Why most recent immigrants to Israel aren’t considered Jewish

T. Belman. This is a huge problem and must be solved. Israel must consider an easier way to convert just as the Reform have done. It is very important that the children of these immigrants be deemed Jewish. Those who want to be Jewish according to Hareidi standards can convert according to their standards. The rest should have a lower standard for joining the Jewish people.

By Sam Sokol, JTA


Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau, second from left; Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, third from left; and Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau at a special meeting of the Israeli Rabbinate Council at the Western Wall tunnels in Jerusalem’s Old City, May 24, 2017. (Shlomi Cohen/Flash90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — For the first time, Israel announced that Jewish immigrants to Israel were outnumbered by non-Jewish immigrants.

The headlines might suggest that Christians and perhaps Muslims have been moving to the Jewish state in significant numbers, but the truth is more complicated: According to numbers released Monday by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 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. In 2017, there were 11,400 such immigrants out of a migratory population of 29,100.

The result is a heated debate over Jewish identity, the country’s strict Orthodox standards for converting to Judaism and how to best integrate new immigrants into the life of a Jewish state.

All told, there are already some 400,000 people, mostly from the former Soviet Union, living in Israel who are not considered Jewish by the Chief Rabbinate. Such immigrants and their children are “caught in a bureaucratic void, unable to marry in State-sanctioned weddings, and to partake in other basic rights of Jewish citizenry,” according to Itim, an advocacy group that works to help Israelis navigate the country’s religious bureaucracy.

Itim calls the situation “unacceptable, particularly given the dysfunctional and inadequate State conversion system, which converts a mere 2,000 Israeli citizens to Judaism each year.”

The Law of Return grants near-automatic citizenship to those with at least one Jewish grandparent. The Chief Rabbinate only recognizes them as Jews under the standards of halacha, or Jewish law: They must have a Jewish mother or have been converted to Judaism under Orthodox authorities approved by the Chief Rabbinate.

For the past several years, immigration from the former Soviet Union has again been on the rise, edging France and other Western European nations as the source for the largest number of new immigrants. Russians, many with Jewish roots, are fleeing their country’s economic stagnation. Many Ukrainians have fled from the Russia-backed military conflict convulsing the east of their country. According to Israel’s Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, more than 30,000 people emigrated from Ukraine between 2014 and October 2018.

According to a 2014 report by Vladimir Khanin, the chief scientist of the Israeli Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption, the proportion of non-Jews among those arriving from the former Soviet and present-day Baltic states has been increasing for decades. While only between 12 and 20 percent of immigrants were considered non-Jews when immigration started in earnest following the Cold War, their numbers rose to between 40 percent and half in the late 1990s. By the first decade of the 2000s, the share of those designated as non-Jewish was between 56 and 60 percent.

In a country where demographic arguments carry political weight from everything to issues of religion and state to the peace process, accurate numbers are critical, said Israeli demographer Sergio DellaPergolla. He said the new figures stand at odds with some of the rhetoric being employed in Israel’s public policy debates.

“Considering that Jews compose 75 percent of the total Israeli population, the growth of the non-Jewish components was faster and therefore the Jewishness of Israel diminished — in spite of the triumphalist declarations by certain political circles that the Arab fertility rate has diminished,” he said.

Itim’s founder, Rabbi Seth Farber, said the numbers suggest the need to loosen Israel’s cumbersome process for converting to Judaism.

While some three quarters of Israel’s current population is considered Jewish to one degree or another, “if we were to take out from that [total] all the people who made aliyah who aren’t halachically Jewish, the number of Jews would go down to less than 65 percent,” Farber told JTA. “It would essentially destroy the Jewish State of Israel.

“Israel is doing a decent job of bringing people here but a terrible job of bringing these immigrants fully into the fold of the Jewish people. Because the only way to do that is to guarantee their full rights here in Israel and particularly to be married. And the only way to do that is to provide a system of conversion that would be accessible and traversable and unquestioned down the road. The Rabbinate is putting its head in the sand regarding a demographic time bomb for the people of Israel.”

Farber insists that given their Jewish ancestry and desire to become part of the Jewish political and cultural collective in Israel, it would be immoral to deny the newcomers entrance in the first place, as some among the haredi Orthodox have suggested.

“It’s not reasonable from a moral and family perspective,” he said. “A lot of these people suffered as Jews and have firm and strong Jewish identities, not necessarily religious identities, but they are part of the body of the Jewish people.”

Rabbi David Stav of Tzohar, an Israeli Modern Orthodox rabbinical organization, also seeks an overhaul of the country’s strict conversion process.

“I think that we know already as a fact for the last two to three years that most of the immigrants that arrived from Ukraine are not halachically Jewish,” he said.

In Ukraine, his organization opened an office several years ago to help prospective immigrants to Israel prove they are Jewish.

“The change should be simple,” Stav said. “We offered this years ago: Convert the kids while they are minors.”

However, without an overhaul, interfaith marriage and assimilation will increase significantly, he warned.

For his part, Farber said that his organization had been working outside the official rabbinical court system to convert children, who, unlike adults, are not required to accept religious observance as part of the process. This year would mark the 1,000th such conversion his organization has facilitated, he said.

