New bill aims to change law regarding who can make aliyah
Since 1970, the law - and its accompanying aliyah benefits - have applied to anyone with a Jewish grandparent.
By GIL HOFFMANAn Israeli flag is seen on the first of Israel's El Al Airlines order of 16 Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets, as it lands at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel August 23, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen(photo credit: REUTERS/AMIR COHEN)
A stormy debate is expected at the Knesset on Wednesday over a controversial bill that would redefine who is allowed into Israel via the Law of Return.Since 1970, the law, and its accompanying aliyah benefits, have applied to anyone with a Jewish grandparent. One of the reasons was that the Nuremberg Laws of the Nazis applied to anyone with a Jewish grandparent.Now, Yamina MK Bezalel Smotrich wants to change the law to apply only to anyone with a Jewish parent. According to Halacha, only someone with a Jewish mother is considered Jewish.Smotrich said he wants to stop the law from applying to a grandchild of a Jew as a step on the way to applying only to Jews according to Halacha.The bill is supported by Israelis across the political and religious spectrum, Smotrich said. But it is opposed by the governing coalition, Yisrael Beytenu, Yesh Atid and Meretz and is unlikely to pass, even if haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Shas and United Torah Judaism MKs violate coalition discipline and vote for it.“I love the immigrants and am happy they are with us, but that has nothing to do with bringing hundreds of thousands of non-Jews to Israel,” Smotrich wrote on Facebook. “We have a responsibility for the future of the Jewish people, for the future of our existence.”If his bill is not passed, Israel could have assimilation rates that approach those of the United States and Europe, he said.There are currently some 300,000 immigrants to Israel who are not Jewish according to Halacha, the overwhelming majority of whom do not convert, Smotrich said.“Continuing to bring non-Jews to Israel who have no connection to Judaism due to the grandchild clause could cause severe assimilation in the future, endanger the continuity of the Jewish people and cancel the Jewish majority and character of the state,” he said.Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, who was born in what is now Moldova, warned that changing the law would increase rifts inside Israeli society. The law, including the Jewish grandparent clause, was supported in the past by top religious-Zionist leaders in the Knesset, he said.Yesh Atid MK Yoel Razbozov, who was born in Birobidzhan, Russia, and moved to Israel with his family at age 11, wrote a letter to Yamina head Naftali Bennett, urging him to remove the bill from the Knesset’s agenda.“The Nazis didn’t care about Jewish law when they came to take Jews to concentration camps,” he wrote. “Anyone Jewish enough to be sent to concentration camps should be Jewish enough to make aliyah to the land of Israel.”Changing the law could prevent the aliyah of Jews who do not have enough documents to prove their mother was Jewish to the haredi-controlled Chief Rabbinate, Razbozov wrote.“Someone who knew he was Jewish his entire life and suffered from antisemitism because of it in his home country will not be eligible to move to Israel,” he wrote. “Yamina’s bill is antisemitic and scorns Jewish history.”
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