The newly-appointed far-right Minister Ofir Sofer laments the number of immigrants arriving from Russia and Ukraine to Israel who are not considered Jewish according to an Orthodox interpretation
By Sam Sokol, HAARETZ 2.1.23
Complaining that the majority of new arrivals from Russia and Ukraine are not Jewish according to halakha, or Jewish religious law, newly-appointed Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer declared on Sunday that Israel must take steps to limit non-Jewish immigration.
During an interview with national broadcaster Kan, Sofer asserted that the Law of Return needed to be amended, although he preferred “to find a way without legislation,” because some 40,000 out of 55,000 new immigrants from Russia and Ukraine are not halakhically Jewish.
“The gap needs to be reduced,” he stated.
According to the Jewish Agency, 37,364 new immigrants arrived in Israel from Russia – along with 14,680 from Ukraine – in 2022. Immigration from both countries has risen precipitously in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.
Concerned that too many immigrants in recent years are not considered Jewish according to halakha, the religious parties allied with Prime Minister Netanyahu have demanded that the law be changed so that only individuals with at least one Jewish parent would be eligible for aliyah.
As such, they have called for the cancelation of the law’s “grandchild clause,” which governs eligibility for aliyah and Israeli citizenship. Under the current Law of Return, an individual with at least one Jewish grandparent is eligible to immigrate to Israel and receive automatic citizenship.
Last month, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared in a radio interview that the current immigration policy was “one of the biggest threats to Israeli demography, to the country’s Jewish identity and assimilation.”
“This is a social and Jewish time bomb that must be dealt with. We insist on it and will continue to insist on it,” Smotrich told ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Barama.
His comments seemed to be a response to then Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to downplay the possibility of changing the law.
Speaking with NBC’s Chuck Todd, Netanyahu stated that while the issue would lead to what he called “a big debate,“ he has “pretty firm views” and “I doubt we’ll have any changes.”
However, despite his comments, coalition agreements signed by Netanyahu’s Likud Party contain clauses requiring the new government to draft legislative amendments to the Law of Return.
If the religious parties set to be in Israel’s next governing coalition have their way, nearly 3 million people with Jewish roots – the overwhelming majority of them from the United States – could lose their right to immigrate to Israel, according to Prof. Emeritus Sergio DellaPergola, Israel’s leading demographer.
In 2019, Israel announced that Jewish immigrants to Israel were outnumbered by non-Jewish immigrants for the first time, releasing figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics showing that 17,700 of the 32,600 migrants who moved to Israel in 2018 came under the Law of Return but were listed as “having no religion.”
Such immigrants, hailing largely from the former Soviet Union and Baltic states, count Jewish ancestry but are ineligible to marry as Jews, for example, under the state-controlled rabbinic court system.
According to CBS statistics published by the Ynet news site this November, 72 percent of immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union in 2020 were not Jewish.
All told, there are already more than 400,000 people, mostly from the former Soviet Union, living in Israel who are not considered Jewish by the Chief Rabbinate. For the past several years, immigration from the former Soviet Union has again been on the rise, edging out France and other Western European nations as the source for the largest number of new immigrants.
Sofer is not the only figure in the new government with influence over immigration policy who has spoken out against non-halakhic Jewish aliyah.
Avi Maoz, the head of the far-right Noam Party, was recently appointed the head of the Eastern European aliyah agency, Nativ. He has spoken about changing the law so that those whose only claim to being Jewish from a single grandparent can immigrate to Israel exclusively in the framework of family reunification. In other words, only if the immigrant’s Jewish grandfather lives in Israel.
Judy Maltz and JTA contributed to this report.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-oct-01-mn-38110-story.html
The “grandfather clause” was added in 1970. It made sense in 1970. Your internal nationality, in this case, “J” for Jewish, was stamped on your internal passport,
in the Soviet Union, and it was generally patrilineal. Today, there is no country in the world that looks back that far to see if you are Jewish so they can discriminate against you. It should be repealed.
And, here, I, like everybody else, thought it was because of the Nazis but when I read that it was from 1970 in a current Jewish Press article about 2021 immigration hurting Israel’s Jewish majority, it all clicked. It also said .03% so I think 2022 is a typo. They don’t compile statistics that fast.
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/aliyah-israel/2022-immigration-leads-to-decline-in-israels-jewish-majority/2023/01/16/
@AS1818
First of all, it is not “galachic”, it is “halachic”.
A galach is a Christian priest, Halachah is the Jewish Law.
I think you assume too much while knowing too little.
Maybe they would if the “full-fledged Jews” didn’t hate them so much.
And they should require them to be Zionists. That’s the most important thing.
Those who oppose the provision of grandchild clause understand well the danger that comes from the Arab biomass (Israeli Arabs and Autonomous Arabs) There is no contradiction here.
It is clear that either Arabs or Jews will end up here.
