Russian "Jewishness" in Israel
Zionism brought them, but halakha rejected them
From http://www.haaretz.com/
Fri., December 02, 2005 Kislev 1, 5766

By Lily Galili

Yelena and Victor Albertman, new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, were married a year and a half ago in Bulgaria. They had no other choice - Victor is a Jew on his mother's side; Yelena is Jewish on her father's side. The joyless wedding in a foreign land legalized the bond between them, but failed to address a painful problem: the couple has two children, a 7-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy, and they are not considered Jewish.

The Albertman family, who live in Lod, is one of tens of thousands of families who have found themselves on the inevitable collision course between the Zionist ethos and halakha. The Zionist ethos eagerly brings them here by the Law of Return; the halakha laws reject them upon arrival.
If their younger son marries a Jewish woman, his problems will be over. However, the Israeli-born girl who will be considered an Israeli but not a Jew - unless she converts - will have even greater difficulty than her mother understanding the labyrinth she was born into. As a woman and a mother, she is destined to perpetuate her problem for generations. This is mainly because some 90 percent of the immigrants from former Soviet states tend to marry among themselves. Therefore the chances of a child born to new immigrants - who is not Jewish according to halakha - marrying a spouse from the Russian-speaking community are high. Neither they nor perhaps their children will be able to marry in Israel for generations to come.

"We don't think about it much, because it hurts," says Albertman, who is formulating a civil code for the Democratic Choice party. "Maybe the children will choose to convert in the future. That's an option too, although it is not normal and not democratic. In America there are Jewish streams that recognize people as Jews if their father is Jewish. That does not seem realistic in Israel, but other solutions could be found. My wife and I love Israel and have chosen to live in it. It only needs to be changed. We need a revolution."

No revolution is in sight, but perpetuating the problems certainly is. Professor Arnon Sofer from University of Haifa says that statisticians estimate that 400,000 non-Jewish Russian speakers will be living in Israel by 2020, compared with 300,000 today. Perpetuating the problem will make the distress more acute. If a mixed couple arriving in Israel today finds it hard to cope with the discrimination, it would be even harder to explain to the children born here that they may be Israelis, but don't really belong to the Jewish community.

Already the plight of the halakhically non-Jewish youth is intense. Even new immigrants' organizations don't like talking about it, but the ratio of non-Jewish juvenile delinquents in the immigrant youth community is especially high. The easier conversion courses offered by the IDF provide only a partial answer.

"For years the Reform Movement in Israel has been pushing the option of recognizing people whose fathers are Jewish as Jews, as they do in the U.S. - but in vain," says Reform Rabbi Gregory Kotler. "The movement in Israel is more conservative. If we had enough courageous Orthodox rabbis, there is even support for it in the halakha. But ultimately they all fear what Rabbi Ovadia Yosef will say."

Kotler, 37, is familiar with the problem. He immigrated from Ukraine in 1991 and became the first Reform rabbi from that wave of immigration. For the last four years he served as the Reform Movement's envoy in Russia.

"You don't have to create a new social minority in Israel," he says sadly. "Immigrants devoid of any religious `categorization' have opened synagogues in homes in Ashdod and Ariel. A person with religious needs who is rejected by one religion turns to another," he says.

Jewish Agency Chairman Zeev Bielsky believes that the stories about conversion difficulties - such as Jewish soldiers' burial difficulties - that reach former Soviet states have a bad influence on immigration to Israel.

"It would be wrong to try to convert them there, before their immigration," he says. "It could be interpreted as missionary work, something no sovereign state would tolerate."

