And while so many of us are watching the workings of a powerful theobureaucracy so dramatically exposed in Tehran, let’s not forget this…
Israel’s perennial debate over ‘Who is a Jew’ took another nasty turn this week when a judge on the High Rabbinical Court, Rabbi Avraham Sherman, reportedly said that new immigrants to Israel who want to be accepted as Jews according to Orthdox Jewish religious law, “halakha”, are “in the vast majority gentiles who want to convert out of self-interest.”
Sherman also accused the Orthodox rabbis who want to convert these immigrants of suffering from a “false and distorted perspective, a lack of understanding of halakha.”
This was the lead item in a report by Yair Ettinger in today’s Haaretz.
The question of “Who is a Jew” may seem to outsiders to be one for individuals and their congregations to decide. But that’s not so in Israel, a country founded on the idea that people duly recognized to be “Jewish” have a whole range of privileges not accorded to those who aren’t. For example, any person duly recognized as Jewish has the right to immigrate and gain citizenship, no further questions asked.
Important questions of allocation of resources within the state also hang on whether a person is Jewish or not. For example, the “Israel Land Administration” controls over 90% of the land in Israel, and though the country’s High Court has ruled that non-Jewish citizens should have the same rights of access and usage of these lands as Jewish people, in practice the bodies that administer the lands continue to practice systematic discrimination against people, including Israeli citizens, who are not Jewish. Further details available on the Adalah website, including here.
(Moreover, many of those lands and properties are lands that were owned by Palestinians before 1948, from which they were expelled that year. The state of Israel has prevented those Palestinian refugees– now numbering more than six million– from returning to their families’ properties ever since. See “right to immigrate” above.)
So when discussing the question of “Who is a Jew”, Israel’s state and religious authorities are decidedly not talking “only” about a matter of an individual’s conscience, belief, or religious practice. They are talking about significant questions of access to resources and other benefits accorded by the state.
“Duly recognized as Jewish” is thus obviously, in Israel, an important category. But who has the power to grant this “recognition”? This has been a particularly acute issue regarding the half million or so formerly-Soviet immigrants who poured into Israel in the 1990s whose Jewishness was open at the time to significant question.
Ettinger gives us these additional details about the event at which Rabbi Sherman was speaking. It was the Eternal Jewish Family International (EJFI)’s second Jerusalem Conference on Universal Conversion Standards in Intermarriage, that ended Wednesday in Jerusalem:
- Most of the participants were ultra-Orthodox communal rabbis from around the world, many of whom work in outreach programs.
For three days [at the conference] the state’s conversion programs were attacked by rabbis, including civil servants here – religious court judges (dayanim) and chief municipal rabbis – and by the visiting participants.
Sherman spoke at the conference at length on the ultra-Orthodox view on hundreds of thousands of Israelis who are not considered Jewish according to halakha. He believes they should not be converted, and certainly not in the special conversion courts set up under the auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office, headed by Rabbi Haim Druckman.
“There is no logic to telling tens of thousands of goyim [non-Jews] who grew up on heresy, hate of religion, liberalism, communism, socialism, that suddenly they can undergo a revolution deep in their souls. There is no such reality,” said Sherman. His ruling, he said, was based on the writings of the greatest of ultra-Orthodox rabbis, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv. “A large percentage [of the converts] did not intend on accepting the mitzvot when they accepted conversion,” he said in his address to the conference.
Rabbi Yosef Sheinin, the chief rabbi of Ashdod, told the conference on Tuesday about immigrants from the former Soviet Union: “When they want to marry, they will do everything possibly to deceive. They are to be assumed to be cheaters.”
The conference also dealt with fighting Jewish assimilation, but the crisis sparked by Sherman’s annulling the conversions of Rabbi Druckman’s conversion courts took a central role. Druckman is a leading religious-Zionist rabbi.
So it seems there are still a lot of sharp differences between Sherman and the hierarchy he represents, on one side, and the “special conversion courts” set up by the PM’s office, on the other. Even Israel’s High Court has been brought in to try to rule on the dispute.
So long as Israelis want their country to be centrally defined by its status as “a Jewish state”, such disputes seem likely to continue.
My views are that theocracy (and the theobureaucracy that accompanies it) are everywhere enemies of the free exercise of conscience, and that theobureaucratic considerations should never, in any state, be allowed to undermine the important principle of the equality of all citizens under the law.
Israel’s citizens– all of them, including that large minority who are ethnic Palestinians or who for other reasons are not “duly recognized as Jewish”– need to sort out this question among themselves at some point. And preferably in a forum that is quite free of the intervention of powerful theobureaucracies that may not even in any significant sense be considered Israeli.
