being Christian counts as idolatry, but we are on a Catholic forum), and am a member of the New Covenant. So I’m fully able to practice rituals as I feel called but as long as do so "in the light of Christ)
 
Currently, due to the right-wing government being run by the Orthodox Jews, you are definitely correct.

But the rest of the Jewish world does not tend to agree. And neither does science or history.

In the Holocaust, anyone who was of Jewish descent, either through mother or father, practicing or not, affiliated or not, were captured and slaughtered by the Nazis as Jews. Somehow the current government of Israel has forgotten this fact and has limited the term “Jew” to mean only a member of an Orthodox Jewish community who was born of a practicing Jewish mother.

However, Orthodox Judaism is neither “tradational” nor following the Torah in this as there are no traditions nor nothing in Torah that states any of this. This political rule is a modern invention.
 
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That is actually not true.

According to the Pew Research Center the largest group of practicing Jews in the United States are the Reform Jews (35%) with the second largest being Post-denominational Jews (30%)–Orthodox Jews make up only 10%.

Counting the number of Orthodox Jews in Israel, they make up almost a quarter of Jews in the world, but their numbers are decreasing.

According to the Pew Research Center, the largest number of growing practicing Jews in the world (and the movement is surpassing Reform Judaism) is Post-denominational Judaism. Connected by the Internet and using social media, with an average age of 27-30 of each member, they appear to be the future of Judaism, not the Orthodox.

@MysticMonist

You said your grandfather was of Jewish stock, so I can only go by what you said. Whether he was observant or not doesn’t matter at this point since you, his grandson are practicing Judaism, and you are the issue, not him. But I am not the one you need to speak with or convince. You still need to tell all of this to a priest, not to me or a forum.
 
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Just out of curiosity, how did your family/community react when you became Catholic? Shunning is not uncommon, I remember in fact that in NY there was a non profit working just with people that find themselves in a middle of the street after leaving the ultra orthodox close knitted community,
 
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