I believe that the reason that there are Jewish proxy baptisms still occurring is that there are a sufficient number of Jewish converts to Mormonism that are baptizing their deceased ancestors. I am a volunteer at my local family history library. As a Jew, I do find this practice disturbing--baptisms of Jews--as most of these people that are being baptized were most likely Orthodox Jews in their lifetimes. They would be "turning over in their graves" if they knew this was happening. I don't think that the Mormon church is tracking down and baptizing deceased Jews. I know that at the Family History Center that I work at they have pretty stringent requirements when someone wants to arrange for a family member to be baptized.Meryl Rizzotti

Meryl, I don't think proxy baptisms, nor the list preparation happens at the local Family History Centers. It's not really a matter of tracking down anyone. As the LDS film records they pull names and dates (usually poor transcriptions) from indexes they come across. Those are the names, Jewish, Lutheran, Catholic, Buddhist and so on, that are used. Debbie Meryl Rizzotti wrote: > I believe that the reason that there are Jewish proxy baptisms still > occurring is that there are a sufficient number of Jewish converts to > Mormonism that are baptizing their deceased ancestors. I am a volunteer at > my local family history library. As a Jew, I do find this practice > disturbing--baptisms of Jews--as most of these people that are being > baptized were most likely Orthodox Jews in their lifetimes. They would be > "turning over in their graves" if they knew this was happening. I don't > think that the Mormon church is tracking down and baptizing deceased Jews. I > know that at the Family History Center that I work at they have pretty > stringent requirements when someone wants to arrange for a family member to > be baptized.Meryl Rizzotti >