Russian Oleh must be able to convert quickly
By Michael Freund, JPOST
As talks to form a new governing coalition intensify, an issue that has nothing to do with territory, boundaries or security has abruptly taken center stage in the public debate.
Questions such as the future of the Golan Heights, construction in Judea and Samaria and how to address the economic downturn seem to have been put on the back-burner, as Israel’s airwaves and newspapers focus instead on civil marriage.
This sudden interest in nuptials has nothing to do with Valentine’s Day, of course. Instead, it was triggered by Israel Beiteinu’s proposal to create a “partnership covenant” for immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are unable to marry in a Jewish religious ceremony.
Since the start of the mass aliya from Russia in the 1990s, it is estimated that some 300,000 non-Jews have immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return. They were able to do so because they are spouses, children or grandchildren of Jews.
With only religious marriages performed and recognized in Israel, many are now finding it impossible for themselves or their children to settle down and get married because of their individual personal status.
In addition to Israel Beiteinu’s plan, Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz has said that he will submit a bill to the Knesset this week which would legalize civil unions, prompting outrage from religious parties and their supporters.
IN REALITY, the clash over civil ceremonies is but a sideshow, one that obscures a larger and far more compelling issue which the State of Israel has studiously avoided addressing for decades: what to do about integrating the hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish immigrants living in our midst.
Some prefer to ignore the situation by sticking their heads in the sand, but that won’t make the problem go away.
Like it or not, with every passing day masses of non-Jewish immigrants are integrating into Israeli society, becoming Israeli in every respect. They don the uniform of the IDF, attend universities and can be found throughout the length and breadth of the country.
Yet, at the same time, they cannot marry Jews, be buried in a Jewish cemetery, or participate in any of the Jewish life-cycle events that are the essential building blocks of our national and cultural life.
Left unaddressed, this situation will only continue to fester and grow more acute, inevitably resulting in intermarriage, social alienation and the creation of a hostile minority that does not identify with the state or people of Israel.
Its ramifications won’t be limited to just one sector or class, and it will generate still more fissures in our already riven society.
This is very much a social time-bomb, ticking away loudly and clearly, that can and must be defused. Finding a legal mechanism for non-Jewish immigrants to walk down the aisle may be important, but it pales in comparison to the need to resolve their personal status.
THUS FAR, only half-hearted attempts have been made to do so.
From 1999 to 2007, a mere 8,411 immigrants from the former Soviet Union successfully underwent conversion in Israel’s rabbinical courts. That’s an average of just 935 per year.
At that rate, it would take more than three centuries for all of them to undergo conversion.
And while the IDF has a much-touted conversion program for non-Jewish soldiers, it too has only reached several hundred people each year.
It is therefore essential that the new government take steps to reach out to the large numbers of non-Jewish Russians living in our midst, and make a concerted and determined effort to significantly boost the numbers undergoing conversion.
It is in our national and Jewish interest to draw them closer to Judaism, and there is plenty of halachic sanction for such an undertaking.
The Ibn Ezra, for example, in his commentary on Deuteronomy (31:12), notes that the commandment of Hakhel, according to which the Jewish people were to assemble once every seven years to hear the reading of the Torah by the king of Israel, also includes “the stranger who lives within your gates.”
This, said the great Spanish Jewish scholar, was because their participation might encourage them to consider converting to Judaism.
Similary, Rabbi Meir Simcha HaCohen of Dvinsk, in his biblical commentary Meshech Chochma, writes that under ideal circumstances, it is a mitzvah to reach out to gerei toshav (resident non-Jews who accept the Noahide laws) and to assist them. “For if they see the positive traits of G-d’s nation, they will attach themselves to it and consider conversion,” he said.
Hence, the government should make it a priority to devote more resources to tackling this problem head-on. These include hiring Russian-speaking rabbinic conversion judges, funding outreach seminars and symposiums on Judaism in Russian and aggressively seeking to streamline the conversion process for new immigrants and tailor it to their specific needs.
It isn’t about cutting corners. Compromising on halacha or its standards is in no one’s best interests. It is simply a matter of bringing together disparate forces and looking for solutions, with an eye on resolving the larger problem.
Sure, Judaism is not a missionary religion. But this is not a question of setting up tables on street corners around the globe and attempting to entice non-Jews to join the Jewish people.
These people are here already, living in our midst, and they are rapidly becoming intertwined in the fabric of our society. They are being absorbed into the Jewish people, even if they are not Jewish.
Anyone who cares about halacha, and about the Jewish future, can no longer ignore this reality.
