Letter to the Editor: Toby F. Block

Letter to the editor,

I agree with William Daroff. The Law of Return is a bedrock of Zionism which means Israel must welcome all people who have suffered discrimination because of their connections to Judaism. That must include people who are not Jewish according to Halakha (Jewish law). Unfortunately, Israel does not have a good track record in dealing with people who have become Israeli citizens, legally, under the Law of Return, although they cannot prove that they were born to Jewish mothers.

Consider the fate of many immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union, a significant number of whom are the children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers. Although this fact was surely well-known before the immigrants had finally succeeded in making it to Israel, there were no plans made for dealing with the problem. Instead of organizing outreach to the “Russians,” the State Rabbinate actually put obstacles in the path of those seeking to convert, demanding that they convince their entire families to convert with them and that they promise to become completely observant Jews as soon as they converted. As a result, there are hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens whom the Rabbinate does not consider Jewish, meaning that they are denied permission to marry Jews in Israel. However, being unable to marry legally will not stop many of these people from entering into relationships and building families of sabras who won’t be considered Jewish according to Halakha. This is a tragedy not only for immigrants but for the State as well. The nation-state of the Jews needs to maintain its Jewish majority population!

Of course, no one should be forced to convert, but the state should define the requirements that must be met by prospective converts, as well as establishing criteria for certifying who can offer classes on the basics of Judaism and certify that the would-be converts have met the requirements. In fact, in the interest of ensuring that the Jewish citizens of Israel are knowledgeable about Judaism, classes should be offered not only to non-Halakhically Jewish descendants of Jews, but also to children of Jewish mothers who were denied Jewish education by virulently anti-Jewish governments, ardently secular parents, or intermarried parents who chose not to educate their children in either parent’s faith.

Toby F. Block, Atlanta