“Oops, You’re Not Jewish” sounds like a great title for a book but really it’s an article in Hadassah Magazine by writer/blogger Gershom Gorenberg which focuses on the state of Jewish conversion.

Here is a quick soundbite from the piece:

“Susan Weiss—the founder and director of the CWJ and herself an ob­ser­vant Jew—has petitioned the Is­raeli Supreme Court to overturn the rabbinic court’s decision. But she also states, “We should have civil marriage. It’s going to have to happen.”

One reason that issue is so controversial, according to Weiss, is that it raises questions about what it means for Israel to be a Jewish state and about the connection of religious and ethnic Jewish identity. For many religious Jews, the rabbinate’s monopoly on mar­riage expresses the idea that Is­rael is a religious polity. In theory, it creates a single, shared standard for who is Jewish and prevents intermarriage in Israel.

But today, it is clear that Israel has inherited the same ambiguities of Jew­ish identity that exist in the diaspora. Indeed, that is a consequence of the Law of Return. Even if Israel chooses to tighten the rules for immigration, the fact will re­main: A large number of Israelis speak Hebrew, think of themselves as ethnic Jews, yet are not Jewish halakhically. Not many choose to convert—and converting does not bring a full resolution of identity.”

I think that in general the piece voices many concerns I plan to bring up in an upcoming Jerusalem Post op-ed (which you’ve probably already read as a recent blog post on secular conversion).