Yes, Gawker’s Founder Nick Denton is Jewish

Yes, Gawker’s Nick Denton is Jewish

To celebrate the demise of the liberal click-bait site Gawker. I thought I would do a quick article on the jewishness of its founder and CEO Nick Denton. In doing research for it; I came across a rather stupid little article over at the neo-Conservative ‘Front Page Mag’ written by an Israeli named Daniel Greenfield, which claims Denton isn’t actually jewish and that it is all ‘neo-Nazis’ and ‘conspiracy theorists’ being retarded.

He amusingly claims that:

‘Nick Denton is not Jewish. He does not identify as Jewish. The issue only came up as a bizarre defense in court. Orthodox Jews would consider Denton to be Jewish in a legal sense. But the JTA isn't run by Orthodox Jews.’ (1)

Right well Daniel… identifying as jewish doesn’t mean you are or are not jewish. Being jewish is an objective phenomenon given that realistically there is only one way you can ‘become jewish’ so-to-speak.

That is by being born to a family of recent jewish heritage. You can be born into your jewishness either in terms of the jewish religious law (i.e., born to a halakhically jewish mother) or be classified as such by the Israeli legal right of return (i.e., provide sufficient evidence of a jewish parent or grandparent).

There are converts to Judaism of course, but they are pretty scarce and even rarer when you just count those that the Israeli state recognises as being valid (i.e., Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox conversions not those made by Reform or Conservative rabbis).

Anyway just for the sake of argument: what if I decide that I am jewish?

Then does that make me jewish?

No: it doesn’t.

However if your argument holds true Daniel then you have necessarily claimed that being jewish is a fluid not a static identity. Therefore jewishness is not a matter of being born jewish or being halakhically classified as jewish at all, but rather consists of deciding that one is and then identifying as such.

Therefore since jewishness is a fluid not a static identity. Doesn’t that mean that the entirety of the Zionist project is a bunch of bunkum given that it by contrast assumes – a-la Herzl, Hess et al – that the jewish people are unique national entity not a fluid social construct?

This in turn forms the only basis on which the jewish claim to reside in Palestine can be considered valid.

Whoops!

I guess you really didn’t think about what you were saying: did you?

Also just to correct you Daniel: any religious jew - other than some of the more extreme Hasids who also use religiosity in addition to ancestry - would consider Denton jewish, because his mother Marika Marton was herself halakhically jewish. (2)

It also somewhat amusing that you claim that Denton doesn’t ‘identify as jewish’, because he quite clearly states that he grew up as both jewish and Hungarian in London.

Like it or not Daniel: Nick Denton is jewish and so are you.

References

(1) http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/263156/no-gawkers-nick-denton-not-jewish-daniel-greenfield

(2) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/mar/09/gawker

(3) http://nymag.com/news/features/establishments/68506