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Part Four - Judaism, Culture and State

State Conversion and the Law of Return
Completing the Process of Ingathering the Exiles

National Conversion According to Jewish Law

The State of Israel was established not only for those Jews who were in the Land of Israel during its establishment, but for the entire Jewish People. In this respect, the State of Israel was established to enact the Law of Return[11]. Therefore, it is justly the main legislative anchor that ties the State of Israel to the Jewish People. Israel is obligated to give citizenship to every Jew[12], but the definition of Jewishness is dependent upon Judaism itself – the Torah. Therefore, the State of Israel must have a state authority that determines who is a Jew[13]. The authority to define Jewishness, for purposes of eligibility under the Law of Return, has been justly placed in the hands of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, as the closest thing to a national body with decision making authority that represents Judaism[14].

Judaism, as we know, is neither racist nor proselytizing, and therefore, the path to Judaism is open to anyone in the world, from any background, through the framework of conversion, if he desires it of his own volition. Because of this, conversion in the State of Israel and abroad has been made subject to the supervision of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.

The debate on the general framework of conversion courts, and the nature of the Chief Rabbinate's supervision of the process in Israel and abroad is a complex and largely professional debate[15]. The issue has given rise to a tangle of slogans, but the following general principle is correct, just, and vital:

Conversion, which confers the rights to immigrate to Israel and receive Israeli citizenship through the Law of Return, must be performed according to Jewish law as accepted by the People of Israel, by Jewish courts that have been authorized by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.

The conversion question as it applies to marriage registration is irrelevant to us, because Zehut proposes the elimination of the marriage registry.

Who is Entitled to Immigrate? – Update of the Law of Return

The Law of Return was enacted on the heels of the Holocaust and its horrors. At the time it seemed logical not to bar people who had been singled out by the Nazis and survived the concentration and extermination camps as Jews from immigrating to Israel and becoming citizens in cases where they were not Jewish according to Jewish law[16].

Consequently, the Law of Return is defined on the basis of Jewish law, while expanding the radius of influence even to the children and grandchildren of Jews, and their spouses. Thus, a Jew married to a non-Jewish woman passes his eligibility for citizenship to his wife and all his children and grandchildren, even if he is the only Jew among them according to Jewish law.

This claim for expanding the Law of Return, despite the great human logic of it, could have been better answered even then, if they had forgone citizenship and enabled immigration and permanent residency alone. In fact, this solution was employed with respect to Jews who had converted to Christianity, in the wake of the Brother Daniel case[17]. Despite what has already been established, it is high time to apply a better solution for the future.

The Situation Today

This extension of the Law of Return to the descendants of Jews who are not Jewish according to Jewish law, up to the third generation, has led to harsh criticism by certain personalities, such as the Lubavitcher Rebbe and others over many decades. It has not, however, garnered significant political response. The subject was considered only theoretical, because the "working hypothesis" was that someone who isn't Jewish and Zionist will in any case not immigrate to the State of Israel, unless he is being persecuted in his country, while countries with a high rate of assimilation are not countries where Jews are persecuted.

This assumption has become incorrect, just as the premise of conversion has become incorrect[18]. Underlying conversion is the assumption that a non-Jew who wants to convert is motivated by idealistic reasons, because living as a Jew is much more difficult than living as a non-Jew. This can no longer be assumed. The State of Israel is a prosperous and progressive country, an excellent migration destination and favored by people from all over the world, especially places where there was an assimilates Jewish population.

The huge wave of immigration from the dismantled countries of the Soviet Union that arrived in the State of Israel at the beginning of the nineties was the first mass expression of this phenomenon. CIS countries, some of which were on the verge of true starvation, had more than enough grandchildren of Jews who wanted to immigrate to the State of Israel, as well as mixed couples of Jews and non-Jews, whose numbers reached tens of thousands. Thus, for the first time, a reality of a significant minority that was not Arab and not Jewish according to Jewish law was created in Israel.

