If a jewish baby with jewish mother is baptized, is the baby still jewish?

Answer 1

By the Halachah (Jewish law) - according to Orthodox Judaism - YES- once a Jew, always Jew- whether born or converted. Thus once a person is Jewish they are always judged by Jewish standards, and if they revert/convert to a different religion they are still considered Jewish by Jewish law. BUT, someone practising a religion other than Judaism is considered outside of the community, may not be a member of the community, receive any community honours, be a representative for the community, be buried in a Jewish cemetary, marry a Jew or be treated as a Jew for the purposes of the laws of mourning. However, since they never stop being a Jew- they merely have to repent (or in this case state they never wanted the conversion to another religion as a baby) , return to Judaism and go to mikveh in order to once again be a full member of the community

Note: The link below is to an answer by Rabbi Dov Lerner- his view is one from the more progressive Conservative movement and does not reflect the opinion of Orthodox Judaism

Answer 2

Judaism is one of the few areas that can be considered both an ethnicity and a religion, therefore, if the baby was born to a Jewish mother it is still a Jew (or half Jewish depending on the father's ancestors) but if it was baptized as a Christian, is not considered to be religiously Jewish.

Answer 3

Yes, the baby born of Jewish mother is Jewish no matter what they tries to do with the baby. There's nothing that can nullify the status of a Jew...even if s/he falls into apostasy (Heaven forbid it) they are still Jews even if they go to a Church.

Answer 4

why don't we have a controlled experiment.

we baptize one baby with a jewish mother, then we don't baptize another baby with a jewish mother and if god proclaims he is not jewish, or he does claim he is jewish then we know.

otherwise we will just presume that both are pastafarians.

RAmen!

Answer 5

If he is Baptized Catholic, then the boy's parents have seemingly chosen to raise him as a Catholic. They can educate him in Jewish belief and practice, and that's a good thing considering Catholicism has it's roots in Judaism. But, if he is Baptized Catholic, he is going to be raised a Catholic.

Answer 6

No baptism is an ancient ritual for the washing away of sin in the Jewish faith. That what John the Baptist was doing when one reads the books of Luke and John. The Christian Church has made it a ritual of either seal ling a Soul to Christ or an expulsion of sin and sealing of a soul.

Answer 7

By descent, yes. Besides that, it doesn't really matter because it won't be until the child reaches a mature age when it can reason that it'll be able to make an intelligent decision about beliefs...

Answer 8

I guess. I was baptized as a baby and am still an atheisit. It's just water.

Below me is a perfect example of fact-fearing Christians. Give a thumbs down over a fact of Jewish law. How silly.

Answer 9

did the baby have a choice in its baptism? No? Then it doesn't count. Of course if the baby jumped up and down and requested it, that might be another story entirely. And a news headline to boot.

Answer 10

Yes. The Jews consider any baby born to a Jewish woman to be a Jew.