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September 13, 2002/Tishri 7 5762, Vol. 55, No. 3
Nation reexamines Russian aliyah
JESSICA STEINBERG
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - A renewed call to change the Law of Return - which guarantees citizenship to any Jew in Israel with at least one Jewish grandparent - is turning the spotlight on immigration from the former Soviet Union.
Nearly 1 million immigrants have moved to Israel from the former Soviet Union since the floodgates opened in the late 1980s - and as many as a quarter of them are not Jews according to religious law, experts say.
Though immigration has tailed off sharply in recent years, the percentage of non-Jews among the immigrants has risen as high as 70 percent, according to Israel's chief rabbis.
The Interior Ministry puts the figure slightly lower - at 58 percent for the first half of 2002 - but still far above what it was in previous years.
The controversy over Russian immigration is not academic. With Israel defining itself as the Jewish state - and with the rigorously Orthodox rabbinate in charge of issues such as marriage, divorce and burial - an influx of large numbers of non-Jews raises difficult societal questions.
Should non-Jewish immigrants be allowed to undergo Reform or Conservative conversions, for example, or must they go the more demanding Orthodox route?
Indeed, some ask, should they have to convert at all? Or are the responsibilities of Israeli citizenship, such as military service, the price of entry to the Jewish people?
The significant number of non-Jewish immigrants has pushed such issues to the front of the political battlefield.
While most Israelis generally welcome the idea of immigration, opinions differ widely on the implications of the huge Russian immigration for the Jewish state. Recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union now make up nearly one-sixth of the Israeli population.
For the most part, it all can be traced back to the Law of Return, which begs the question of who is a Jew.
Adopted in 1950, the Law of Return gave every Jew the right to immigrate to Israel. An amendment in 1970 extended that right to non-Jews who had a Jewish parent or grandparent, their spouses and the spouses of Jews.
Around 250,000 of Israel's Russian immigrants fall under the "grandfather clause." In other words, around one-quarter of Israel's Russian immigrant population is not Jewish according to Halacha, or Jewish law.
Certain Israeli leaders, such as Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the fervently Orthodox Shas Party, and Chief Rabbis Yisrael Meir Lau and Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, want to strike the grandfather clause and limit the Law of Return to halachic Jews.
In July, the Cabinet rejected a proposal to drop the grandfather clause - but the issue might be raised again.
Others, such as the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Sallai Meridor, are equally adamant that the Russian immigration should continue, but say the current conversion process should be changed to make conversions more available and less degrading.
A third stance, taken by Yisrael Ba'Aliyah, holds that the Law of Return shouldn't be tampered with, but that the time has come for the Jewish Agency to stop actively seeking potential immigrants who fall under the grandfather clause.
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