Who is a Jew?
JVL Introduction
Defining who is Jewish has never been easy and the issue is reawakened with Israel’s creation of a “Jewish identity” authority.
When the state of Israel was founded the answer to the question “Who is a Jew?” was simple. Generally, anyone who chose to define themselves as one was one; and the original Law of Return, allowing every Jew the right to emigrate to Israel, did not see the need to define it. Anyone wanting to live in Israel and build the country (and serve in the army) was welcome.
It didn’t last. Ofer Aderet below takes us through some of the tortured twists and turns on the subject, from the fifties onwards.
The entry of the far-right religious parties into the government is putting the issue on the agenda with renewed vigour with plans to create a new ‘Jewish identity’ authority.
With it, the idea of Israel as a “Jewish and democratic” state recedes further and further…
This article was originally published by Haaretz on Tue 27 Dec 2022. Read the original here.
‘Even Moses Married a Black African’: 75 Years On, Israel Still Isn’t Sure Who Is a Jew
Israel’s incoming government plans to create a new ‘Jewish identity’ authority, but the state hasn’t yet succeeded in reaching a consensus on the question of ‘Who is a Jew’
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Doesn’t this debate underline how ramshackle is the ideal of a wholly-Jewish state as professed by the right-wing hardliners? How can there be a Jewish state if no-one can agree as to who is and who is not a Jew? The continuing existence of Israel is not in question: the way it defines itself very much is. Meanwhile, the Palestinians and the Israeli-Arabs must tolerate the consequences of being regarded simplistically as a single people, unified in their emnity to all Jews. There is no rational, moral or ethical constistency here.
If humanity prevailed in the Israeli heart it would not matter what those living in that Israel/Palestine claimed as their nationality or religion. All could expect and experience equality. Fat chance.
Can you imagine any of these criteria being applied to any other country? When VIktor Orban spoke of the miscegenation of European races and his desire to keep his country pure and christian, he was labelled by other leaders in the European Union as a racist.
The article could have mentioned the interesting case reported by Shlomo Sand, who writes in the introduction to The Invention of the Jewish People about his wife’s father. A non-Jewish refugee from Franco’s Spain, he refused to declare any religion. Eventually he was recorded as Catalan by both nationality and religion -thus making Israel possibly the first state to recognise Catalan as a nationality, and certainly the first to recognise it as a religion!