You’re Jewish but you’re not living in your Jewish State? Why not? Pack your bags and go honor Lord Balfour’s 1919 “agreement” and Rothschild’s funding of WW2 to bring about pretext for the 1948 Jewish State also funded by Rothschild.

I do agree with what you have posted, although in answer to your food for thought I will post the Halachic view as I am aware of it.

Regarding an “In-utero implantation of an embryo from non-Jewish parents into a Jewish woman who gives birth and raises the child.” There are Poskim (Halachic Authorities) who consider the child to be Jewish, and there are Poskim who require the child to undergo conversion after birth. As far as I’m aware the accepted Halachic practice is to convert the child after birth in consideration of those who require it. (This merely constitutes immersion in a Mikva.) There are of course many Halachic concerns involved with this scenario including the child’s relationship to/with siblings, etc. Therefore in each case a knowledgeable Posek should be consulted.

Regarding “A child of non-Jewish parents adopted by a Jewish mother: at birth; at one year of age; 3 years…etc; post Bar/Bat Mitzvah. Is there an age below which the child is considered Jewish? Does attendance at a Jewish school have any bearing on this question?” Regardless of the age the child needs to be Halachichly converted through Brit Milah for a boy and immersion in a Mikva.

In many ways the education of a individual and their background can affect the process by which they are required to convert. For example, there have been cases where a person has grown up all their lives believing they were Jewish (studied in Yeshiva and all) and later on found out that they were not. In these cases there have been Rabbis who have allowed an immediate conversion instead of the 2 or more years it normally takes to learn about Judaism for most converts.

All in all the physical act of converting someone is something that is always required regardless of the knowledge or background of a person. Although in every case there are many areas of Halacha that need to be considered and each scenario is unique.

It should be noted that I am definitely not a Halachic Posek and I am just presenting the accepted Halachic view as I am aware of it.

It would seem the posting has dragged a few anti-Semites out of the closet. There is no room for debate unless it is reasoned debate. Hateful comments are not permitted at all. Other insightful comments that are not posted with an offensive tone, but nonetheless challenge theoligical and religious practices within Judaism, bear no relevance to this posting itself.

There are plenty of places to crusade against Judaism on the internet. This site does not happen to be one of them.

O’Connell was still unrepresented on the 11th December, although he attended with Fredrick Toben, who appeared to be advising him.

Note that Fredrick Toben also “advised” Olga Scully in the Federal Court case Jones v Scully. Olga Scully lost the case and went bankrupt. Toben alao lost his own case. So if Fredrick Toben is now advising Brendan O’Connell then O’Connell has a fool for an adviser and Toben has [for the third time] a fool for a client.

O’Connell requested “many months” to seek funding “from interstate” and also arrange witnesses “from overseas …including the United States…”

He also repeated his prior allegations of police trespassing and planting evidence. He alleged that he has been slandered by the Jewish community.

Despite O’Connell’s protests that the matter had “international ramifications”, her honour was not inclined to delay further and listed a directions hearing on 11 February 2010, for two purposes:

• to determine if “Jews are a racial group” (Prosecution was required to present its submission on the matter by 23 December; Defence by 29 Jan) Apparently an issue O’Connel has raised in his defence is that Jews are not a racial group in an attempt to undermine the applicability of the subject Act.
• to list the matter for trial.

The issue of whether or not “Jews are a racial group” is certainly interesting.

The law is well settled that Jews are a group protected by the various ethnic vilification laws in Australia, New Zealand and UK. Jews are a race in the sense required to qualify for protection under legislation proscribing racial discrimination. The reasoning is described in a famous decision of the Court of Appeal in New Zealand concerning the meaning to be given to the words “ethnic . . . origins of that group of persons”. The decision of the Court of Appeal was that Jews in New Zealand did form a group with common ethnic origins within the meaning of the Act.

The following short passages from the Judgment are authoritative.

****QUOTE****
“The real test is whether the individuals or the group regard themselves and are regarded by others in the community as having a particular historical identity in terms of their colour or their racial, national or ethnic origins. That must be based on a belief shared by members of the group… …. a group is identifiable in terms of its ethnic origins if it is a segment of the population distinguished from others by a sufficient combination of shared customs, beliefs, traditions and characteristics derived from a common or presumed common past, even if not drawn from what in biological terms is a common racial stock. It is that combination which gives them an historically determined social identity in their own eyes and in the eyes of those outside the group, they have a distinct social identity based not simply on group cohesion and solidarity but also on their belief as to their historical antecedents.”
****UNQUOTE****

That last passage sums up very well the difference between a race for anti-discrimination purposes and a race in the biological sense.

In recent UK cases, the courts relied on precedent definitions of Jews as a racial group (determined in the context of charges under their racial vilification laws) to later find against some Jewish schools for favouring applicants on the basis of the halachic definition of Jewishness. These findings have caused considerable consternation in the Jewish community around the world, as Gedalia has noted. [See http://jiw.blogspot.com/2009/12/defect-in-uk-law.html for a detailed report, complete with links to press releases from the school, United Synagogue in UK and verbatim copies of the relevant judgements.]

The majority [5 of the 9 UK Supreme Court judges], while stating that the logic of the argument of their interpretation of the law meant that the school had breached the race relations legislation, this did not mean that those involved were “racist.” As one of the justices said, “The chief rabbi and the governors of JFS are free from any moral blame. That they have fallen foul of the 1976 act does not involve any reprehensible conduct on their part, for it is accepted on all sides that they acted on sincerely and conscientiously held beliefs. Their motives are unimpeachable… The grounds on which the rejection of M was made may well be considered perfectly reasonable in the religious context, but… they amount to ethnic grounds under the legislation.”

This theme, that the outcome is an unintended consequence of legislation produced more than 30 years ago in a different context, recurs throughout the judgment, and is mentioned by 8 of the 9 judges. Indeed the president of the court, Lord Phillips, as early as the ninth paragraph states :”There may well be a defect in our law of discrimination.”

Personally, while I have no doubt that the racial Vilification Act applies to the O’Connell case, I’m also uncomfortable with a definition of Jewishness based ENITIRELY on race. This is Hitler’s definition. As Gedalia points out in this posting above, “Jewish identity is a national, ethnic and religious identity, all intertwined.”

It seems to me that the halachic definition is not EXCLUSIVELY racial, in the sense of Jewishness being conferred genetically. The case of a convert, clearly demonstrates this.

But even the requirment of a maternal link to Judaism is as much about the mother’s influence not just her genes: an issue of nurture as well as nature; soil as well as seed; environment as well as genetics. Modern research in early childhood development emphasises the importance of environment in the first months and years of life, on the character of the child.

Consider the following cases:
• In-utero implantation of an embryo from non-Jewish parents into a Jewish woman who gives birth and raises the child. Is the child Jewish?
• A child of non-Jewish parents adopted by a Jewish mother: at birth; at one year of age; 3 years…etc; post Bar/Bat Mitzvah. Is there an age below which the child is considered Jewish? Does attendance at a Jewish school have any bearing on this question?

Food for thought…

At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter whether Australian courts consider Jews a religion or a Race. O’Connell’s stated goal remains to persecute a segment of society and that should be (and is) illegal.

That kind of hatred alone should be cause for concern and should be truly stamped out. However, weak as the court system is, his pathetic debate will probably be allowed.