In today's Haaretz, Rabbi David Greenstein wrote in an op-ed piece:
"Now we have news of one more step toward a genetically based definition of Jewishness. Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Halperin, a prominent figure connected to Chareidi rabbis and the government in Israel, has announced that rabbinic authorities, whom he refuses to name and whose legal reasoning is unavailable for study, have overturned hitherto accepted definitions of Jewishness such that the religion of the birthing mother will not determine whether her baby is Jewish. The criterion will now be whether the source of the fertilized egg is a Jewish woman."
To make this hideous development more palpable, should this bill pass in the Knesset, it would mean that my child conceived by an unknown sperm donor is Jewish, no debate necessary. My friend's twins, however, conceived with donor eggs and her husband's sperm, after they suffered through every other fertility process known within the modern medical community, are not Jewish.
Shame on Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Halperin, shame on the Knesset and shame on all the Jews if this is allowed to pass.
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