“Our goal,” Farber said, “is [for this] to become the policy of the State of Israel.”

January 7, 2019 | 9 Comments »

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  3. @ Bear Klein:
    One of the reasons for the “Texas Revolution ” against Mexico was Mexico’s demand that all Immigrants to Texas be baptized RC. Even Sam Houston himself was baptized in the home of his Jewish friends The Strauss’s. Remember the late Robert Strauss who was a prominent democrat.?

  4. Another Nail in the Coffin for Conversion Reform in Israel as Top Court Set to Freeze Initiative

    High Court approved Israeli government’s request for a six-month delay to plan that would have stripped Chief Rabbinate of its power Another Nail in the Coffin for Conversion Reform in Israel as Top Court Set to Freeze Initiative

    High Court approved Israeli government’s request for a six-month delay to plan that would have stripped Chief Rabbinate of its power

    An initiative aimed at reforming Israel’s controversial conversion system appeared headed back to the deep freeze on Monday.

    Facing mounting opposition from the ultra-Orthodox parties, the government requested and received permission from the non-Orthodox movements to put the initiative on hold for yet another six months. It was the latest indication that the government has little, if any, desire to follow through with the plan that would have stripped the Orthodox-controlled Chief Rabbinate of its power over conversions in Israel.

    This six-month freeze still requires the final approval of the Supreme Court, which has withheld ruling on the matter of the legality of non-Orthodox conversions in Israel waiting to see what would happen with the initiative. It is expected to grant its approval within the next few days.

    The initiative was drawn up in the form of a draft bill prepared, at the request of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, by Moshe Nissim, a former Israeli justice minister and longstanding member of the Likud. The Nissim bill called for the creation of a state-run authority, outside the auspices of the Rabbinate, that would oversee all conversions in Israel. All conversions performed by this new authority would abide by Orthodox rules.

    ‘Ivanka’s rabbi’ makes the cut: Israel caves and reveals lists of recognized overseas rabbis ? Israelis may be fed up with Orthodox establishment, but few are joining reform and conservative congregations

    As soon Nissim presented the draft bill in June, and government requested that it be put it on hold for six months so as not to shake up the coalition, which relies heavily on the support of the ultra-Orthodox parties. That six-month period ended Monday.

    The reason the High Court was required to intervene was that while the Nissim initiatives was being drafted, the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel had agreed to temporarily suspend a petition they had submitted demanding that conversions performed by their rabbis in Israel be recognized by the state.

    The non-Orthodox movements agreed on Monday to a further delay of six months on condition that about a dozen of their converts, who have been waiting years to obtain legal status in Israel, be allowed to stay in the country and receive social benefits for the next year. Their request was granted.

    The Reform and Conservative movements have also expressed reservations about the Nissim initiative because it would not recognize conversions performed by their rabbis in Israel.

    The legislation has drawn criticism from other fronts as well, most notably a private initiative known as “Giyur K’Halakha” (Conversion according to Jewish law), founded by a group of prominent religious Zionist rabbis who have performed more than 600 conversions in the country, about 18 percent of the total each year. Within the Orthodox movement, the Giyur K’Halakha rabbis are known to be relatively liberal and their conversion requirements are considered less stringent. Were the Nissim bill approved, all such private conversions would be outlawed.

    Each year, about 1,000 conversions are undertaken in Israel outside the state-run system – roughly half Orthodox and half non-Orthodox. The overwhelming majority of these converts are citizens of Israel – most of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union and their children, who are not considered Jewish by religious law because they do not have a Jewish mother, as well as adopted children and children delivered by surrogate mothers.

    The Nissim bill is the latest in a series of attempts in recent decades to reach a compromise on the thorny issue of conversion that would be acceptable to the majority of Jews around the world.

    In June 2017, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation was scheduled to vote on another bill that would have denied recognition of all conversions performed in Israel outside of the existing Rabbinate-sanctioned state system.

    Facing backlash from Jewish leaders abroad, Netanyahu assigned Nissim with the task of drafting an alternative bill.

    Reform and Conservative leaders have expressed fears that the government could return to the original conversion bill that is far more drastic than the Nissim alternative.

    Responding to the decision to put the Nissim bill on hold for another six months, Rabbi Gilad Kariv, executive director of the Reform movement in Israel, said: “Our condition was a clear commitment by the government to refrain from any legislative acts during this period and to upgrade the status of our converts, in whose name we brought the petition to the High Court.”

    He said the Reform movement did not want to open another front between the government of Israel and world Jewry “at such a sensitive time.”

    “At the same time,” he said, “we made clear to representatives of the government that we will not agree to any act that involves granting a monopoly on conversions to the Rabbinate, which is so hostile to our converts and creates so many difficulties for them.”

    Rabbi Seth Farber, the founder and executive director of ITIM, an organization that advocates for converts, said in response: “The decision is a wise one for all involved. It prevents conversion legislation that might decimate private conversions, on the one hand, but resolves the Jewish status issues of individuals whose civil rights were being violated, on the other. It is the best decision at this moment in time.”

