[Avodah] Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Thu, Feb 04, 2016 at 10:28:42PM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: The historical evidence seems overwhelming.  And AIUI this has been
: reinforced by recent genetic evidence.

Agreed.
What I questioned was the claim that a large number (10%) of the Roman
Empire were Jewish, not that a large percentage of Jews at the time
were geirim.

I also wondered what percentage of self-identifying Jews were actually
geirim, given that there were non-Perushi movements that proseltized,
and we were already discouraging geirus.

Personally, I think the Romans made sure there weren't that many Jews,
which is why it wouldn't take /that/ many converts for a lot of us to
descend from geirim. Between the First Jewish-Roman War, the Kitos War
in chu"l and Judea, and the Bar Kokhva Revolt, we weren't quite thriving
by the mid 2nd cent CE.

Second, the 10th generation doesn't necesssary mean 1024 (2^10th distinct
grandparents). If that were true, I would have some 280 trillion ancestors
contemporary to Rashi. People marry their cousins, especially when it is
far enough back for them to be unaware of the fact. In a shtetl, everyone
was relate to eachother numerous times over.

See http://www.torahmusings.com/2012/11/who-is-a-ger , section III,
"Who is a Ger: Only the Convert or his Children, too", by RMJBroyde.
The nafqa mina is who may marry a mamzer/-es.

The Tur holds geirus is dominant, any one parent being a geir is enough
to be a geir too, but I didn't see him mention any deadline.

The SA that geirus is recessive, requires both parents being geirim.
Along the way, note that the EhE 7:21 uses "ad kamah doros", which would
seem to indicate lav davqa a literal 10.

(The SA is following the Rambam (IB 15) apparently, and the Ran (Qiddushin,
Rif-daf 30b) takes issue with the Rambam.)

Looking at the codes, I would conclude "10 doros" was taken as an idiom
for "as long as pragmatically possible", perhaps a reference to Noach
to Avraham.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter