Russian immigrant family tree

amother

Puce

Sat, Jul 16 2016, 11:43 pm

Someone in my family is getting married to someone Russian and this person says the mother is Jewish, but that they don't have any proof. My aunt asked about it and the couple got very upset about the question. Was this way out of line?

L K

Sat, Jul 16 2016, 11:56 pm

Whom did your aunt ask? The Russian fiancé/e? In what context?

I'd say that's something to clarify with a major posek who is very knowledgeable in the criteria for verification of Russian Jews' status, maybe r.Feinstein, dunno.
What does it help to ask the person directly?

That's coming from a Russian Jew.

amother

Puce

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 12:03 am

My aunt asked the couple directly because she thought it would be better than to go to someone else. She didn't give it much thought, and since it's family she was just making sure everything was ok, wasn't being particularly suspicious, just the regular stuff.

egam

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 12:22 am

Anyone born there has parents ethnicity on their birth certificate. And no one would put Jewish if they really weren't. Trust me. So if birth certificate says that mother is Jewish - that's your proof. But if the mother's father was Russian for example, she would have been Russian in all the legal documents, even though she would be Jewish according to halocha.
Now how is your aunt is going to ask for birth certificate and how she's going to read it, I don't know.

amother

Puce

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 12:42 am

egam, thank you for this info. I would have not known otherwise,I'll tell my aunt about it, because we don't have family from there we didn't know how it worked and it's awkward to ask someone, so now that I know this it makes everything easier, you were a great help!

imaima

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 1:59 am

Well, wouldn't anyone else be insulted if asked that? it is a sensitive question

mo5

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 2:14 am

Wouldn't the rav who is mesader kiddushin do this checking?
Best to ask are rabbonim- from- or working with the Russian community as to how to read and understand the papers.
As far as being insulted, I was also asked for my parents kesuba and my family background was quite well known. Normal practice.

Iymnok

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 2:37 am

mo5 wrote:

Normal practice for the Chosson/kallah, their parents and he mesader keddushin, not ca nosy aunt, sibling, friend etc.

amother

Violet

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 3:13 am

It is not so simple to verify Russian Jewish documents. There are many who the father is Jewish and the mother not and they are written as Jewish. Best to clarify with a competent rav.
They have to have Russian birth certificate of mother and grandmother.
I live in Russian and my husband is a rav.

imaima

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 3:34 am

Iymnok wrote:

Normal practice for the Chosson/kallah, their parents and he mesader keddushin, not ca nosy aunt, sibling, friend etc.

This.
When children get married, the rav does the checking not the aunt.

amother

Puce

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 4:08 am

Thank you all for the responses! To clarify, the aunt is the mother of the chosson,which is why she was asking about it.
Maybe it is best for her to let the rov do the checking..

egam

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 10:10 am

amother wrote:

No one in their right state of mind would do this for their child 30-40 or more years ago. I'm assuming the mother of the bride is no younger then 40. If one of her parents would be not Jewish, she would be written as such. No one would willingly make the life of their child that much harder.
But I agree, the Rav making a chuppah should do the documents checking, not the chosson's mother. I would be upset too if my future machatuniste asked to see my birth certificate.

L K

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 4:53 pm

I'll tell you this: my mesader kidushin didn't ask me for any papers.
As a matter of fact, I only met him at the chuppah for the first time in my life.
Neither has any other rav or my then-fiance's acquaintance.

He is quite lucky that my elderly maternal grandmother was in fact Jewish. He met her in person but nobody checked any papers, neither himself, nor anyone for him. I relied on his oral assurance that rabbanut had "cleared" him as being Jewish several years prior when he did a short stint in an EY yeshiva. Much later , while already married, I saw his papers up to maternal grandmother that proved her/his Jewishness.

That much for checking by mesader kiddushin and such.

Now, I'm not saying this is the good normative way. What I'm saying is that I had nobody to advise me, and nobody saw my papers. I'll double check with my dh later if mesader kidushin asked him about my lineage at all.

I say - everybody must check thoroughly. I only wonder how much your aunt can do at this stage if her child seems quite involved with the fiance/e, without apparently having done any checking with a posek.

L K

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 5:08 pm

Quote:

egam wrote:

Let's do the calculation:

If the mother of the bride (let's call her "mom") was born 40 years ago around 1976-77, she would have had a birth certificate showing her mother's and father's ethnicities. But not her own. The "mom's" own ethnicity would not have been recorded at her birth, but only when she got an internal passport at the age of 16 (1992?), which was who knows what year, and after a certain year when USSR was no longer - they stopped listing ethnicity in new passports. And who says they even still lived in Russia then?

- If her own mother ("grandma") had a Jewish mother and a Jewish father, she could've been listed as Jewish on the "mom"'s birth certificate. Or not- if her own birth certificate had been lost and she had new passport done at some time with a different ethnicity.

- If the "grandma" had non-Jewish mother and Jewish father, she could've still declared herself Jewish if they were planning to emigrate to Israel. They could've gotten "amended", or "corrected" birth certificates years after "mom's" birth. The same process as when there's a mistake in the original birth certificate, say a misspelled name.

In the late 80's there was an emigration going on, and who knows how many non-Jews chose to be written as Jews (legally if they had 1 Jewish parent, or forged altogether) so they could leave the country.

Lemaaseh, it's a question for a posek.

Last edited by L K on Sun, Jul 17 2016, 5:11 pm; edited 1 time in total

egam

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 5:08 pm

No one ever asked me or my son for a proof either. But if the boy's mother specifically asks mesader kiddushing, he'll be able to do it.

amother

Chartreuse

Sun, Jul 17 2016, 6:28 pm

Yes, it probably should be looked into but not by the mother. She should talk to the mesader kiddushin who should look into BOTH sides.

This is what was done when I got married, to a Russian.

The mother questioning so directly at this stage could put a strain on her relationship with the young couple.