re: #150 Alouette

If somebody doesn’t actively practice Judaism or identify with “The Tribe,” then whose freaking business is it if their grandmother was Jewish or not?

That reminds me of something I recently read in The Economist:

If he needs a refuge, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi might consider the Israeli town of Netanya. An Israeli family of Libyan origin has recently surfaced saying they are the colonel’s relatives and that he should think of making aliyah (the Jewish voyage of return) and claim Israeli citizenship as any Jew may do under Israeli law. Gita Boaron told Israeli television she shares a great-grandmother with the colonel. “She fled her Jewish husband for a Muslim sheikh,” she says. “Her daughter was the colonel’s mother, making him Jewish under rabbinic law.”

Some jokers suggest that Mrs Boaron’s family want a share of the gold the colonel is said to be carrying. But others say there may be a more solid claim. “Jews from Tripoli remember he attended a Jewish wedding in the 1960s, long before he became leader,” says Pedazur Benattia, founder of Or Shalom, a centre that promotes Libyan-Jewish culture in Israel.

In Netanya, a resort north of Tel Aviv, where many of the 100,000-odd Israeli Jews of Libyan origin have settled, a square has been called Qaddafi Plaza in anticipation of his arrival. “Whatever he’s done, Israel’s his home,” says Rachel, a widow sipping her macchiato, Libya’s beverage of choice, and nibbling abambara, a Libyan-Jewish pastry in one of the square’s Libyan-owned cafs. “After all, he’s a Jew.” With his curls, she says, he would fit into many a Libyan synagogue.

economist.com