The Law of Return includes them - the Chief Rabbinate does not
6 out of 7 Israeli immigrants not recognized as Jews
6 out of 7 immigrants to Israel in recent years - are not considered Jews according to Halacha (Jewish religious law). These data come from the Population and Immigration Authority’s response to Hiddush’s Freedom of Information Act request.
154,474 immigrants who have moved to Israel in the last 8 years under the Law of Return are family members of Jews but are not themselves recognized as Jews by any religious definition, compared to 25,375 Jewish immigrants over that same time period. [In fact, these 25,375 immigrants are not themselves all considered Jewish according to the Chief Rabbinate, for their number includes those whose conversions are not recognized by the Rabbinate, as well as their children.]
23/12/2019 15:19
Tags: Jewish identity · non-Jews · Jews · the Law of Return · Israel · Israeli citizenship
More than 150,000 immigrants have come to Israel during the last 8 years under the Law of Return that are not recognized as Jews by any religious definition, based upon the response to a Freedom of Information request submitted by Hiddush . This is what a Freedom of Information request submitted by Hiddush revealed. The data shows that only about one-seventh of immigrants under the Law of Return during those years – 25,375 people – immigrated as Jews (according to the Chief Rabbinate). The vast majority – 154,474 – immigrated to Israel as family members of Jews (partners, children, grandchildren), who are are entitled to move to Israel under the Law of Return and receive Israeli citizenship upon their immigration.
In all countries from which there has been a significant increase in recent years, the number of non-Jewish immigrants far exceeds the number of Jewish immigrants.
For example, from Russia, only 1 in 25 immigrants would be recognized as a Jew by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate (2,244 Jews vs. 50,093 entitled Non-Jewish immigrants), and among those who immigrated to Israel this year [up to October 31, 2019] only 1 in 40 is Jewish according to religious Jewish law.
Ukraine – 1 out of 12 are Jewish (3,123 Jews, 34,835 non-Jews). Among the immigrants from Ukraine this year – only 1 out of 25. France – about 27% of French immigrants are Jews (7,851 vs. 20,825). The United States of America – about 30% of US immigrants are considered Jews (5,487 vs. 12,785), and in 2019 only 2,031 Jews immigrated to Israel from the USA, compared to 20,948 non-Jews.
The Declaration of Independence guarantees freedom of religion and conscience, and a large majority of the Israeli public wants to see this promise fully realized. That desire began to manifest itself in the last election, and it is time to respond to the public will and the needs of the State of Israel. A civil government must be established to enable these two essential goals to be advanced.
The data illustrate how urgent Israel's need to be released from the Chief Rabbinate and religious coercion truly is. The Chief Rabbinate and the politics of religion do not reflect the modern reality of the Jewish people today. The State of Israel, as the home of the Jewish people, must accomplish two urgent objectives:
- The religious establishment failed miserably at opening the gates of conversion to immigrants. The State of Israel must grant full and equal recognition of all accepted conversions in the Jewish world, which the ultra-Orthodox Chief Rabbinate refuses to acknowledge, whether they are Modern Orthodox or non-Orthodox converts.
- Civil marriage and divorce should be implemented, for due to the current state of religious coercion in Israel, hundreds of thousands of citizens are being denied this basic human right to family, and their number is increasing every year.
The Declaration of Independence guarantees freedom of religion and conscience, and a large majority of the Israeli public wants to see this promise fully realized. That desire began to manifest itself in the last election, and it is time to respond to the public will and the needs of the State of Israel. A civil government must be established to enable these two essential goals to be advanced.
The Jewish Agency is should be commended for its dedication to encouraging immigration to Israel and the absorption of many immigrants, according to the expanding definitions of the Law of Return. However, it is hard not to criticize the fact that the Agency has chosen to gloss over the true reality of the Jewish people today, reflected in immigration data. The Jewish people do not act according to the views of the Chief Rabbinate and religious coercion. The issues of conversion and the right to family in Israel are heavy and pressing, but unfortunately the Agency chooses not to bravely and responsibly address this challenge, and it has been avoiding the struggle for freedom of marriage in Israel for years. We hope that the data we are now revealing will convince the Jewish Agency leadership that it is time to take full care of Israel’s immigrants, to finally treat them as first class citizens, by joining in with the many voices that are demanding the implementation of civil marriage and divorce in Israel.
Additional Background
The fact that most immigrants who come to Israel and are eligible for citizenship under the Law of Return, although the Chief Rabbinate considers them as Gentiles, ties in directly with data released earlier this year by the conversion department at the Prime Minister's Office.
Official reports indicate that three out of four people who wish to convert in Israel through the Orthodox rabbinic establishment fail to do so and drop out. Of the 27,710 non-Jews who entered into state conversion programs in 2018-2016, only 7,357 completed the process – only 26.5%. About half of those who planned to convert at that time did not even register with the conversion courts and dropped out earlier. It should also be emphasized that even with those who converted, their Jewishness is not guaranteed by the Chief Rabbinate’s standards; there have been quite a few instances where rabbinic courts have retroactively revoked the Jewish identities of converts in Israel on the grounds that they are not religiously observant.
The newly released data confirms and clarifies the picture:
Every year the number of Israeli citizens who are not recognized as Jews (they are often called “of the seed of Israel”), but are sociologically part of the Jewish public, increases by tens of thousands. Some of this is due to natural growth [born to mothers who immigrated to Israel and are not recognized as Jewish], and some of this is due to further immigration. The Population Register and the Central Bureau of Statistics define them as “others”, and the only way for them to change their registration to Jewish is through religious conversion. Many of them feel Jewish, and were recognized as Jews in their countries of origin [for example, in Russia]. Their total number, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, exceeds 350,000 citizens. Since state laws only allow for religious marriage in Israel, and the Knesset has granted a monopoly over Jewish marriage to the Chief Rabbinate – none of these citizens can marry in Israel, and they must either opt to cohabitate (instead of getting married) or go abroad to marry.
Note:
Following the publication of these data provided to Hiddush by the Israeli Population Authority in an official response to a Freedom of Information request, the Population Authority announced that "data collection inaccuracies" had occurred, and that the data it provided was being re-examined. Hiddush will of course update its report and address the significance of the Population Authority's failure to provide reliable and verifiable information.