As a US citizen, I must say I’m still not sure why my tax dollars should go to support a state that practices such a deeply engrained form of theobureaucratically enforced discrimination.
For HC’s “Just World News” readers:-
Helena Cobban has an excellent short summary of Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations writes Rumyal (Yossi), ” Helena Cobban has a good post summarizing the history of Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations. She doesn’t mention the indirect negotiations mediated with Abe Suliman and Alon Liel, but otherwise it looks pretty complete.”
http://1r1f.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/syrian-israeli-peace-for-dummies/
I can only say it bluntly: You should not write, Helena, about things that you obviously know little or nothing about. The question of “halakha” (i.e. either that one’s mother was Jewish or that one has been converted by a recognized Orthodox rabbi) is totally irrelevant in Israel except for two things: Being married by a in the Orthodox Rabbinate and being buried in a Jewish cemetary. That’s it.
To be Jewish by nationality is an entirely different issue, requires only one grandparent (from either side), and pretty much is similar (as several of us have proven here countless times before) to other Western democracies.
BTW, one of the main issues in the Yisrael Beiteinu programme is passing a “civil union” law within 15 months of the coalition agreement that should take care of the problem of marriages. (The problem of burials was solved about 15 years ago with a law establishing secular cemetaries.)
Helena,
I admit that some agencies in Israeli bureaucracy discriminate against non-Jewish citizens but in many cases, non Jews brought this to Israeli courts and one. I remember of one case where the government was trying to allocate some land for the Bedouins to settle (you know, so that they can build a school for them in one place rather than a school on wheels) at a discounted price just for them and some Jewish land developer want to buy this discounted land, but the court said no. So you can say that at times Jews are discriminated against as well.
And why do you always complain about Israeli descrimination and not of others? Jordan and Egypt both recieve large amounts of YOUR tax dollars and their citizens get less rights than Israeli Arabs. Or maybe Saudi or Pakistani descrimination? They get aide/support as well.
Also, are you talking about JNF owned land? JNF is a private entity with a very clear charter. It is sometimes forced to break the charter but it has no obligation to non-Jewish Israeli citizens.
While I do not pretend to be an expert or even terribly knowledgeable on the issues of Jewishness and the relationship of “private” Jewish organizations to the Israeli government, my reading in the area suggests that there is, at best, a very blurry line between these so-called “private” organizations and groups and the official government. And Israel appears to use this distinction without a difference to disguise many of its otherwise clearly illegal or racist policies and actions.
And I must say that I agree with Michael W that our tax dollars should no more be going to prop up the despots in Jordan and Egypt than to support apartheid in Israel. Saudi Arabia is, on the other hand, a different case, since they support our profligate spending by carrying US debt, and Pakistan is a whole different case.
Good news. It looks like the MKs have read Helena’s post are are sorting things out as wee speak:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1094137.html
Jack, I thought this might just be of interest to you. Please note that Saudi Arabia is lumped with the other Oil Exporting countries that together, as of the end of April of this year invested $189.5 billion in US debt. Israel has invested $19.1 billion (that is, one-tenth the amount) to finance, as you say, your profligate spending.
enforced discrimination????????????
THIS IS A EUPHEMISTIC WAY OF PROTECTING ISRAEL..
WELL THIS IS RACISM ..PLAIN SIMPLE….
AND WHEN ISRAEL IS ACCUSED OF SUCH..THE WORLD ERUPTS IN A RANCOUR TO SUPPORT ISRAEL…
HYPOCRACY HAS ITS LIMITS…..
Well, as a American I am 100% sure that I don’t want my tax money going to Israel for numerous reasons that we all know.
Whatever their marriage laws are is a minor,if telling, point compared to their bulldozing of Israeli Arabs homes in Israel and Palestine’s homes alike.
After all these years of watching US-Isr,I-P I still can’t get over the fact that my own government and congress are so corrupted by the Lobby. Yep, I am a firm believer in W&M’s premise, because there is no other evidence any where for US support of a foreign country that is in fact a libility and not an asset in any way to the US.
…because there is no other evidence any where for US support of a foreign country that is in fact a libility and not an asset in any way to the US.
Don’t be ridiculous. Michael W just gave you four examples.
But why don’t we try and stay OT on this one?
I remember a speech Olmert made while he was PM about the discrimination minorities face from the bureaucracy. It’s not like this issue doesn’t get any attention from the highest level of government. Israeli Arabs, even Palestinians, have won cases in the Israeli Supreme Court.
