Today I have discovered Im Jewish

[Teensandfuture]

Just that really.
My greatgrandmother was Jewish .
She lived in the beginning of 20th century in Eastern Europe and it was rather dangerous to be a Jew, so she hidden her ethnicity(ish).

She had my grandmother and my grandmother had my mother. My mother had my sister and me, which makes me Jewish, right? Its unbroken maternial genealogical line apparently and something that qualifies me by "Law of return" to "return" to Israel.
Im trying to get my head around it.
I feel like a person that found out at grown up age he was adopted as a baby .

I am not sure if l I should connect to my new found heritage and religion or my new discovery shouldn't change anything at all for me.

Anyone been in similar situation? How did you react? What did you think/do?

The pogroms, holocaust , hundreds of years of persecution is part of my history now .Or is it not?

Yes it is part of your history.

How much you engage with that history or with the religion is entirely up to you (and there’s no wrong or right answer).

I would say that you have Jewish heritage but I would not say that you are Jewish unless you choose to adopt the religion.

I am certain that my opinion is just that

Yes that is part of your heritage.

Many good and fun things to enjoy about your Jewish roots too.

Congratulations!

You don't have to do anything. You certainly don't have to do anything now, if you have no clear direction.

You can do nothing, and it's simply a fact about your family history - there are probably lots of people with that sort of thing somewhere in their family trees. Some will have always known, some will have found out as you have, others may never find out.

You can find out more about what options it opens for you or not. You can then decide whether you want to persuade any of those options or not.

You don't have to decide now.

How did you come to find out? Are you tracing your family tree, or did it come out some other way? If you were doing your family tree, did you ever have ideas about what you might do if you did find something unexpected?

Have you discussed this with your sister? If so, what does she think about it all? Are there other family members alive you can talk about it to?

I would suggest, as you seem unsure about it all, that you do a bit more exploring to find out more, but otherwise, don't make any decisions yet - you may find that with some more time, you get more clarity about how you feel about things, and then you can decide if you want to do things like connect more closely to Judaism or other aspects of what this opens up. Those options don't go away just because you don't follow them right this second.

Well it's part of you but you also have paternal lineage. Presumably your mother hasn't been a practising jew or else you would have already known. Maybe look into it's history but it's only if it resonates with you that you should practise? It would be a life changer and there are unorthodox/ orthodox which you would need to choose.

Teens - congrats. If you are interested in exploring this, i would make an appointment to see a rabbi. Oddly, an orthodox rabbi might be more sympathetic than a non-orthodox one (because upbringing is relevant to the Reform but not really to the orthodox).

I'm not sure about the law of return - I think this requires a Jewish grandparent - no idea how this works if the grandparent didn't identify as Jewish.

Law of return? Would you honestly want to live there or have anything to do with it?

Good question, maelstrop - decent weather (I know we're in the middle of a heatwave), higher life expectancy than here, and well above the UK in the world happiness index (which includes Arab Israelis, by the way). Uni fees of just over 2K per year, and a world class health service that is properly funded. I can't think what the attraction might be.

I don't like the tone of "having anything to do with it". What is that supposed to mean?

SamG, perhaps Maelstrop is referring to the human rights violations suffered by many Palestinians.

Mazel tov! What an interesting thing to find out. Someone in our family did our family tree once. Went all the way back to the 1600s. Nothing remotely interesting .

How exciting to find a whole part of your heritage that you know nothing about. So interesting to look into it, whether you take it further or not.

Maybe, Lumi, but there are other aspects of Israel. If I was considering going to Australia I wouldn't expect people to ask why I was having anything to do with Australia due to the shocking and long-standing policies towards native peoples. It is obviously something to take into account but it just seems that with Israel, unlike anywhere else, this is the overriding thing.

SamG I agree with your sentiments about the Australian government's history of their treatment of native Australians, it was awful and the repercussions of their policies are still apparent. However you can't imply that Israel is unique to receive criticism because they're not. A recent example was the condemnation the USA received for its removal and caging of children, taken from their parents at immigration centres in the USA. Criticism, campaigning and change are necessary check to try to move civilisation towards civility.

