The Off Topic Topic

[The Brain]

I need a new battery for my watch, have been wearing my digital running watch.

Haircuts? barber shops? salons? Pfff, I shave my head every few days/week.

The jew talk gets boring.

If you are bored with haircuts and Jews, you are bored of life. 

Bad taste.

[Malthus]

I need a new battery for my watch, have been wearing my digital running watch.

Haircuts? barber shops? salons? Pfff, I shave my head every few days/week.

The jew talk gets boring.

If you are bored with haircuts and Jews, you are bored of life. 

Bad taste.

[Eddie Teach]

You guys call your mother "Mrs. Poster"?

Mom.

[derspiess]

Disraeli was an Anglican. 

So no, not a Jew.

Stopping being a Jew seems more complicated than simply changing your religion for some reason.

Plastic surgery for small flaps of skin?   

[The Brain]

I need a new battery for my watch, have been wearing my digital running watch.

Haircuts? barber shops? salons? Pfff, I shave my head every few days/week.

The jew talk gets boring.

If you are bored with haircuts and Jews, you are bored of life. 

Bad taste.

Yeah, the Auschwitz hair collection doesn't exist.

[The Brain]

You guys call your mother "Mrs. Poster"?

Mom.

Keep mom, she's not so dumb.

[Josephus]

Mother was a Jew, so a Jew.

He converted to another religion, so not a Jew.

I think halachically always Jew.

[Malthus]

Mother was a Jew, so a Jew.

He converted to another religion, so not a Jew.

I think halachically always Jew.

If you are Orthodox. Otherwise, not.

[Malthus]

Yeah, the Auschwitz hair collection doesn't exist.

Most people collect stamps or coins. You just have to be different. 

[Eddie Teach]

Which is silly. Jewish Christians are just as Jewish as Jewish atheists.

[DGuller]

Which is silly. Jewish Christians are just as Jewish as Jewish atheists.

When you have an identity that's religious/ethnic/cultural, it's hard to keep things from getting silly.  Especially if the identity in question is Jewish.

[Malthus]

Which is silly. Jewish Christians are just as Jewish as Jewish atheists.

This stuff doesn't have to make sense. Why are those born from Jewish mothers considered Jews by the Orthodox, but not those born from Jewish dads?

It's just "the rules".

[The Minsky Moment]

Disraeli was a Jew?!?

He certainly wasn't of Israel.  I wouldn't believe anything else he said.

[Valmy]

If you are Orthodox. Otherwise, not.

I find this a bit confusing.  Conservative and Reformed and so forth are mostly a North American thing right?  Aren't most Jews outside NA either Orthodox or non-practicing?

[Malthus]

If you are Orthodox. Otherwise, not.

I find this a bit confusing.  Conservative and Reformed and so forth are mostly a North American thing right?  Aren't most Jews outside NA either Orthodox or non-practicing?

It isn't that simple. I dunno if you want a whole treatise on the subject, but basically "Orthodox" Judaism is a self-concious reaction *against* the mainstream of Jewish intellectual thought that developed in the 18th/19th century, together with the Enlightenment. Judaism split into two broad streams - those that wished to adapt to Enlightenment values (one bit of which became "Reform Judaosm") and those that wished to reject Enlightenment values (one bit of which became "Orthodox").

While most Jews outside of NA do not call themselves "Reform", neither do they call themselves "Orthodox". Wiki lists figures as follows:

As of 2001, Orthodox Jews and Jews affiliated with an Orthodox synagogue, accounted for approximately 50% of Anglo Jewry (150,000), 25% of Israeli Jewry (1,500,000) and 13% of American Jewry (529,000)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism