I know that being Jewish is passed down maternally; however being a Kohen is passed down paternally. I was wondering in a theoretical situation, if a Kohen father were to have a child with a non-Jewish mother, what is the status of the child? I assume he wouldn't be Jewish, but is he still a Kohen? If he were to convert to Judaism, would he be considered a Kohen Jew, or would he be treated the same way as a Jew who didn't have a Kohen father?
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2The child of a Kohein and someone he can't marry is not a Kohein but a Challal. – Double AA Nov 30 '14 at 19:42
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1I apologize, but what is the definition of Challal? If a Challal were to convert, would he still be a "Challal" or would he be a Kohen? @DoubleAA – JosephG Nov 30 '14 at 19:44
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Related: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/36415/472 – Monica Cellio Nov 30 '14 at 20:33
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@MonicaCellio Not a dupe? – Double AA Nov 30 '14 at 20:45
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@DoubleAA dupe of the part about "if he were to convert", but the other question takes as given what the first part of this asks about (could that child still be a kohen). – Monica Cellio Nov 30 '14 at 20:48
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@MonicaCellio So that's a dupe of this? Or edit out from this the dupe part? – Double AA Nov 30 '14 at 23:05
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@DoubleAA I guess, though we usually don't close older questions as duplicates of newer ones. It's happened, though; bring up in chat or on meta? – Monica Cellio Nov 30 '14 at 23:10
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1@MonicaCellio Might as well just separate them and edit out the dupe part. – Double AA Nov 30 '14 at 23:18
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Kohanim need to be Jews first. The child of a non-Jewish woman is not a Jew, and thus cannot be a kohen. Even if a kohen marries a convert (which halacha forbids, but if he did), so his child is Jewish, that child is not a kohen. Marrying someone who isn't even Jewish could not produce a better result in terms of the child's status.
If the child converts he has no halachic relationship to his birth parents. Thus, his halachic father is not a kohen and so neither is he. Converts are "ben Avraham Avinu".
This article from Chabad discusses children of forbidden marriages with kohanim. It takes as a baseline that the women are Jewish (kohanim face special restrictions in marriage). If even those children have defective kohen status, how much the more so would non-Jewish children be blocked from that path?
Monica Cellio
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"'Kohen' is a subset of 'Yisrael', that is, Jews." Isn't that what he's asking about? – Double AA Nov 30 '14 at 19:54
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@DoubleAA I think he's asking if it's possible to be a non-Jewish kohen. – Monica Cellio Nov 30 '14 at 19:59
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One additional question: If the non-Jewish child of a Kohen were to marry a Jew and have a child himself, I assume that the Jewish child is the descendant of a convert (paternally) and not a Kohen even though his paternal line is Kohen blood? – JosephG Nov 30 '14 at 20:00
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@Jgolden1 His paternal line is not kohen blood. He has no paternal line at all, in fact. – Double AA Nov 30 '14 at 20:01
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@Jgolden1 that's right; his children do not have kohen status. You can't pass on what you don't yourself possess. – Monica Cellio Nov 30 '14 at 20:01
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@MonicaCellio Right. You proved that a non-jew can't be a kohein by asserting that kohanim are a subset of Jews. That's circular. – Double AA Nov 30 '14 at 20:02
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He would be a Ger. Not a Kohein. Not a Levi. Not a Yisrael. A Ger. Gerim (converts) are not halachicly related to their biological "relatives". It's a clean slate.
It's worth noting that in general the offspring of a Kohein with a woman he can't marry are not Kohanim anyway, but Challalim.
Double AA
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