My mom renounced her Judaism 40 years ago, before I was born even, yet I'm still totally in by most accounts*, despite having been raised Catholic and baptized and confirmed and the whole nine yards. So I guess from my perspective, I never got that at all, but I imagine if I wanted to be Jewish and didn't already have a Jewish parent, it would be a far different story.



*the only person who ever said otherwise was my sister's father-in-law, who would live to regret calling me "the non-Jewish one."