in reform judaism, if my father is a jew, does that make me a jew also?
Answer Hi Charlie, If your mother isn’t a Jew, you are not a Jew. Illustration. Think of a law – say, “red light stop, green light go”. Maybe there is a county someplace in deep countryside that decides to relax this law a bit and allow you to drive when the light is red also, or better yet, for the purposes of illustration, creates its own traffic light that has four lights – red, yellow, green, and purple. So you can drive when the light turns green, and when the light turns purple. It’s a nice law and in that county everyone is cool with driving when the light turns purple – but when you leave that countryside, nobody has ever heard of a traffic light with four lights, and purple is definitely not a light that belongs on a traffic light. You would cause an accident and endanger lives if you wait for the light to turn purple or insist that others recognize the driving-on-purple amendment. Same situation with this – reform Judaism may institute a law that you could be considered a Jew
