[Avodah] [Areivim] upcoming C 'psaks'

[Michael Makovi]

> On Areivim, Daniel Israel wrote:
>
>  And may someone adopted by Jews and converted to
> Judaism as a child be able to be called by the adopted parents? names,
> or must he or she always be called to the Torah as a descendant of
> Abraham and Sarah?
>
> Actually, having despaired of finding this in the SA, and not having a
> t'shuvah collection, I took a quick look in some popular English works
> that I thought might be likely to address it. Sure enough, R' Donin
> says that it is mutar, but doesn't give a source. Does anyone know of a
> source one way or the other? I can't imagine the shaila hasn't been
> asked already.
>
> I haven't seen anything written, but the practise as I have seen it,
> both for adopted children and for gerim with Jewish bio-fathers, is
> to call them up by their father's name, because of kavod habriot.

> I know of no halacha that requires a person to be called to the Torah
>by name at all, let alone specifying the form. AFAIK one may call
>someone in any way that will identify him and let him know to come up,
>all the way from using the surname to "you in the back Indeed there
>are shuls where people are *not* called by name but as yaamod shelishi,
>yaamod revi'i etc., the relevant people having been privately
> notified in advance. (There are also shuls where the names are all
> publicly announced before kohen, and then before each aliya they are
> called without names, but that's not what I'm talking about here.)
>
> Since this is so, I see no reason not to call people by whatever name
> they want to be called, whether by their biological father's name,
> their adoptive mother's name, or anything else.
>
> I also understand, though I have not actually seen this, that in the
> ketuba of a ger with a Jewish biological father his name would be
> *written* as "ben Avraham Avinu", but would be *read* as ben ploni,
> because of kavod habriot.
>
> Zev Sero

And thank God. It'd be a bit awkward if I had to be ben Avraham Avinu, given
that my father is Jewish and my mother taught me all my primary Jewish
knowledge (it is a remarkable thing for a woman to do a Reform-Conservative
conversion with a Reform-Conservative Jewish education course, and yet come
out with hashkafot straight out of Rav Hertz (chumash), Rav Hirsch, Rabbi
Berkovits (i.e. God Man and History), etc. It's already a bit awkard knowing
that the woman who taught me everything that makes me a Jew, isn't
technically a Jew -  do I have to remind her??!! Thank God I don't.
(Although when I finished my conversion, I didn't tell her, and when she
found out from my rabbi, she asked me why I didn't tell her - I thought it'd
embarass her for crying out loud! Instead she reprimands me? Crazy Jewish
mothers.)

It also creates a bit of a problem when your non-religious (= doesn't want a
conversion) brother of the same mother tells you that he wants to make
aliyah - I'd love for him to live near me, but what of the very real
possibility he'll meet a Jewish woman and get a civil marriage in Cyprus?
Gevalt. My rabbi said let him come to Israel - maybe he'll become religious
- my rabbi hasn't met my brothe. If only we accepted Rabbi Berkovits on
accepting non-Orthodox converts as true converts for the sake of the unity
of Am Yisrael. The Israeli rabbinut is WAY too strict - I know too many guys
(at my dati tzioni yeshiva in Jerusalem) who have had to get Charedi
conversions in Meah Shearim because the Israeli rabbinut wouldn't accept
them.

Mikha'el Makovi