The situation in Palestine is the overriding factor that many people think about when they consider Israel because what is still going on is not a trifling matter, it's a big deal and it's a crime. You can't just ignore what's occurring, no matter how nice most of the people are, how great the sunshine is or how cheap the university education is there.

She had my grandmother and my grandmother had my mother. My mother had my sister and me, which makes me Jewish, right?

Is there something in the Jewish religion that makes this a fact?

My lineage is Christian but I don't practise that or even give it a second thought. Just because the women related to me in the way you have described were Christians, I don't feel as though that automatically makes me one. I don't get the 'genetic inheritance' of your view of religion, sorry.

Israel's Law of Return stipulates that a Jew is someone with a Jewish mother or someone who has converted to Judaism.The Israeli Chief Rabbinate requires documents proving the Jewishness of one’s mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother when applying for marriage.The Office of the Chief Rabbi (OCR) has underlined the basic principle that a child is not recognised by the OCR and other bodies as Jewish unless his or her mother is Jewish, or they underwent a conversion recognized by the body. Got this from wiki
Congratulations. How lucky you are. Must be exciting.

I found out a month ago my great grandmother was a Polish Jew. It made me think about her and her life. It didn't make me decide to be religious. But I'm proud of that lineage.

but I would not say that you are Jewish unless you choose to adopt the religion

I am certain that my opinion is just that

If you do a DNA test you can come up as an ashkenazi jew. It's really not as simple as just being a christian (as in it's not just classed under the religion bracket - a lot of jew's are atheists).

blog.23andme.com/ancestry/the-uniqueness-of-ashkenazi-jewish-ancestry-is-important-for-health/

Thank you , everyone.
Im still in a processing stage but your kind comments definitely help.
I think I want to go to Israel next year on hols and see what its all about 😁
I was brought up as an orthodox Christian and Jerusalem is the holiest city.I will go on the pilgrimage.

OP you can have a free trip to Israel. I know of people who have done this and it's all paid for (flights included). It's basically funded by some billionaire jewish people.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_Israel

Thank you fizz
Great minds..I was googling that earlier bit I think I can afford my own travel , still pleasantly surprised that some jews would make that opportunity for less fortunate.

Teensandfuture what does the rest of your family think. Are they interested in learning more too?

C

Oops wrote a random c

I remember around 20 years ago me and my sister had a conversation about family tree and I said:I think greatgrandmother was a Jew. My sister smiled and said: I think so too.All based on circumstantial evidence and talks we had in the family: she came from Odessa, it had around 40% jewish population, unmistakable accent my mum used to mimick, endless stories of heirlooms and hints of present received from tsar Nikolai 2nd on his visit to the city(which does prove one of 2 things :she was either blue blood nobble woman or a well off jew).
I know for sure she had substantial inheritance (jewellery, work of art ) and this is the only reason her full family( husband and 2 children) survived during holodomor of 1933 in Ukraine as she had things to sell /trade for food . It was literally very rare for full family to survive during that awful starvation year brought on by communists government.

Mind ,it was dangerous to admit either during early soviet rule-being a jew meant to be persecuted and being a nobblewoman meant to be stripped of all assets and declared the "enemy of the people ".

So the random conversation with my father few days ago led for him to tell me a full story. She was in fact a jew, from a very well off family but orphaned at 14. Suspiciously both parents died either on same day or close to each other.Which raises more questions than answers.
She was adopted by a russian family and took their surname.
In handsight that was the best thing they done for her -given her a "normal" non jewish surname and nationality status in passport so she could live a fearfree life.
Again, this explanation and many more interesting facts about her life she told to my father, years before I was born but it wasn't meant to be discussed and he understood that anyway.
Dad jokingly said to me he guessed it beforehand anyway because of her kosher eating habits and refusal to step into church.
Not sure why we never had this conversation with my mother but I guess its time to hear her side of the story.

Dying on the same day isn'the suspicious if there was some epidemic going round are the time. Would have happened in lots of families.

Ebearhug
Under normal circumstances yes, but we're talking about jewish family at the times when pogroms were ,sadly, common thing.
But obviously its just one of possibilities and epidemic desease is probably more plausible explanation.