tions and expulsions of the Jews , most of the original priestly families failed to preserve the purity of their descent:
Because of our sins and the unending exile, edicts and expulsions the cohanim have been mixed with others. Would that the holy seed had not been mixed with the profane[of the Gentiles]. But the descendants of priests and levites has almost certainly been commingled, at least for the most part.”
Likewise, Rabbi Abraham Gumbiner, author of the Magen Avraham, assumes the impurity of the modern Cohen’s descent when he seeks to account for the doubtful status accorded him in the law:“he is not considered to be a certain cohen, since it is likely that an ancestress was defiled as the descendant of a cohen, who had taken a wife who was forbidden to him.
Finally, Bettan quotes Rabbi Jacob Emden ’s ruling that a cohen that receives a sum of money for the redemption of the first born should return the amount. There is a danger that he might be guilty of stealing the sum to which he had no legal claim because of the doubtfulness of his priestly origin.”
Bettan bases his teshuvah exclusively on halakhic sources, mainly from the responsa literature. By adopting the views of these decisors, he finds justification for Reform practice, as he states:
When, therefore, Reform Judaism chose to ignore the nominal distinction between the ordinary Israelite and the cohen—a distinction which has persisted to this very day—it did not so much depart from tradition as it did display the resolute will to surrender a notion the validity of which eminent Rabbinic authorities had repeatedly called in question.”