As for the liability vs asset issue, which country grants the most rights and improved the standards of living of minorities in the Middle East? Who is America’s closest ally in the ME? If the Zionists lost in 1948, would the people between the river and the sea be living in a third-world dictatorship or a first-world ‘Jewish State’ which still grants minorities rights far and beyond what its neighbors grants to their own majority?
Some of you are afraid of Arab retaliation. But do you really think the average Arab in Damascus cares about Israel? Some of you just want to stay away from this forsaken region, but frankly, in a globalized world, everybody is dependent on everybody and involved everywhere.
Back to the theocracy issue, isn’t a theocracy when the clergy rule the government? Rabbis have very insignificant roles in the government, mostly for religious affairs, not land allocation. And if anyone is discriminated, it is Jews who are discriminated against from their more observant coreligionists. Some of these observant Jews are actually anti-Zionists.
Note: JNF is a private entity first registered in Britain and then in Israel shortly after statehood. It doesn’t get Israeli tax dollars except when it bought land from the Israeli government when it was short for cash (but I think that land went back to the government).
David, you’ve got it right: The JNF is a private institution. The lands that they have acquired are administered, under mutual agreement, by the Israel Lands Authority, together with state lands. There is now a reform proposal for the ILA to swap land in the Negev for JNF holdings in the center of the country. The latter would then be privatized by being sold back to the current tenants.
The “liability vs. asset” issue makes sense in accounting, where it can be quantified. My question to “American” would be: How do you quantify this liabilities and assets in foreign relations? I think that he (or she) would be hard pressed to answer.
Michael, sorry. That previous comment was addressed to you, not to David.
Ah, the pilpullistic reasoning of the supporters of the Zionist/apartheid state that JES and Michael indulge in. I can think of no other “people” except “Jewish” that is indulged in as a religion, when convenient, or as a people, when convenient. Can’t think of any country that allows unquestioned emigration, citizenship and direct access to a “chosen” status if one grandparent can prove it is/was/maybe a Catholic. Only the Jewish state Israel does so. (Or should it more correctly be called Jewsland?)
In response to the legend of Israel trying to build schools for the Bedouin, it seems that the Apartheid/Zionist state is actually sending in bulldozers to destroy Bedouin shacks, in order to allow Jews-only colonists to build their “Carmel”.
Take a look at Mondoweiss http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/
“All that will be left here is hatred” story.
The whole point is that Jews are no longer subject to the determination of people who want to decide whether they are absolute vermin or just targets when convenient.
Samaritans have the Right-of-Return to Israel, for purely religious reasons, because, like Jews the site of both their indigenous peoplehood and current religion is in Israel/West Bank. Although they are non-Jewish, this right has been upheld by the Supreme Court.
Know-nothings like you don’t get to decide. That’s the point.
@Lassandra,
That is no legend. I have been to one of these schools. At the school, the principle gave as a slide show presentation of how they settlement developed and why. Then we talked with the students. The few Israeli-Americans like moi helped translate through Hebrew between the American class and the Bedouin class.
@kassandra(same person as lassandra?),
Oh, God forbid, a country opens its doors to people with whom they share a common history and culture who have been slaughtered and oppressed for thousands of years and reuniting to the cradle of their civilization. You seem to have a misunderstanding of Judaism and how we Jews identify ourselves. The whole “chosen” notion you use inappropriately. It’s not a supremacist notion. All it means is that God chose Jews to be given the Torah and follow his commandments. Gentiles are also given commandments, 7 of them in fact, hence they have to follow less rules in order to be considered righteous. They consist of the what you would expect such as prohibition to murder etc. The Jewish tradition does not require others to hold Jews above others, or for Jews to think less of the “stranger”. Our tradition tells us that we have a purpose, the usual religious purpose observant people find their spirit from.
We don’t define ourselves one way or another for convenience. It is rather the opposite. What convenience is there when an entire country, such as Nazi Germany, defines us genetically, giving us no mercy. What convenience is there when Europe holds our religion as the enemy and denying us the freedom of religion for centuries? It is rather the inconvenient prejudice of many through out history which gave us some of our identity. But none of that trumps the fact of where we started and where we should have the right to be.
Last final note, what kind of apartheid country grants all citizens of which ever race or religion or sex etc., the right to vote, the same social benefits etc. I already addressed the discrimination in previous comments.
PS – Many countries give special privilege to a specific immigrant group – all of those countries that I am aware of that has this “law of return” are western and/or first world countries. Ex: Japan, Germany, and various other European countries.