First ten readers' responses (out of more than 200) to the above article at the Haaretz's "Talkback":

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/652230.html

*Name: Roni (City: Tel-Aviv):
The non-Jewish population (immigrants and especially Arabs) is growing from generation to generation. Yet the lobby of the rabbis make it more and more difficult to become Jewish demanding the converts to follow an absurd ultra-Orthodox form of ghetto-Judaism from Diaspora as their life model in Eretz Israel. Open the gates of Am Israel so that we may survive!
*Name: Larissa of Moscow:
Why is the Law of Return rejecting 10 millions Palestinians who are driven by even a greater desire to settle in the Zionist Land? Why only Russian non-Jews? Isn`t this practice racist?
*Name: SJ (City: Tel Aviv):
Who cares, if they are mad enough to come and live in Israel and get involved with all this who is a jew nonsense then thats there choice.
They live here, they have Israeli passports.
So why do we have to be catogrised by a bunch of morraly bankrupt politicians and rabbies. Who cares what they think? if you were a stranger in a foreign land just wait to see how they treat you here!
*Name: nathan der weise:
will someone sack these over-zealous thought police?
what nonsense is this?they consider themselves to be jewish and you will not allow it? anyone who considers himself jewish is jewish. that is all you know and all you need to know.
*Name: Jake in Texas:
To Roni #1: I could not agree more(except maybe the ghetto part). The vast majority of Jewish people in the world are not ultraorthodox. As such,these rabbis do not speak for Judaism. I am tired of hearing Orthodox people acting as though they are the true Jews and the rest of us are somehow Jews-light. We have to become more tolerant of ourselves and more inclusive if we are to survive. We need to respect each other, Orthodox, Conservative, Perform, Reconstructionist, or Secular. We have enough problems within ever rising tide of world anti-Semitism. Don`t believe me? Watch what happens on this discussion group. Before long, the conversation will have turned to how Jews are a bunch of racists who discriminate against Palestinians. Expect words like fascist, apartheid, and even Nazi to appear.
*Name: Daniel Moldavsky (United Kingdom):
My catholic wife and I emigrated to Israel from Argentina in 1990. By any account, we were considered a success story. Both revalidated our medical degree, found work as doctors in recognised hospitals, and our two daughters were a success as well. However, this was attained at the cost of my wife concealing her identity, refusing to answer the question about "how was her Jewish affiliation in Argentina" and the like. It seems that Israelis are simply non prepared to deal with the problem.
On March 2004, I think, I was on a directors` meeting at my hospital. News came about the bombing in Madrid train station, and a well known colleague, professor at Tel-Aviv University, aid literally "who cares about all these goyim". I understood that it was time to leave. We live now in the UK. My wife can openly talk about her religion, and so can I. I am not making an idealization of the British way to deal with the subject. However, Israel will certainly loose people like us if the approach does not change. And it looks that it will not. Our two daughters are now serving at the IDF, and they need to carry on the "problem". Maybe they will join us, maybe not. In any case, the only solution is clearly the separation between Religion and State. Please, if there is a comment, will it be constructive. Many thanks.
*Name: octavio (Hamburg, Germany):
If the nazis would have listened to the rabbis there would have been less victims of the Holocaust, as many of those killed during the weren`t jews in the meaning of the halacha. Many came from assimilated families, were baptized. But the nazis did not care as for them it was not a religious but a racist problem. So the Law of Return was created for those who were or would have been prosecuted where ever in the world because of their jewish background. The Tlaw of Return is a Law of Protection for anyone who is prosecuted/endangered because of beeing jewish - religious or not. For once and ever keep religion out of politics.
*Name: Nicole (London /Tel Aviv):
The Jewish people consist of less than 0.001% of world population. I dont think this is the time to turn Jews away from the religion or our beloved homeland.
*Name: bm (t/a, israel):
the problem facing these people is a real dilema for both them and the state and the
options in reality are limited it is unlikely that the religious groups, would ever consider changing their rules and as such the civil society has to help these peoples who are trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea
*Name: Sarah Howard (Jerusalem, Israel):
No great thing being Jewish. Being Jewish is no big deal. It`s only a religious status. It does not make you a better person or a more patriotic Israeli. I fail to see any problem!
- posted by Izak @ 10:17 PM