Israel: therapy of mixed Jewish/Christian children (in French)
16
JULY
2012
“Mixed” people, born of a Jewish and non-Jewish parent, sometimes experience intense emotional distress in connection to the questioning of their belonging to their Jewish family lineage. Conversations with several “mixed” individuals who chose to emigrate to Israel (Aliyah) suggests that, for them, Israel turned out to be a possible “treatment” or “therapy” for their “genealogical distress”. In some cases, Jewish ascendants specifically designated their descendants born of a mixed couple as Jewish, regardless of their “halakhic” status. Yet when this designation was later contradicted by a statement such as “you’re not Jewish because your mother isn’t Jewish”, a painful crisis ensued for the child who found herself in effect delegitimized, expelled from her paternal Jewish lineage. Formal conversion to Judaism in the context of making Aliyah offered the possibility of repairing the genealogical breach, experienced as a betrayal of the ancestors personified by the very existence of the “mixed” individual.
| Speaker | Location |
|---|---|
|
Catherine GRANDSARD |
Ella Fitzgerald A |