[Avodah] How does Prozbul work?

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 09/16/2015 08:08 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
>> >In an article reviewing this shmitta, Rav Melamed threw in monkey wrench
>> >that I had never heard before. In calculating the numbers of Jews, the
>> >true number (at least as far as shmitta goes) includes all those people
>> >who are Jewish through maternal descent. Therefore the number of Jews is
>> >much higher than we believe it to be.

> I have no idea how R Melamed got his numbers. RAL seemed to hold that
> once a few generations have passed that a family has no connection with
> yiddishkeit then the family would no longer be halachically Jewish even
> for direct maternal descendants.
>
> i.e. if someone could prove they were a descendant of shevet ephraim
> through a direct maternal link the person still would not be Jewish.

That is an extreme daat yachid, with a very tenuous basis.  Nobody
else agrees with him, so there's no reason to expect R Melamed to take
this view into account, or even to be aware of it.


-- 
Zev Sero               GChT
zev at sero.name