I know that there is little flexibility in conversions according to halacha. But this is a national emergency. It is imperative to make them Jewish and their kids as well so they become fully integrated. A way must be found.
Comment by Ted Belman — March 7, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
The modern Jewish state lost common sense in defining Jewishness. Yemenite Jews represent a gray area and, though utterly underproductive and unsuitable for Israeli society, are Jewish. Ethiopian Blacks, however, cannot become proper Israelis regardless of the religion they profess. Rabbis are slow to adapt their legal rulings reasonable in ghetto conditions. Someone with a Jewish grandmother, who wished to live in a ghetto and suffer like other Jews, could be greeted as a Jew, but Slavs with a Jewish grandmother whom their other relatives murdered just shouldn’t arrive in Israel.
For more than three centuries, any European had the opportunity to immigrate to America. When the state matured, it closed that window of opportunity. Israel doesn’t need American Jewish retirees or victims of Reformist conversions. New immigrants should only be the pioneers willing to settle Israel’s frontiers thirty miles from the major cities.
And it’s time to expel those brought to Israel through rabbinical misjudgment and the government’s urge to have more subjects.
Comment by yamit82 — March 7, 2009 @ 3:49 pm
Instead of pretending obvious Gentiles are ethnically Jewish, racial Israelites, like the Africans who are allegedly, in part, from the tribe of Dan or Indians who are allegedly from Menashe (when both are converts at best to the RELIGION of Judaism), the Israelis would be wise to invite British-Israelites to return to Zion and plant vines again in Shomeron and let Hashem take care of the rest, as He says He will restore Israel and Judah to the land and convert them there.
Judaism’s replacement theology and identity theft condemned
Comment by David BenAriel — March 7, 2009 @ 10:21 pm
300,000 people of Jewish ancestry are being forced by the rabbis to cohabit without the benefit of a recognized marriage, while Moslem Arabs in Israel are given fully legitimate status. That’s a chilul Hashem, if I ever heard of one.
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 8, 2009 @ 1:02 am
What Jewish ancestry? Most are pure Slavs who forged documentation to be able to get into Israel to take advantage of economic benefits. Most brought their Slavic antisemitism with them when they came. All celebrate Christmas, support non-Kosher deli’s Pork being primary purchases. They were our Atheist Governments method of reducing the religious proportionality in Israel. most of our Neo Nazis here in Israel belong in this sector. Most of the violence in clubs belong to this sector. Most of the Alcoholics in Israel belong in this sector. They are no less an anti Israeli fifth column and social virus as any Arab, and in some ways even worse. I have my gripes with the Rabbinate in Israel but in this matter from a Jewish and only a Jewish point of view they are right. They are our last defense against the total Schism between observant and non observant in Israel. They are the ones with the finger in the proverbial dike. Every non Jewish immigrant has the opportunity to convert, and several thousands have but most don’t want to be Jewish. They were not Zionist Goyim who came to be part of th Jewish people they came for more mundane reasons. Most have resisted all forms of social and cultural integration and most still hate Jews so why go through all these distortions of reality. The only thing in favor of any suggestions to solve their civil status in Israel is that they are here and this alone is the cause for concern. The question of status is unsolvable here while they are by their own choice gentiles. All they need do is to get an a Russian Orthodox priest to marry them but then they would lose the right to be in Israel and most economic benefits given to Jews. They want to dance at both weddings or to have their cake and to eat it as well. I am for encouraging them to go home to Russia that would mostly solve the situation. We can allow Jews for Jesus and others to pay for the exercise.
Comment by yamit82 — March 8, 2009 @ 3:43 am
[...] even Russia. Let’s look at the Middle East and the Muslim terrorist group Hamas, which Russian Oleh must be able to convert quickly - israpundit.com 03/07/2009 The Stranger in our Midst By Michael Freund, JPOST As talks to form a [...]
Pingback by ???????.Net » Blog Archive » Posts about Russia as of 08/03/2009 — March 8, 2009 @ 2:31 pm
Yamit, have you been DNA tested? How are you so sure your ancestors weren’t shiksas?
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 10, 2009 @ 12:11 pm
Oat my paternal lineage goes back to King David, need I say more?
Comment by yamit82 — March 10, 2009 @ 12:42 pm
Oatmeal: You seem to have a sincere interest in Judaism. Perhaps you night even consider conversion. Some pertinent information might be informative. We are known as the people of the book. Jews tend to be deeply cultural with a rich literary heritage. We have produced some of the greatest, novelists, poets, and playwrights.Allow me to provide you with a sample of highly evocative Jewish-American poem. A work that is finely crafted, highly charged with mystical and religious symbols- the reading of which will surely transform your life. It is titled.
