First, an old Soviet joke:<p>-Isaac, we need to get outta here fast, they're beating up the Jews over here<p>-But in my passport, the nationality is listed as "Russian"!<p>-Isaac, you don't get it. They aren't gonna beat up your passport, they're gonna beat up your face!<p>--------------<p>The question of what it means to be Jewish is complex: it's a mixture of ethnicity (<i>nationality</i> in Soviet passports, which confused people for a long time), religion, and culture.<p>For the most part it's easy, though. I joked with a friend of mine: we don't need to remember being Jewish, others will remember it for us.<p>To that extent, I use the following <i>reductio ad Hitlerum</i> test of whether someone should be considered Jewish: <i>Would the Nazis have rounded that person up for being a Jew?</i>.<p>That makes a lot of these questions simple.<p>Follows Judaism? A Jew.<p>Jewish mother? Clearly.<p>Jewish father? Still a Jew.<p>Self-identifies as a Jew? Clearly a Jew.<p>Looks very Jewish? Better be safe than sorry, a Jew again.<p>So what these Israelis are doing is ridiculous. Someone would be accepted as a Jew in the eyes of anti-semites, but be denied being Jewish at home.<p>It is very sad that Israelis are using DNA testing to do this ridiculous gatekeeping -- and at that, against the part of the population that has done so much for that country (there would be no Israel without Jews from the Russian Empire and USSR to begin with, as simple as that).<p>No prophet in his hometown, I guess.