[Avodah] establishing mamzerut

[Arie Folger]

On Wednesday, 1. November 2006 20:10, avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org wrote:
> DNA testing WRT igun means finding proof that the body is the husband's.
> Accepting the evidence is a matir. But WRT mamzeirus, the proof could be
> used either lehaqeil or lechumrah. So it's not clear to me why one could
> generalize even from igun to mamzeirus

Let's just repeat that the speakers at the Conference of European Rabbis, 
including one that was trying to represent RYSE's POV, considered the 
validity of DNA testing for both 'igun and mamzerut to be in the same 
category. To be matir an 'agunah, you need a greater than 999°% (promille) 
certainty. That is definitely enough to supercede rov be'ilot a'har haba'al. 

And please don't bring any proof from nishtaheh hazera' (that we consider the 
husband the father of the child even if he didn't cohabit with the child's 
mother for more than 9 months ... up to a year), for that is a difficult 
matter, which, since qabbalah hi, neqabel, but we can't enlarge that concept 
to include other completely unlikely things. One day, science might even give 
us a greater understanding of that argument by Chazal, and may be we will 
understand the difference between nishtaheh hazera' and other things.

As an additional piece of information, I recall having somewhere in my 
archives a reprint of a letter by RYSE to the rosh mate artsi of the Israeli 
police, where the link between dna and mamzerut is clearly stated. If we 
accept the tests' validity, we will suddenly find out about many previously 
unknown mamzeirim.

Kol tv,

Arie Folger