?Louis Schmier writes: > As for those learned English judges who seemed to follow the path Halakha (the woman is the religious determinant since we know from whose womb a child comes while no one can be sure who is the father) because it was the easiest road to walk. […] According to you, their legal ruling had the scientific consequences of establishing physical laws of biology, making the Jews into a biological race. Funny thing happened earlier on the way to Auschwitz, their learned counterparts, as well as the bureaucrats in the Rassenamt, did the same thing in Nazi Germany. And, as a consequence, both I and my wife lost family both shot and buried during the "hidden Holocaust" in a field outside Bobrika in Galicia and Zhitomir in the Ukraine by the Einstats gruppen and gassed and burned at the death factory of Auschwitz because of such bigoted, hateful tripe. There are more holes, huge gaps, in your assertion, but that's enough. I find this discussion distasteful, but necessary. If you want to continue it, bring it on.<
Louis: By all means take issue with Stephen's account of what constitutes Jewishness (and given the complexities there is more than one "logical" conclusion that one may arrive at), but I find it distasteful that you chose to make a connection between the verdict of the British Supreme Court cited by Stephen with Nazi race laws. (You, not Stephen, describe the Nazi judges as "learned counterparts" to the judges in question.) I'm sure that the Supreme Court judges would rather have not been called upon to adjudicate in what was essentially an intra-Jewish dispute – or, more specifically, a dispute between British Orthodox Judaism and reform Judaism. (I'm sure a large number of secular Jews like me looked on the whole affair with a certain degree of bewilderment.) The issue revolved around whether, within the law as it is currently constituted, the status of the child in question should be as recognised by the Office of the Chief Rabbi (the OCR) or according to the lights of the non-Orthodox section of the British Judaism. Faced with this difficult task, the High Court came down in favour of the OCR, but this verdict was overturned on appeal, and the Supreme Court upheld the appeal. The precise details of the dispute can be seen from the verdict of the Appeal Court: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2009/626.html Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=1818 or send a blank email to leave-1818-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