A Jewish Heiku
lacking fins or tail
the gefilte fish swims with
great difficulty.
Beyond Valium,
the peace of knowing one’s child
is an internist.
Passover
Left the door open
for the Prophet Elijah.
Now our cat is gone.
After the warm rain
the sweet smell of camellias.
Did you wipe your feet?
Her lips near my ear,
Aunt Sadie whispers the name
of her friend’s disease.
Today I am a man.
Tomorrow I will return
to the seventh grade.
Testing the warm milk
on her wrist, she sighs softly.
But her son is forty.
The sparkling blue sea
reminds me to wait an hour
after my sandwich.
Like a bonsai tree,
your terrible posture
at my dinner table.
Jews on safari –
map, compass, elephant gun,
hard sucking candies.
The same kimono
the top geishas are wearing:
I got it at Walmart
The shivah visit:
so sorry about your loss.
Now back to my problems.
Mom, please! There is no
need to put that dinner roll
in your pocketbook.
Seven-foot Jews in
the NBA slam-dunking!
My alarm clock rings.
Sorry I’m not home
to take your call. At the tone
please state your bad news.
Is one Nobel Prize
so much to ask from a child
after all I’ve done?
Today, mild shvitzing.
Tomorrow, so hot you’ll plotz.
Five-day forecast: feh
Yenta. Shmeer. Gevalt.
Shlemiel. Shlimazl. Meshuganah
Oy! To be fluent!
Quietly murmured
at Saturday services,
Yanks 5, Red Sox 3.
A lovely nose ring,
excuse me while I put my
head in the oven.
Hard to tell under the lights.
White Yarmulke or
male-pattern baldness.
Memo to Bill Narvey-Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?
Comment by h peskin — March 10, 2009 @ 5:38 pm
Chucky: Up to your old tricks. You cranky old bastard.
Comment by h peskin — March 10, 2009 @ 10:49 pm
When I first decided to begin blogging on Israpundit, I mentioned it to my wife Lynn. Hyman, she said, I must warn you,be very careful, those people are not like us,it might get very rough.
Well not wishing to be disrespectful, I remained silent. But I thought I am no child, I have been around the block a few times,and having been a lifetime practitioner of ‘extreme knitting’, I am no stranger to facing danger.
But she was right, she was so very right.
Comment by h peskin — March 10, 2009 @ 11:02 pm
March 2009, Yom Dalet, 15th, Adar 5769 / Shushan Purim
I could suggest what you might do with one of those knitting needles!! No Peskin you are neither like us or one of us.
You most definitely are like in Camus’s titles: “L’Étranger or La Peste”
For you Peskin:
Explosion Blasts Las Vegas Hotel
Forty people were wounded this morning when an explosion rocked the Eden Palace Hotel in Las Vegas, just five hours after the Jewish Diaspora Legion (JDL) announced that it had purchased the state of Nevada and was declaring the establishment of a New State of Israel in Exile.
An Arab group calling itself, Liberators of Lands International Property of Palestine (LOLIPOP), claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying that Nevada had long been a homeland for the Palestinian people.
Earlier in the day at the Eden Palace Hotel, with blow-up photographs of Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel behind her on the podium, Reform rabbi, Jenny Larson, head of the JDL, explained that Las Vegas had been chosen as the capital of the new Jewish State because it had been founded by the two legendary Jewish gangsters. “In addition,” she said, “Nevada resembles the land of Israel in topography and weather, and we want to show that the Jews of the Diaspora can also make a miracle in the desert.” Rabbi Larson, former spiritual leader of the “Do Your Own Thing Synagogue” in San Francisco, said that Diaspora Jews were fed up with the way things were being run in Israel, and wanted to create a New Israel where “a Jew could live safely without fear of Arab terrorists or religious coercion.” Her words were still ringing in the air, when, several hours later, a devastating blast rocked the foundations of the hotel. Nevada police detained seven hotel employees for questioning. Sources say that the suspects all look Mediterranean in appearance and were wearing Bin Laden t-shirts.
