MATRILINEALITY IN RABBINIC JUDAISM

Text topic: Matrilineality

Text author: Кристина Јоргић

This paper examines the origins of matrilineal principle in rabbinic Judaism and analyses the most important motives for this rabbinic practice. Despite the fact that marriage was recognized as a sensitive part of a private sphere, Ezra brought huge legal changes in Judea in the 5th century BC. He has excluded foreign wives from the corpus of Jewish people. There are still many dilemmas about the influence of the Roman legal system on Ezra, since it is clear that the matrilineal principle was introduced to Israelites at the time of Ezra. Orthodox Judaism still follows matrilineal descent. It holds that anyone with a Jewish mother also has irrevocable Jewish status; in other words, even if someone with a Jewish mother converts to another religion, that person is still considered Jewish by Jewish Law.