There was in Egypt during the time of the Radvaz a sort of situation in which people that owned slaves would free the slave-girl, and by that the slave would become ipso facto free and Jewish [and her child who was conceived at the time she was a slave] as can see in many of the questions brought to him {Shut Ha’Radvaz}.] This of course was nothing compared with the time of the Reish Galuta, Butenai when intermarriage was rampant. The common approach of Sephardim toward Ashkenazi is tainted with an implicit assumption (but upspoken) that the Ashkenazi is not really Jewish. That question might as well be reversed. [ Theidea here is that a slave that is dipped into a natural body of water at the time he or she is acquired becomes a gentile slave. Then, if he or she is freed later, he or she becomes Jewish. This was very common in Egypt when many people owned slave girls.]