    Farber is an active member of the Giyur K’Halakha initiative.

    Yizhar Hess, executive director of the Conservative movement in Israel, said there was no reason the converts who had petitioned the Supreme Court had to wait this long to receive legal status in Israel. “The minister of interior could have decided this month, if not years, ago,” he said. “But apparently he was scared the Supreme Court might deliver a ruling that would confirm yet again that there is more than one way to be a Jew.”

    Addressing the annual conference of the Jewish Federations of North America in October, Netanyahu warned participants that he did not have enough political clout to push through the Nissim bill.

    “I think it’s a good compromise, but I don’t know if I have the ability to pass it,” he told them.

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-another-nail-in-coffin-for-israeli-conversion-reform-as-top-court-freezes-initiative-1.6749399

  5. @ adamdalgliesh:
    She is a Jew. One does not need to be living a Haredi lifestyle to be a Jew. The rabbinate converted her by the way. They have flipped flopped on their arbitrary rules over the years.

    My guess is she a grandmother in Israel today!

    Based on polling if their was a referendum about allowing Reform & Conservative Rabbis to operate fully in Israel in all their regular functions they would be allowed to. The coalition system of government ends up letting a minority dictate how people live in things that impact religion.

  6. @ Bear Klein: Very true, Bear. Has this lady been recognized by the State as a Jew, even if the present rabbinate refuses to recognize her? Is she still living in Israel?

  7. The haredi-dominated rabbinate in Israel has imposed severe restrictions on the number of rabbis, both inside and especially outside of Israel, whom it recognizes as legitimate rabbis and legitimate rabbinic judges (dayanim) qualified to perform conversions. These include not only all Reform and Conservative Rabbis, but thousands of Orthodox rabbis, including most who have been certified as dayanim by the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Assembly of America, two major Orthodox federations in the UNited States. The Israeli Chief rabbinate has also retroactively, “revoked” the conversions of thousands of Jewish converts on the grounds that their conversions were performed by rabbis whom they claim are unqualified to perform conversions. This includes nearly all converted Jews who conversions were performed by Relious Zionist rabbis (who are Orthodox, but non-haredi, rabbis.

    Although the Israeli department of immigaration and absorption has different criteria for deciding whether an individual shoud be classified as Jewish on their Israeli identity card, and granted immediate citizenship under the Law of the Return, they too have very strict rues that exclude many people of Jewish descent from being recognized as Jews. They require immigrants to show documentary proof of the their Jewish origins, such as certificates of Bar-Mitzvah or circumcision, or a marriage contract, that proves that their mother was Jewish. Many Jews from the diaspora, especially from the former Soviet Union where Jewish life rituals were nearly forbidden, but also from the United States and other Western countries, where many Jews are ‘not religious” and as a result, fail to undergo these life-cycle rituals or have their children undergo them, and/or fail to keep records of their having undergone these rituals even if they have done so, are not able to classified as Jews or receive citizenship under the Law of the Return when they try to immigrate to Israel. They may not even be granted residence permits.

    We Jews are an extremely self-destructive people. While other religions seek converts, we seek to drive them away or expel them from our communities. The prevailing Orthodox view of conversion is what I call “country club Judaism.” Judaism is a very exclusive club, and you must provide very detailed credentials and references to prove that you are worthy of admittance to the club. Since in the real world, it is no great honor to be a Jew, and it only makes one vulnerable to conversion, and does not enhance one’s social status, business opportunities or provide tangible benefits the way induction to a real country club does, very few people wish to join this country club, and the few who do are quickly discouraged and give up trying for admission. Incredibly self-destructive. Unless the Orthodox rabbinate overcomes its cliquish, exclusivist concept of Judaism, it will die out as a living faith, and the Jewish people will die out as a people, within a few generations at most.

  8. The Army has a very reasonable method of conversion from Zionist Rabbis.
    So do some other Orthodox Rabbis. I am personally also not against any real process whether it is reform or conservative also.

    The process of conversion in Israel is different than used to be in Israel. It was much more realistic in the past.

    I met a Dutch girl onetime (in 70s) who like a lot of people from Europe or North America had made her way to a kibbutz. She fell in love with an Israeli Kibutznik and wanted to marry. She converted inside Israel learned a ton about Judiasm and they had a Jewish wedding. Today they would not accept her if she goes to the typical Rabbinut Rabbi because she is not living in a religious environment according to those doing the official conversions. Never mind she is living in the Jewish State with Jews and wants to live like most Israeli Jews. In other words she learned about Judaism and wants live like the typical Israeli Jew and not Bnei-Brak.

    So unrealistic demand that continue because of the power of the Haredi parties harms Israel and the people living in Israel.

  9. Ted, you should know better than this. People “of no religion” should simply be converted as if Judaism were a golf club? Kids should be converted when there is no expectation they will grow up as Jews in more than name only? Perhaps we should accept Abbas’s grandchildren just to make up the numbers? What a farce!

    This happened once in history. When citizens of the vassal state of Idumaea were converted by the Hasmonean Government. And that is how we got Herod. Me, I’ll stick with being a small nation which knows where it is going.