One of Mr. Riggans' great complaints against Jewish "refutationists" is that some of them point out the obvious fact that conversion to Christianity results in the effective destruction of Jews. What he objects to most is the way this process has been characterised as a "spiritual holocaust or genocide" by some of his opponents. His consistent answer to this charge is the surprising claim that it our fault. If only the Jewish community would accept Christian converts from Judaism as Jews all would be well.
In Chapter 8, Mr. Riggans offers four so called "definitions" of "Jew". The most fundamental definition and the one which Mr. Riggans suggests underlies the other three, is his "biological definition".
Mr. Riggans clearly follows the established mission line that "Jewishness" and Judaism are essentially independent of each other. This is an idea that I originally associated with Baruch Maoz (a "Christian Witness to Israel" missionary based in Rishon L'Zion, Israel) but which is now widespread among missionaries. Essentially, it is claimed that we Jews are a "race" of which the majority just happened to have been members of a religion called Judaism until now.
Consequently, two of Mr. Riggans' definitions of "Jew" are labelled "biological" and "religious" (the remaining two of the four are "social-cultural" & "Zionist"). The "biological" he summarises under the slogan, "If your mother is Jewish, then so are you". He also repeats the misleading claim that Progressive Jews will accept the child of a Jewish father as Jewish without mentioning that this only applies if accompanied by "appropriate and timely acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people". By Mr. Riggans' biological definition, female Christian converts to Judaism and their children are not Jews.
The crucial question is however whether, "If your mother is Jewish, then so are you" is really a "biological definition" of "Jew". Let us examine a similar case.
Supposing we imagine an exclusive school, call it "Abraham's Academy", which restricts admission to the children of former female graduates only. Would it be fair or reasonable to claim that the pupils, both former and current, constitute a population that is defined "biologically"? Would it not be the actual case that it is defined according to the Academy's rules of admission? Would it not also be the case that in those rules the mother-child relationship has been interpreted socially and not biologically?
"If your mother is Jewish, then so are you" is a legal ruling in Halacha (Jewish law) and very definitely not a "biological definition" of "Jew". As in the case of the imaginary rule of admission to "Abraham's Academy" it has t he potential to generated much that is of interest to anthropologists, sociologists and allied professionals, but biology it is not.
As Goldberg and Rayner write in, "The Jewish People" (Penguin Books, 1989),
"... it does not follow that Jewishness is transmitted genetically: it is, of course, transmitted culturally. The explanation of the paradox lies in the nature of the Sinaitic Covenant, which, as Judaism has always understood it, involved a collective commitment by those present on their own behalf and on behalf of their prosterity: ... (Deuteronomy 29:13 f.; in Christian Bibles, 29:14 f.). Thus membership of the house of Israel passes automatically from generation to generation, but only because it is demanded and expected that each generation will transmit to the next a sense of responsibility for the continuation of the Covenant; and that is, of course, a theological convention, not a biological fact."
It is a fact that without the powerhouse of Judaism at the heart of the Jewish community there will be no Jews to become secularised or "messianic" or whatever. Mr. Riggans' "biological" and "religious" "definitions" of "Jew" are in reality but two sides of the same coin. No Judaism equals no Jews. This I fear is true even allowing for the emergence of the State of Israel. I hear too much talk of the "civil war in Israel involving Israelis and Jews" to be confident that Israel is the best guarantor of Jewish ethnic continuity.
Mrs. Meredith is the wife of a retired Christian minister living in Parkstone (England). Her book consists of her recollections of life in Nazi Germany registered as a "non-Aryan" and regarded by the Nazis as a "mischling" (a mongrel).
Mrs. Meredith was baptised in the Swedish Lutheran church when she was two years old (p.52). Her mother was also baptised as a child (p.6). Her non-Aryan" registration arose because her maternal grandfather was a Jew. As with all other relatives mentioned in her book, her remaining three grandparents were non-Jews. Not only is Mrs. Meredith not herself Jewish, but neither is her mother. So how did she get caught up in the Shoah (Holocaust)?
