ISLAMABAD: Jemima Goldsmith sharply rebuked Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Friday. She said his own argument about Jewish matrilineal descent had backfired. She described it as an attempt to undermine her sons.
Asif wrote on X on September 18 that, under mainstream traditional Judaism, Jewish identity passes through the mother rather than the father. His post did not explicitly name Goldsmith, former prime minister Imran Khan or their sons, Sulaiman and Kasim.
Goldsmith responded directly to the minister. She accepted the religious principle he had cited before challenging the implication she said he was drawing from it.
“The Defence Minister is right,” Goldsmith wrote. She said she had never been regarded as Jewish by the Jewish community because her mother was a Church of England Protestant.
Goldsmith then applied the same matrilineal rule to her father. She said he too would not have been considered Jewish because his mother was a French Catholic.
She ended her response with a pointed rebuke. Goldsmith accused Asif of trying to undermine her sons and said Pakistan’s defence minister had scored an “embarrassing own goal.”
Traditional Jewish law supports the matrilineal principle at the centre of the exchange. Under halacha, a child born to a Jewish mother is considered Jewish regardless of the father’s religion. However, a child of a non-Jewish mother is not automatically considered Jewish under that standard.
The Reform movement in the United States adopted a broader approach in 1983. It recognises a child with either one Jewish mother or father as Jewish when the child is raised and publicly identifies within the Jewish faith and community.
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Goldsmith was married to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan from 1995 until 2004. Their sons have recently been at the centre of a separate public dispute with Pakistani authorities over travelling to Pakistan to meet their imprisoned father. Khawaja Asif said in August that both could enter Pakistan on valid National Identity Cards for Overseas Pakistanis, while Golds
