London - Apology after Holocaust Survivor Had To Prove for Beth Din That He Is Jewish |
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News Source: This Is London
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Joseph Marks said the London Beth Din did not accept marriage or death certificates as proof of ancestryLondon - A Holocaust survivor who lost half his family at the hands of the Nazis today told how he was forced to go to court to prove he is Jewish.
Former film producer Joseph Marks, 81, from Shepperton, said he was “grilled” by rabbis as he tried to prove his ancestry. He wanted to join Connect - a “100 per cent Jewish” dating agency run by the Jewish Marriage Council - after his wife died of ovarian cancer.
Mr Marks, whose Polish family were killed in Treblinka concentration camp in Poland, said the London Beth Din, a court which regulates parts of Jewish law, refused to accept his parents’ marriage certificate or his mother’s death certificate as proof. After an investigation they agreed he was Jewish.
Today Mr Marks said: “I nearly went for the man when he told me they didn’t recognise my mother’s death certificate. Really I’m very angry about the whole thing. All my mother’s family were killed in the Holocaust. They were rounded up and liquidated.”
Mr Marks was nearly captured by the Nazis aged 14. He said he was pulled off a train by police and separated from his screaming mother. Mr Marks said that he and his mother escaped because they held British passports.
The United Synagogue, an organisation that represents orthodox Jews, has apologized to Mr Marks. Spokesman Schimon Cohen said: “If you are over a certain age, or born pre-war, it can be much more difficult to get proof that you are Jewish.”
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Read Comments (18) — Post Yours »
1
Jul 30, 2010 at 09:29 AM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
the same craziness in happening in EY
from today paper Ha'aretz
Rubin, who was raised in a Conservative household, produced letters from four Conservative rabbis and one Chabad rabbi attesting to her Jewishness. But the Herzliya Rabbinate said the letters were not enough and asked her to bring ketubot, or religious wedding contracts, as well as birth or death certificates of her mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother.
"It was made very clear that without ketubot and without birth certificates from four generations, I would need to go to the Beit Din [local rabbinical court]," Rubin told Anglo File this week. "I told him, time and time again, that my grandparents are Shoah survivors [and thus their ketubot no longer exist] and I was told that wasn't his problem.
2
Jul 30, 2010 at 09:44 AM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
charpa and a boosha
3
Jul 30, 2010 at 09:57 AM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
there are complex halochos of how to prove jewishnes for someone who is not muchzak as a yid. Its just the way it is.
4
Jul 30, 2010 at 10:26 AM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
Thanks to the reform and conservative movement who tries to destroy the jewish conversion system its very hard to prove you are a jew
Seems the reform movement is in for more trouble and jewish people who don't keep torah will suffer more having it harder to prove boron a jew
5
Jul 30, 2010 at 10:45 AM ConcernedJew Says:Report as Inappropriate
I understand when a Bes Din needs to take appropiate action to determin who is a Jew....but lately some of the cases that we are hearing such as the Hillary Rubin case. I begining to wonder if we could ask these Dayonim for them to varify to us #1 Do you have Smicha and YY and from whom?
#2 Are you Jewish? Whats the proof that the Rav is Jewish? This is becoming to dangerous we need to follow the guidlines of Shulchan Aruch and not to be machmir!! And yes! Follow the guidlines that the Lubavitcher Rebbe Zya put forth to determine who is a Jew!
6
Jul 30, 2010 at 11:24 AM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
reply to poster #4: You think this is going to be a problem just for reform and conservative Jews? Wait until they start with the different sects within the orthodox community. What 'papers' do YOU have proving you're Jewish? I can't think of anything I have, just the knowledge that was given to me from my parents of my ancestors going back many generations. But how would I prove any of that if necessary? We've never had this kind of nonsense before in our history. What these Rabbis are doing is tantamount to destroying am yisroel. I agree totally with poster #2, this is a charpa and a boosha!