Mrs. Meredith comes from a typical middle class German family. In the January, 1933 elections her entire family voted for Hitler, feeling that he was less of a threat to their middle class standards and values than the Communists (pps. 8-9). She sums this up in a few poignant sentences. "Father explained to me like this: 'People with clean finger nails will be persecuted and lose all their opportunities and even their possessions.' I looked at father's hands. His nails were clean. I looked at mine, they too were clean. So Hitler it had to be" (p.9).
Mrs. Meredith also makes it perfectly clear that her family knew about Hitler's attitude to "racial hygiene" and the Jews. They just hoped that he was not serious about translating his thoughts into actions (p.9).
This is a family that voted for Hitler out of self-interest in the confident expectation that whatever the Fuhrer had in mind for the Jews it would not apply to them. It appears doubtful that any of them even gave serious consideration to the thought that in some people's eyes certain of them were "racially tainted mongrel Jews". Nonetheless, in the April after they had voted for Hitler in the January, 1933 elections several of them were found wanting according to Nazi standards of "racial purity".
They had run foul of the First Implementation Decree of the Law for the Re-establishment of the Professional Civil Service (April 11, 1933) (1). This ruled that, "A person who is descended from non-Aryan, especially Jewish, parents or grandparents, is regarded as non-Aryan. It suffices if one parent or grandparents (sic) adhere to the Jewish religion" (Adam U.D., "An Overall Plan for Anti-Jewish Legislation in the Third Reich?" Yad Vashem Studies, XI: 33 - 55, 1976, p. 42). It was by this supposedly "biological" definition that a person who describes herself as a non-Jew in her book (p.5) was classified by the Nazis as a "non-Aryan".
In some ways Mrs Meredith was just unlucky. Professor M. Banton cites the case of an Austrian Christian who died fighting as a full "Aryan" for the "Fatherland" on the Eastern Front. At the same time both of his parents were registered as "non-Aryans" and subsequently murdered in Auschwitz. The young Austrian's grandparents were all Christian converts from Judaism. He could thus provide the vital baptismal certificates needed as proof of "Aryan" descent by the authorities (i.e. adherence to Christianity by a grandparent was taken as proof that s/he did not adhere to Judaism and was thus not a Jew). The young man's parents did not have this option because their grandparents had remained faithful Jews (Banton, M. "Racial Consciousness", Longman, 1988). Presumably, had Mrs. Meredith's Jewish grandfather also converted to Christianity she too would have been saved the consequences of having been regarded as a "mischling" with "non-Aryan" registration in the Third Reich.
Mrs. Meredith is by her own definition a non-Jew (p.5). Nonetheless, she was included in the German Jewish community because "Jew" was interpreted as a term of racial classification by the Nazis. Like the "messianic" missionaries they worked to a "biological" definition of "Jew". They too ignored Jewish concepts of "Jew" and poured scorn on Halacha (Jewish law).
Has Mrs. Meredith given us a glimpse of what the "Jewish" community of the future might look like if missionaries like Mr. Riggans were to be its guardians? This is not so far fetched as it might at first seem.
Nazi Germany is not alone in categorising Mrs. Meredith as a Jew. Both the "International Messianic Jewish Alliance" (2) and the "Messianic Jewish Association of Great Britain" (3) would do the same.
I do not know Mrs. Meredith personally, but from reading her book I
can see that she is sincere Christian. However, is she and others like
her the stuff of a self-perpetuating viable Jewish community? Would not
such a "Jewish" community be no more than a corpse seeking a suitable place
to bury itself (with the appropriate Christian burial rites of course)?
Would not those people who worked so hard to ensure its formation be partners
to cultural genocide? The "Messianic Jew" represents a fast track to Christian
glory, but also total oblivion for the authentic Jewish community. It is
a shame that Mr. Riggans and his missionary colleagues do not wake up to
this fact.