If Jewish people do say ” You always know who your mother is ,your father——-?” then, again it seems to be yet another sweeping statement about paternity and can be quite hurtful.
Why?
Your mother bears you after carrying you for nine months ,there is no doubt unless a woman gives birth totally alone with no one else present as witness.
The father- well most people can be certain of who that is but not everyone .
Paternity can only be proved by blood group etc and d.n,a,tests.
Those have only fairly recently become available.
So the statement is right.
I am not sure what has upset you .
The statement was said by a Jewish lady at Manchester’s Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue,when I enquired how I might trace a baby girl born at the same time as me, I was given as my second name her first name hence the k in Viktoria ,they were German Jewish immigrants .We were both born in 1937,just before the real surge of the Nazis .
She was named after one of the last Kaiser’s daughters.
Jewish ancestry is traced via the maternal lines.
I was told that when we visited the Museum.
The Synagogue had closed for worship - the Jewish community had moved a good way ,to Prestwich and new Synagogues .
It became a Museum of Jewish Life in the early days of the Jewish community .in that area where they first settled in the 1800’s ,the first Synagogue was I believe The Great Synagogue near Victoria Station where the immigrants arrived on their journey from Europe.
I do not see any offence in the statement,it is fact said by someone in whose religious laws it is observed.
Paternity can be doubtful , maternity almost never.
No offence meant ,it was a statement of fact and common sense.
Viktoria.
