Q#2 On jewish ancestry via maternal lines (long question)?

Question

Thanks for the info Paladin and Gratval. So here goes round 2. Wiki states, "Thus the immediate descendants of all female Jews (even apostates) are still considered to be Jews, as are those of all her female descendants. Even those descendants who are not aware they are Jews, or practice a faith other than Judaism, are technically still Jews, as long as they come from an unbroken female line of descent."
So if I look 20 generations ago, if any of my female ancestors are jewish, all of her female children are jewish (whether they know it or not), and all their female children are jewish, etc.etc. And even though the maternity line may die out in those 20 generations, all you need to start it up again is to have any male descendent to mary a female jew to start it allover again. Again, by my math, that makes pretty much everyone a jew, whether they know it or not (1,048,576 ancestors in the 20th generation is an awful lot, and that's not even going back that far).

Answer 1

You still have to consider that intermarriage over the last 3,000 years has been relatively low. In the past it was much lower among women then men due to societal norms.

so you are talking about a thousand women (on average) entering a population of tens of millions.

and considering like we said the moment anyone of them has a son the line breaks it makes it relatively low.

irregardless you likely do have men and women alive today that had a direct Jewish female ancestor several generations back.

All that would mean is if they could prove it (it becomes harder with every generation) that if they ever decided to practice Judaism that they would not need to go though a conversion process.

the odds of someone having a maternal Jewish ancestry way back and not knowing it is like someone in America having the same for Swedish ancestry. Its possible, but highly unlikely if they dont know it.

and this is talking about Europen and Middle Eastern groups. It is much lower among African and oriental groups.

Answer 2

No, your thinking is off. The fact that everyone does *not* wind up a Jew is perhaps the reason for the matrilineal descent rule in the first place. If someone born to either a Jewish mother or father were considered Jewish, in some number of generations pretty much everyone would be Jewish. When it's only the mother, that's not what happens.

Think of it this way:

A small percentage of people (around .2%) are Jewish. Some Jews marry other Jews, and all their kids are Jewish. Some non-Jews marry other non-Jews, and all their kids are non-Jewish. It's only the kids of one Jew and one non-Jew whose status is questionable. As it turns out, by the matrilineal descent rule, about half are Jewish. So only about .2% of the next generation will be Jewish also, even though some non-Jews will have had Jewish kids.

Or to look at the question the way you posed it, you may have had 1,048,576 ancestors 20 generations ago, but only one of them is your direct matrilineal ancestor. She's the only one who matters for the purposes of matrilineal descent.

It is, however, possible for anyone to become Jewish by conversion. So the more people did that, the more Jews there would be in the world (since converts' descendants are also considered Jewish according to the same principle).

Answer 3

the clarification is user-friendly- for the reason that's what's asserted interior the Torah! It ha snothing to do with uncertain paternity or DNA- its pronounced interior the Torah that the infants of a Jewish lady and a non-Jewish guy are Jewish, yet those of a Jewish guy and a non-Jewish lady are no longer. for this reason we learn that that's the mummy this is critical in determining Jewishness. the place can we see this? a million) Avraham - the infants of Hagar and Keturah are no longer Jewish- purely the infants of Sarah who had completely familiar G-d are Jewish 2) whilst it talks approximately inermarriage in Devarim (Deuteronomy i won't be in a position to remeber the top reference off hand) it says " do no longer supply their daughters on your sons, on your infants would be lost to the rustic- in different words, the infants will now no longer be Jewish. It is going directly to assert "do no longer supply your daughters to them for different halves, for they'll lead your infants to idoltary" - in different words, the infants ARE Jewish and for this reason there's a trouble that the non-Jewish father will reason the Jewish infants to grow to be apostates.