The large wave of immigration from the Soviet Union was only the starting point. Continuous and stable immigration from CIS countries number in the thousands of people who aren't Jewish according to Jewish law, and their ties with Judaism are less and less clear, both from a perspective of Jewish law and from a national perspective[19].

This phenomenon significantly endangers the Jewish character of Israel, and produces a real potential of an assimilation crisis in the country, while the historical justification it had close to the establishment of the state continues to dissipate. The existence of a growing minority of the population that has no national or religious connection to the Jewish People significant, and it has an impact on the country's image far more than that of the Arab minority. This is because the Arab minority does not blur the identity of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish People. On the other hand, the blurring of boundaries between Jews and non-Jews from the CIS is liable to bring about, for the first time, a serious rupture between the Israeli identity and the Jewish one, which will be anchored in a familial reality of mixed marriages on a national scale.

Moreover, because many of the non-Jewish immigrants to Israel come as migrant workers and for quality of life, Israel must put the issue on the table and treat it as migration, rather than as a continuation of the process of ingathering of the exiles.

The Proposed Amendment - Reducing the Gap

As such, the time has come to change the Law of Return and to reduce the gap between it and the national-Jewish definition of Judaism in this way:

Only a Jew according to Jewish law will be entitled to Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return, along with his wife and minor children, if they are not Jewish.
The right to immigrate will be granted to Jews according to Jewish law, as well as to their spouses, their parents, and their children who come with them, even if they are not considered Jews according to Jewish law, but not grandchildren.
The status of adult children who are not Jewish according to Jewish law and choose to immigrate will be permanent residency.

Finishing the Process of the Ingathering of the Exiles and the Return to Zion

The processes described above come on the backdrop of our proximity to completing the process of ingathering of the People of Israel to its Land. The fact that most of the People of Israel are currently located in the Land of Israel is a momentous turning point in history.

Currently, world Jewry outside of Israel is mostly in countries in which there is not a significant danger of persecution. However, those Jews are in the process of severe assimilation. This does not mean there are no more large Jewish communities that are likely to make aliyah to Israel in the coming years and decades. We anticipate that tens or hundreds of thousands of French Jews will join will join us soon. However, the reality in which the Jewish population abroad continues to assimilate rapidly, while most of the world's Jewish population is located in Israel and is stable in its Jewishness, also demands the change we are proposing.

[11] In fact the Law of Return was passed in an orderly fashion only after the actual absorption and naturalization of hundreds of thousands of Jews, which expresses even that this law is axiomatic in the State of Israel.

[12] Excluding Jews who converted to another religion, and thereby exclude themselves from identification with the Jewish People.

[13] The question "Who is a Jew" is relevant to the State of Israel in a variety of other areas, among the most central being conscription into the army., This concept is quite rightly applied in the country on grounds of nationality, since the State of Israel is indeed the state of the Jewish People specifically, and in any case, the fundamental responsibility for its existence, expressed in mandatory army service – is the domain of this nation. However, in practice – we do not treat this issue according to the criteria of Jewish law, which creates further complications.

[14] Though still very far from it.

[15] Our more detailed proposal about this platform appears in the platform in the chapter "Revolution in Jewish life."

[16] That is, in practice, children of a non-Jewish mother.

[17] Brother Daniel, the alias of Oswald Rufeisen. Born a Jew, Rufeisen survived the Holocaust, during which time he converted to Christianity. After the Holocaust, he wanted to immigrate to Israel, but it was decided that he was not eligible to immigrate according to the Law of Return, as the Law of Return does not apply to Jews who changed their religion.

[18] The understanding that this axiom of conversion would one day become irrelevant is expressed in the Jewish laws which state that "we do not accept converts in the days of the Messiah", because then it will no longer be possible to distinguish between those who come to convert out of idealism, and those who come to convert out of self-interest.

[19] While at the beginning of the influx of immigrants, most of the immigrants were Jewish according to Jewish law by a factor of more than 2/3, the number of Jews according to Jewish law among immigrants from the FSU a decade later dropped to only one third.