Wednesday, August 27, 2008

The Jewish Clause


No, not that Claus, I said "clause."

Talk about conditionality, did you see this article by Tim Murphy on the "marry Jewish or else" clause in one man's will?

In a 2-1 decision, a state appeals court on June 30 upheld a lower court ruling that a provision in a will known as the "Jewish clause" was "unenforceable" and "contrary to state policies."

Before he died in 1986, Max Feinberg stipulated in his will that any grandchild who married a non-Jew would be considered "deceased" for the purposes of his inheritance. The death of his wife in 2003 triggered a series of lawsuits among descendants, all of which ultimately rested on the legal merits of the so-called Jewish clause.

Writing for the majority, Appellate Judge Joy V. Cunningham cited state-wide judicial precedent in affirming the lower court decision, while acknowledging that other courts nationally have ruled otherwise.

"The provision's clear intent was to influence the marriage decisions of Max's grandchildren based on a religious criterion and thus to discourage marriage by the grandchildren other than to those of the Jewish faith," Cunningham stated.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Patricia J. Quinn warned that allowing the Jewish clause to stand would open the door to bigotry.

The lone dissenting voice on the bench, Judge Alan Greiman, framed the clause as merely an attempt by the Feinbergs to "preserve their 4,000-year-old heritage."


4000 years of heritage? Maybe he has come up with the "Greiman Chronology."

According to Wikipedia,
Israel as a new, established ethnic group is generally thought to have consolidated in the twelfth century BCE,[32] although some archaeologists, notably Israel Finkelstein, reject the claim that Israel was a coalition of oppressed peoples, arguing that the emergence of the Jewish people as a distinct ethnos did not occur until the ninth or eighth century BCE.[33]


That calculates to 2900-3200 years of heritage, close, but maybe the judge is following theRoman Martyrology and calculating the date from Abraham,

In the twenty-fourth day of the month of December;

In the year five-thousand one-hundred and ninety-nine from the creation of the world, when in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth;

In the year two-thousand nine-hundred and fifty-seven from the flood;

In the year two-thousand and fifty-one from the birth of Abraham;

In the year one-thousand five-hundred and ten from the going forth of the people of Israel out of Egypt under Moses;

In the year one-thousand and thirty-two from the anointing of David as king;

In the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel;

In the one-hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;

In the year seven-hundred and fifty-two from the foundation of the city of Rome;

In the forty-second year of the reign of the Emperor Octavian Augustus;

In the sixth age of the world, while the whole earth was at peace— JESUS CHRIST eternal God and the Son of the eternal Father, willing to consecrate the world by His gracious coming, having been conceived of the Holy Ghost, and the nine months of His conception being now accomplished, (all kneel) was born in Bethlehem of Judah of the Virgin Mary, made man. The birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the flesh.


So is it 7200 years from Creation, 4000 years from Abraham, 2900-3200 per Wikipedia? Or do you have a favorite chronology?

Digging deeper, UP

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:14 PM

    You went to Wikipedia? ew...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous8:47 AM

    Using Abraham as the starting point is probably not correct as Abraham was not a Jew. Indeed, he didn't eat Kosher as the Bible informs us he served milk and meat together.

    BTW, such clauses are valid in Missouri.

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anon,
    All answers will be submitted to that esteemed malleable reference, Wikipedia.

    R.,
    So is the Judge anywhere close?

    ReplyDelete
  4. David Goldstein in "Jacob's Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History" shows that the genetic markers of the male priestly families point to a time about 3000 years ago when these families may have began.

    ReplyDelete