My Jewish Relatives

[Winnie G]

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,6001...0124522,00.html

What I decided to do with my Jewish relatives is none’s business.

My step-father (Jewish) and a baptized LDS member at the time of his death left all his linage for me to take to the Temple.

I will never forget watching my husband and my son and all the YW and YM in the font with the names of loved ones all Holocaust victims filling the air and the young men and women of my ward prepared to do their work by reading the family history and looking at the Photographs I saved in a album with their family history. Their parents tagged along as well, the room was full.

They wept for them and have said it was a testimony building experience.

[Maureen]

Originally posted by Winnie G@Apr 9 2005, 02:14 PM

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,6001...0124522,00.html

What I decided to do with my Jewish relatives is none’s business.

My step-father (Jewish) and a baptized LDS member at the time of his death left all his linage for me to take to the Temple.

I will never forget watching my husband and my son and all the YW and YM in the font with the names of loved ones all Holocaust victims filling the air and the young men and women of my ward prepared to do their work by reading the family history and looking at the Photographs I saved in a album with their family history. Their parents tagged along as well, the room was full.

They wept for them and have said it was a testimony building experience.

<span style='color:blue'>The church also assumes the closest living relative of the deceased being offered for proxy baptism has consented.

Carol Skydell, also a researcher, said that didn't happen when her paternal grandparents and aunt and uncle apparently were given a baptism by proxy. She found their proxy baptism records in 2002.

"Nobody asked me, nobody asked my cousin. It's ridiculous," Skydell said.

I wonder Winnie if you may need to prove written consent from your step-father.

M.

[Guest lt]

Maureen, sometimes its someone within that line, not always the closest kin.

I baptize people who are even third cousin two lines back., there as much my family as the next persons......

Laureltree

[Maureen]

Originally posted by LaurelTree@Apr 9 2005, 07:47 PM

Maureen, sometimes its someone within that line, not always the closest kin.

I baptize people who are even third cousin two lines back., there as much my family as the next persons......

Laureltree

LaurelTree - It seems the Jewish people may want to really crack down on these proxy baptisms and have only accepted them with consent from a relative. They may want to go further and require written consent.

M.

[john doe]

Would you like that consent form notarized? Would you like to have all descendants of the deceased sign off on it? How far do you want to take this, M?

[Maureen]

Originally posted by john doe@Apr 10 2005, 01:33 PM

Would you like that consent form notarized? Would you like to have all descendants of the deceased sign off on it? How far do you want to take this, M?

Actually I don't really care personally, but from the article it sounds like the Jewish community is getting fed up and may want to go as far as they see fit.

M.

[john doe]

Sounds to me like it was already done. I guess the church could void all those baptisms, but I personally don't see what the big deal is if the Jewish people don't even recognize the LDS baptism. It would seem to me to be meaningless if you don't accept it. If someone else wants to go to the trouble, I say knock yourself out if it doesn't mean anything to you anyway.

[Winnie G]

My step father was a LDS member joined in his sixties, I helped him track what records were left after the 2 W war and though family letters and so on and since the Jewish grave yards were desecrated and the stones used to pave streets and so on. Most of the records of were the grave yards were and the Temples burned or bombed. Finding the families names was a long process. I made friends with a Rabi in Edmonton Alberta who was helpful in my search. I found enough information from the few living members of his house hold, his nanny and a few Dutch cousins (non- Jewish) to go back only three generations. My step-father’s heath declined and was never able to receive his endowments and left it to me to take over. I still have family groups to seal and then the work will be done. I promised an old friend who taught him wile serving on his mission to be his proxy for his sealing to his parents next time I am in Salt Lake.

His mother was Dutch Aristocracy of all things and was the third cousin to the Queen of Holland. His mother was Catholic and his father Jewish. A family scalded.

He was away at boarding school when the Nazis invaded and took him out of school. His mother bribed a guard to get him back and shipped him to the states inside a piano crate on one of the last ships before every thing went in to full occupation. The captain let him out and kept him hidden till the ship reached New York.

I think he earned the right to ask me to finish what he started, don’t you?

It seems to me if they really understood the principle of accepting or rejecting the proxy baptisms they would just say “what ever” and leave it at that.

I get that a lot from my living relatives who think I am wasting a lot of my time and say what ever.

But they love to benefit of all my research that they paw though with all the old photos I have in family history albums.