I want to cite an article from Victor Rosenthal’s blog.
“Managing the Unmanageable”
Posted on August 10, 2022 by Victor Rosenthal.
” Our conflict is a struggle between peoples for territorial dominance. Although we find it tremendously difficult to face the fact, it is a zero-sum game. One side will win, and the other will disappear from the region. ”
But it does not follow from the above that you need to save grandchild clause. I have already pointed out that in our time even galachic Jews often find themselves in reality anti-Jews.
There is enough experience. Most of those who use grandchild clause are not looking to become full-fledged Jews.
Moreover, there are many anti-Semites among them.
As for Americans who could use grandchild clause …
First, most of them are not going to move to Israel.
Second, most of those who move will immediately join the far left and the Arabs in their struggle against Jewish Israel.
If Israel limited Aliyah to persons who qualify under the present clause, only if they first convert according to Conservative standards, I would be happy to accept them. This would greatly reduce the number of non halachic Jews which are accepted. And that would be a good thing.
If immigrants want to remain as gentiles, they would have to apply for immigrant status as non Jews. If they want to be received as refugees, I would be against it as Israel are accepting enough refugees under the grandfather clause.
Israel is not the same as liberal democracies in the West. It wants to be a Jewish home for the ingathering of the exiles. It wants to remain a Jewish state.
I question their data, I think they exaggerate the numbers of “non-Jews” as a scare tactic in order to make it easier for themselves to pass the amendment to the Law of Return.
Just because the Chief Rabbinate does not recognize that someone is a Jew doesn’t mean that this person isn’t a Jew – it simply means that the Rabbinate has a stubborn “suspicion” about it.
The Rabbinate is also extremely biased against the olim from the FSU.
A few years ago I found out that the Rabbinate has 2 desks for the “Jewishness” issues – one for the “Russians” and Ethiopians and the other one – for everyone else.
The proposed amendment to the Law of Return is not the only threat to aliyah, another threat is the Jewish Agency requirement for the Diaspora Jews that both the oleh and his mother were proper Orthodox Jews (and those who are usually do not wish to make aliyah).
I find it interesting that those who want to “ensure the Jewish character of the state” by limiting aliyah are deathly quiet about the 4 million of very anti-Jewish Arabs (2 million within the Green Line, and 2 million in Judea and Samaria) – apparently they represent no threat to the Jewish character of the state as far as the “right-wing” MKs are concerned”.
Very narrow minded politicians would change the Law of Return ” grand-parent / grand-child ” clause. By their sheer narrow mindedness they are canceling 3 millions Americans jews out of a potential return to their roots in their ancestral homeland. A total disrespect of 20th century history, which imposed upon all jews of europe persecutions and mass murders . These jews of europe were left after the Shoah in a depleted jewish world . What could they do to keep alive their History ? To stay single or to marry some non-jewish partners who respected their faith and history . I know many examples where the non-jewish partners adhered to judaism practice and in some cases converted . So the children of such couple should be banned from coming home in Israel ? Utter non sense to be polite.
With respect, I have to disagree. As a grandchild of a Jewish grandfather, I was brought up in a family which respected Judaism and strongly supported Israel. If I were to emigrate to Israel it would be because I wanted to live in a safer country as far as my Jewish connections are concerned, since there has been a huge rise in antisemitism in Europe and the UK. If I did so, I would be prepared to convert to Judaism if the process were simplified so that Reform or Conservative conversions were acceptable. I think the same would be true for many such as myself. This law was based on the Nuremberg laws, which said that we were “mischlings”, and thus should be sent to the concentration camps because our DNA would pollute the Aryan race! Now it almost seems as though our “Aryan DNA” – our non-Jewish genes, in other words – are being seen as a problem for the Jewish state. If that is not the case, and if it is a question of preserving the religion and culture of Judaism, then If people emigrating to Israel are willing to convert, they should be welcomed. And if the conversion criteria were broadened to allow Reform and Conservative rabbinical supervision as well as Orthodox, I’m sure many people would do so. After all, the reason many of them come to Israel is because they have a Jewish spouse and they support Israel and the Jewish people, so they are already committed to supporting Judaism. It would surely be possible to make a law saying non-Jewish immigrants entering under the grandfather clause provision must convert under Reform, Conservative or Orthodox rabbinic supervision.
I really hope that the issue will finally be resolved and grandchild clause will be canceled.
It should have been canceled earlier.
And it would be best not to introduce grandchild clause at all.
The above is all the more true since even the galachic definition in our time often looks non-authentic.
In the US ,Canada ,Western Europe, and in Israel itself there are many who are Jews according to the Galah, but are not actually Jews.
They are enemies of the Jewish people and of Israel.
Only corrupt officials, leaders of some parties, and those who want to make it impossible to restore the Jewish character of the state to the full, at least in the future, need the grandchildren clause.