The Law of Return does not distinguish patrilineal from matrilineal descent. Indeed, most such immigrants are not Jewish by religious law, even if ethnically they have that connection.
My understanding of the Law of Return is that matrilineally you can prove Jewishness by going arbitrarily far back on the female line, but that patrilineally (or otherwise not fully matrilineally) you can only go back as far as your grandparents.
That’s consistent with it probably not affecting most people + still allowing for people who do not meet the traditional religious criteria to exercise the Law of Return, but not the same as the treatments being the same.
According to my understanding, if for example my great grandfather was Jewish, but married to a Catholic, and raised their son (my grandfather) as a Catholic, who then was for all intents and purposes a fully practicing Catholic thus raising my parent the same way, I wouldn’t be eligible for the law of return. But if I could show my mother’s mother’s mother’s … mother was Jewish I would be eligible, even if this is more than 2 generations.
For most people raised Jewish I doubt it matters much but it does change things a lot for people of mixed Jewish ancestry whose parents/grandparents were not practicing. Which is a pretty decent number of people in the US and former Soviet Union
That’s consistent with it probably not affecting most people + still allowing for people who do not meet the traditional religious criteria to exercise the Law of Return, but not the same as the treatments being the same.
According to my understanding, if for example my great grandfather was Jewish, but married to a Catholic, and raised their son (my grandfather) as a Catholic, who then was for all intents and purposes a fully practicing Catholic thus raising my parent the same way, I wouldn’t be eligible for the law of return. But if I could show my mother’s mother’s mother’s … mother was Jewish I would be eligible, even if this is more than 2 generations.
For most people raised Jewish I doubt it matters much but it does change things a lot for people of mixed Jewish ancestry whose parents/grandparents were not practicing. Which is a pretty decent number of people in the US and former Soviet Union