A spokesman for LOLIPOP explained that when Joshua and the Jews conquered the land of Israel 3000 years ago, the original Palestinian residents were scattered around the globe. “The American Indians are a branch of the Palestinian people,” he claimed. “Therefore, the state of Nevada is ours.” Wealthy Jews from across America put up the funds to buy Nevada from the United States Government. The 100 billion dollar transaction has been seen as a godsend for America’s ailing economy, saving the country’s collapsing financial institutions. The foundation of the New State of Israel in Exile has also been seen by President Obama as the ideal solution to the “Israeli problem,” as it is hoped that the new Jewish entity in Nevada, with its good weather, gambling, golf courses, and desert landscapes, would eventually attract all of the Jews in Israel, leaving Eretz Yisrael for the Arabs.
Rabbi Larson describes the already embattled new state as a “utopia” where all Jews will be able to “do their own thing.” Orthodox Jews will be segregated onto religious reservations, “where they will be free to live in their own primitive way without intruding on the rights of the rest of us,” she added. A plan is underway to purchase the holy Western Wall and transform its stones from Jerusalem to Las Vegas.
However, as the smoke still hasn’t settled from today’s tragic hotel bombing, the future looks uncertain for the New Jewish State. “Nevada belongs to the Palestinians,” the LOLIPOP spokesman insists. “We will not give up our justified armed struggle until we free all of our ancient homeland.”
Purim Satire: Explosion Blasts Las Vegas Hotel: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/130365
Comment by yamit82 — March 11, 2009 @ 6:20 am
You are correct Peskin. People of the book (singular) A single book Peskin and not written by Jewish playwrights, novelists, and poets. It’s the one Book that seems widely if not universally accepted except by most Jews. Isn’t it curious that those most ignorant of most things Jewish would also be ignorant of the only book that can be considered really Jewish and it is an almost given that those who are ignorant of the Jewish Book are those most vociferously anti Jewish, and anti Israel?
Your poem borders on if not actually, racially stereotyping of Jews and paints characterizations that the Nazis worst propgansists would be proud of and embrace for themselves. I expected no more from the likes of you.
Peskin recommended reading:
Glenn, Susan A. (Susan Anita)
The Vogue of Jewish Self-Hatred in Post-World War II America
Jewish Social Studies - Volume 12, Number 3, Spring/Summer 2006 (New Series), pp. 95-136
Indiana University Press
This article asks how and why the concept of “Jewish self-hatred” came into theoretical, social scientific, literary, and critical vogue in 1940s and 1950s America. It argues that the proliferating public discourse on Jewish self-hatred grew out of three overlapping developments. First was the influence of psychological experts on American public life. Second was the influence of German Jewish émigré intellectuals like Kurt Lewin in giving social scientific legitimacy to the idea of Jewish self-hatred. Third was the polemical deployment of the concept of Jewish self-hatred and the idea of “the authoritarian personality” in the Jewish Cold War—a contentious public debate among defenders of Jewish particularism and Jewish nationalism, on the one hand, and proponents of liberal universalism, on the other. This debate revolved around questions of Jewish group loyalty, survival, and belonging, and it included figures as diverse as Ludwig Lewisohn, David Riesman, Philip Roth, Clement Greenberg, and Harold Rosenberg.
Comment by yamit82 — March 11, 2009 @ 8:22 am
yamit
This poem is directed at those who have a sense of humour, appreciate satire and have a sharp wit.
You are humourless, witless and don’t have a clue what satire is.
Your only redeeming feature is that you are a human joke. Israpundit’s windbag par excellence,
Comment by h peskin — March 11, 2009 @ 6:57 pm
Yamit: We Jews have always produced great comedians who were quite adept at laughing at ourselves. We have always used self deprecating humour as a means of coping.
Using that as a criterion, You Yamit are no Jew.
Comment by h peskin — March 11, 2009 @ 7:13 pm
Martel: You have recently complained about my use of foul language. Somehow you seemed to have overlooked the words of a fellow choir member who has recently produced the following, with comments by Quigley,
Note your fellow choir member has produced here a triple play-1- Anti black racism,2-
homophobic comments and 3-abusive defamation directed at myself.
But as a fellow choir member, all of this is overlooked and quite forgiveable
Comment by h peskin — March 11, 2009 @ 9:00 pm
I can accept this edited statement.
I know what satire is and that submission of yours was not satire. Self deprecating humor was indeed a hall mark of 1st generation Jewish immigrants but not just of Jews almost all ethnicities used same form of humor. Your poem does not rise to that level in content or form. In short it stinks. Coming from the likes of you only adds to the stench.
I do by the way have a sense of humor: Here is a sight you may identify with. They would love your poem and take it seriously:
http://jewlist.blogspot.com/2008/12/jew-list_22.html
Comment by yamit82 — March 12, 2009 @ 9:21 am