7
Jul 30, 2010 at 11:49 AM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
“ charpa and a boosha ”
why? because they don't trust the nazis to determine who is and who isn't Jewish?
8
Jul 30, 2010 at 12:21 PM Oyvey Says:Report as Inappropriate
Let's keep it up and we'll save money.
We will no longer have to donate money to anything in kiruv as the kiruv movement will be dead.
9
Jul 30, 2010 at 01:00 PM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
I wish Mr Marks well, but what does he expect? He is surely aware that the Germans killed non-Jews as well as Jews. They only needed to know of one solitary great grand parent and that was sufficient. They killed nuns and priests who had a Jewish ancestor. Did he really think that a death certificate is sufficient? Let's turn the question around: Presuming he passionately wants his children and grandchildren to marry Jews - how would he have felt if one of his prospective daughters/sons-in-law turned out to be a non-Jew? He'd be up in arms against the negligent Beys Din. The rabbonim - if that is indeed who questioned him, and I doubt if the matter got past a functionary - are doing what they have to in order to ascertain Jewishness. When dealing with an 81-year-old who wants to remarry, they could have shown tact - but we only have his word for it, and up until here he is not demonstrating much understanding of a system that he claims to belong to. Is he perhaps part of a wider plan to discredit the Israeli Rabbinate?
10
Jul 30, 2010 at 01:07 PM Avi Says:Report as Inappropriate
Happening in America too. I was told by a Bies Din that my mother was Jewish, but they doubted she was my real mother!!!
11
Jul 30, 2010 at 01:26 PM heyrabbiyisroel Says:Report as Inappropriate
Remember these precautions are not just for the sake of being stringent but to guard the Jewish people and religion so that we know everyone is Jewish according to the Torah.
It might be painful but in the long run it will be beneficial.
12
Jul 30, 2010 at 01:53 PM Babishka Says:Report as Inappropriate
I did not have any of these documents when I was married 40 years ago, and my family was Reform for four generations!
And yet an official of the Eda Haredit was mesader kiddushin at my wedding.
So what has happened between then and now to turn these "Jew detectors" into such...[can't say this word on VIN]
13
Jul 30, 2010 at 02:09 PM Avi Says:Report as Inappropriate
Happening in America too. I was told by a Bies Din that my mother was Jewish, but they doubted she was my real mother!!!
14
Jul 30, 2010 at 02:22 PM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
“ I did not have any of these documents when I was married 40 years ago, and my family was Reform for four generations!
And yet an official of the Eda Haredit was mesader kiddushin at my wedding.
So what has happened between then and now to turn these "Jew detectors" into such...[can't say this word on VIN] ”
Reform conversions, intermarriage, assimiliation... A lot has happened since then, and today, sadly, a large percentage of Reform "Jews" are not halachically Jewish.
15
Jul 30, 2010 at 02:24 PM Virgil Says:Report as Inappropriate
Aside from its sentimental and historical value, this is another reason why I'm keeping my deceased parents' kesubah that was written at their chasunah in the displaced persons camp in Austria after World War II.
16
Jul 30, 2010 at 03:20 PM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
I had to prove I was Jewish before my children could go on shidduchim also.
I don't believe that this is anything new. When my husband and I married, we both had to prove that we were Jewish even though, the Rabbi who married us knew my family for 30 years and my husband is a Cohen and his mother is a Bat Cohen and both sides of my husband's family lived in the same community (as we did) for 50 years.
17
Jul 30, 2010 at 06:35 PM Buchwalter Says:Report as Inappropriate
You should for another. reason your parents' kesubah is handwritten and those who wrote the kesubah were survivors like myself except older and bigger mevanim .
18
Jul 31, 2010 at 03:46 PM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
its about time tje batei din are more vigilant. i know of a number of cases that some ome was chozer ltushva and then discovered they eren' hachlacially jewish. some converted,others left yeshiva. one case the man was married with childern!