new criteria for "Who is a Jew": chulent

The Mishpacha (Hebrew) newspaper had a fairly shocking story this week. You will not believe it to be true..

I will translate it here to English. If you wish to see the original, bluke scanned it and commented on it.

In a baal teshuva yeshiva there was a student who has been learning there for the past 2 years, who came from a country with a mass aliya. This student has "strengthened himself" [i.e. become religious] and has been keeping all of the mitzvos. Over a recent shabbos he was a guest at the home of one of the married kollel students.

The avreich realized the student despised the chulent and could not even taste a little bit of it. He remembered the words of the Rishonim, that someone who does not eat hot food on shabbos [day] needs to be investigated to see whether he might be a heretic (source: the Baal HaMaor).
In addition, he realized that the student did not shuckle/sway when he prayed, and this too is brought down (in the Zohar) as being a custom of Jews.

Since he realized that this student came from a neglected country {i.e. ostensibly Eastern European, but it does not specify] , he connected the dots and decided that according to halacha this student was likely not a Jew.
Attempts to investigate the background of the student revealed nothing conclusive, so the avreich, at the behest of the student, approached Rav Elyashiv with the situation and asked what to do.

Rav Elyashiv answered that the student must go through a conversion as a stringency [because of the chance he might not be jewish]. However any wine he might have handled is not to be considered "yayin nesech" [wine handled by a non Jew which may not be imbibed by a Jew], as the student behaved like a Jew and considered himself a Jew the whole time, and it is only a "safek" that he might not be a Jew [so the issue of yayin nesech does not apply].

As I said, you would not believe it. So now we are deciding whether or not a person is Jewish by whether or not he likes chulent and whether or not he shuckles during shmoneh esrei.

Soon we might have measurements for how much of a sway is called a sway. The meikil opinion will say something like a sway of 7 centimeters is ok and the most machmir opinion will say probably a minimum sway of 11 centimeters.

And then there will be a debate what is called chulent. What if you make your chulent without barley? And if you use chicken instead of beef?

I took out my shulchan aruch and looked up the halacha. At the end of Siman 257 the Rama mentions the issue quoted from the Baal Hamaor in the story. He says that one who does not eat "chamin" - hot foods, but this word is used in modern day Hebrew to mean chulent, one is suspect of being an apikorus.

According to the commentaries and the explanations, the issue is not if one does like hot food/chulent. Rather, it is if one refuses to eat it becaus ehe is of the opinion that one is not allowed to heat up food on shabbos, using the method we consider permitted. The heretics held to the literal meaning of verses and decided that one could not heat up food at all on shabbos, while we are of the opinion that there are certain methods in which heating up food is allowed. One who refuses to eat hot foods on shabbos is suspect of being a heretic.

And before I continue, let me just say before some people jump down my throat, that I am sure Rav Elyashiv knows that section of shulchan aruch at least as well as me, if not 500 times better (though one does not need to be the gadol hador to quote a siman in shulchan aruch).

The halacha does not say one has to eat chulent. It talks about hot foods. Had they offered this student hot soup maybe he would have accepted. Had they offered hot shnitzel maybe he would have devoured it. According to the reported story, they offered him a food that he did not like.

As a matter of fact, and this might solidify my standing in the minds of some of you, we often in the summer shabboses do not have chulent. I have not made chulent for three weeks in a row now. It is just too hot for chulent in my opinion. Does that mean we might not be Jewish? Does it matter that we have hot soup for lunch? (hot soup is better than chulent because, even though it is hot, it is a lighter meal.)

As well, it does not say that one who does not eat hot food might be a gentile. It says he might be an apikorus. An apikorus is generally a Jew. A Jew does not need to go through conversion when he becomes religious.

It is possible that this student, who clearly grew up non-religious in a completely non-religious and even ostensibly a non-Jewish environment, did not like chulent because he did not grow up with it culturally.
So all of the sudden he is exposed to a new food he has never seen before, and chulent by any description is not a pretty food, he is turned off by it and refuses to eat it, and his Jewishness is suspect?

As well, maybe that avreich just made a horrible chulent!! I wonder if they tried to serve him different chulent recipes and he had to reject each one before they decided he was not a Jew. Or did he just not like this one chulent and that was enough to seal the deal?

As well, there are many people who do not sway when davening. Many German Jews do not. Bluke reports that Rav Moshe Feinstein was famous for not swaying when he davened.

These are ridiculous criteria to use to decide whether or not someone is Jewish.

That being said, my only conclusion can be that the newspaper got the story wrong. Completely wrong, I mean. Not just the "inaccurate details wrong" as in all newspaper articles, but completely wrong.

They must have been missing a major detail. There must have been another reason to suspect his background. I do not believe Rav Elyashiv bases geirus on someones like or dislike of chulent.