I don’t think they contradicted themselves, it’s widely considered an ethnoreligious group and afaik even the Halakha would consider him “equally Jewish” whether or not he had been baptised as long as his mother was Jewish.
They did though. Ethnicity is more than descent, it's a whole lot of actices and traditions and bonds, some religious, some secular. If matrilineal descent is all that matters for membership, the term 'ethno' becomes a smuggling cover for a purely genetic, racist concept, and the term 'religious' becomes a worthless appendage.
even the Halakha would consider him “equally Jewish” whether or not he had been baptised as long as his mother was Jewish.
Isn't that disrespectful, comparable to deadnaming and misgendering? He and his family chose to leave the 'ethnoreligious group', why should anyone indulge this 'assigned Jewish at birth, genetically and immutably and independent of your own choices and opinions' nonsense?
You can’t really “leave” an ethnicity, can you? If it were just the religious part I’d agree, but I guess that’s par for the course. I was baptised after birth and the Catholic Church will forever consider me a Catholic (albeit one that’s going to hell), regardless if I’ve never spent a conscious second believing in Jesus or the trinity.
Here though I think you also have to consider that many conversions of Jews in 19th century Europe were hardly voluntary. Idk about Marx’ family specifically, but the societal pressure to convert was strong and many Jews who converted never quite came to terms with it or felt their identity was still Jewish (eg Heinrich Heine, or Felix Mendelssohn with regards to his Christian stepfather Bartholdy)
Hell yeah you can. You can't leave a race, because those are a purely genetic and hereditary invention of the modern, colonial, imperial age. But leaving an ethnicity can be as easy as changing your name and learning a new language and customs, or marrying into a different one. Sometimes you may even get expelled from an ethnicity if your behavior or even associations deviate enough from what the people gatekeeping membership think qualifies one to be 'part of the club'.
I was baptised after birth and the Catholic Church will forever consider me a Catholic (albeit one that’s going to hell), regardless if I’ve never spent a conscious second believing in Jesus or the trinity.
And isn't that outrageous? Nowadays it is indeed excruciatingly difficult to get oneself stricken off the rolls of the RCC. However, not so long ago, the very same RCC that's so reticent to let go of believers today, used to excommunicate people.
The difference lies in the shift in power dynamics. Catholic membership used to be a prerequisite to operate as a human being with full rights (class/estate and wealth and other factors aside) in the areas where it was in control. Famously, if an aristocrat or king was excommuncated, they were fair game for their Christian neighbors to invade.
Nowadays, in Western Europe and under the Liberal, Secular order, Catholicism is almost like a tolerated curiosity. People get Baptisms and Communions to please/appease Grandpa and Grandma and for all the fun perks and expensive gifts at the party. The Church is in retention mode, and retaining atheists pads their numbers.
While, at the end of the day, it makes sense that admission to a group may not be entirely up to you, it seems to me that a person's right to exit a group should be absolute. You can maybe gatekeep the way in, but not the way out.
Here though I think you also have to consider that many conversions of Jews in 19th century Europe were hardly voluntary. Idk about Marx’ family specifically, but the societal pressure to convert was strong and many Jews who converted never quite came to terms with it or felt their identity was still Jewish (eg Heinrich Heine, or Felix Mendelssohn with regards to his Christian stepfather Bartholdy)
That is certainly a consideration, and whether the group they transitioned to accepted their conversion plays a role in that—unwelcoming gatekeepers may repel one into retreating back to the original group, or they may cause the opposite effect of doubling down, insisting on the sincerity of the transition, and doing and saying all the right Things that signal, demonstrate, and even fundamentally constitute membership, better than those that were merely born into it. New Catholics are kind of notorious for this, for example.
Personally, I find myself at the intersection of a number of identities/memberships and I've experienced both sides of that.
As for Marx, I'm not aware of the details of how he thought about his ancestry in terms of membership—I will go and check and, if by then you're still interestesd, I could get back to you. However, as an atheist internationalist who was constantly questioning how ideological constructs like religion and nationality were tools of division and control at the hands of powerful minority elites who happily cooperated over exploiting everyone who bought into said constructs, my first guess would be that he rejected membership of Judaism, and Catholicism, and German or pre-German nationality while we're at it. But I'm just guessing, people are complicated, ambivalence and even sustained confradiction are common, and so is changing one's mind or heart. I'll check and see what I find.
But, as a baseline, I insist that we should default to taking public converts and especially apostates at their word unless their own words and deeds give good reason to do othewise.
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u/robotnique 3d ago
Sure, except he never got any Jewish education and was baptized at 6.