Letter from Jerusalem: Non-Jewish Until Proven Otherwise

According to new regulations issued by Chief Rabbinate, even if you were not about to register for marriage, and had not appealed to rabbinic court – it can summon you and initiate a hearing that will inquire into your Jewishness.

Non-Jewish, until proven otherwise

According to new regulations issued by Chief Rabbinate, even if you weren’t about to register for marriage, and hadn’t appealed to rabbinic court – it can summon you and initiate a hearing that will inquire into your Jewishness. This is harassment, and not only of new immigrants

Rivkah Lubitch • Ynet

The good times have come. You thought that pursuing converts in order to determine whether or not they were really Jewish, and engaging in the question of what exactly was going on in her mind when she immersed in the mikveh, or what religious observances he kept, or did not keep, after the conversion would stop there – with the converts? Wrong.

It’s here. The new directives published by the Office of the Chief Rabbi of Israel, and approved by the Council of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, provide a very grim picture. Not just for Alexander, Svetlana and Irus, but for you – Nitzan, Inbal, and Shai. Even for you – Yitzchak, Avrumi and Reizel. For all of us.

According to the new directives, not only is the Marriage Registrar required to send every convert, or every person whose parents were married abroad, to the court for a determination of whether or not s/he’s is a Jew– he can, if he wants, send a person for an official inquiry into one's Jewishness even if his parents were married by a rabbi who is licensed Israeli Marriage Registrar.

In the same way, from now on, Marriage Registrars can send a person for a determination of whether or not he is really Jewish if his parents were married abroad, even if they were married by a community rabbi whose name is on the official list of Diaspora rabbis recognized by the Chief Rabbinate. You’ll be even more surprised to hear that a Marriage Registrar can even send people who present a marriage certificate of a “first degree relative on their mother’s side” who had in the past received a judgment of the rabbinic court that he is a Jew.

In other words, if, for example, your sister, who is your mother’s daughter, proved in the past to the rabbinic court that she’s Jewish, that’s not sufficient proof that you too are a Jew! The Marriage Registrar can send you back to court– and if the rabbinic court decides that you’re not a Jew, then even your sister’s Jewishness may be retroactively revoked.

No proof

So, maybe you’re under the impression that a person who has a judgment from the rabbinic court that he’s Jewish might be exempt from further inquiry? You’re wrong. In effect, there is nothing that can you can provide that will prove - beyond a reasonable doubt - that you are Jewish. The Marriage Registrar can always send you back to the rabbinic court for an additional hearing even if the matter was already examined in the past and there is a relevant court decision.

Moreover, according to the new directives (and also according to what I know from my experience on the ground) even if you didn’t go to register for marriage, and even if you didn’t go to a rabbinic court for any reason, and even if you didn’t pass by a rabbinic court when you walked down the street – the rabbinic court can summon you, conduct a hearing about your Jewishness, and revoke it, if they so will.

Let your imagination run wild: bureaucrats, attorneys, Internal Inquisitors of Jewishness, External Inquisitor of Jewishness, Heads of Departments and many more such will be funded by rabbinic courts in order to oversee these complex tasks. The State of Israel and the people who live in Zion will fund this party from their pockets. From our pockets.

In effect, the entire nation of Israel is presumed to be Not-Jewish – until proven otherwise. There has never been a situation like this in Jewish history. If this isn’t the time to establish alternative rabbinic courts – when will the time come?

Rivkah Lubitch is a rabbinic pleader who works at the Center for Women’s Justice, tel. 02-5664390.

Comments

[SJ]

White shirt is the new brown shirt. XD Glad I'm not Jewish anymore. XD

[Maskil]

Moreover, according to the new directives (and also according to what I know from my experience on the ground) even if you didn’t go to register for marriage, and even if you didn’t go to a rabbinic court for any reason, and even if you didn’t pass by a rabbinic court when you walked down the street – the rabbinic court can summon you, conduct a hearing about your Jewishness, and revoke it, if they so will.

This is not true, and clearly Lubitch does not have experience on the ground. The Regional Rabbinical Courts do not have the power to summon anyone who has not applied for such a hearing. Anyone familiar with the procedures of the rabbinical courts, and the Rabbinate (which may request one to apply for such a hearing before supplying its services) knows that this cannot occur. This time Lubitch takes her hyperbole to the level of delusion.

[harold]

Glad I'm not Jewish anymore

Me too. Question is, if you are pulled in by the Rabbinic court, would you be able to prove that you are not Jewish?

[harold]

This time Lubitch takes her hyperbole to the level of delusion.

Well she did say "Let your imagination run wild" - and it sure did!

[soso]

Yes! At last Gerim have an advantage: they have papers

[Yosef ben Matitya]

geez, we have to start looking on street corners now, if they are setting up auto da fe's to barbeque suspects into admissions.

[Mr. Apikoros]

Now here's a message for the Chief Fucking Rabbi of Israel: Yes, motherfucker, I'm Jewish. I didn't choose to be, but I am. If it were up to me, I'd be Italian, but it wasn't up to me. So I guess I'll have to blame my parents.

I never particularly liked being Jewish, but if you, asshole, question my Jewishness by calling me before your Rabbinical Kangaroo Court, I'll prove it by finishing the quarter-job your mohel started. Capice?

[harold]

I didn't choose to be, but I am. If it were up to me, I'd be Italian, but it wasn't up to me. So I guess I'll have to blame my parents.

Speak to "SJ" he/she seemed to have found a way to stop being Jewish.

[yidandahalf]

Apart from Apikorus's love of fressing, I agree with him on almost everything else. Now I'm reminded of Silvio's imitiation "Everytime I think I'm out..." from the Soprano's.
But if you look at the world in general, the haredim or no more out of control than anyone else. Along with a few other groups, they are merely more visable. We are all at the abyss and I do not believe BP will be able to cap the oil leak. And in a way, I don't care. It is too late for us.

[SJ]

* He -.-

And it's very simple. Just pick up and walk away. XD

[Garnel Ironheart]

Think of it from the Chareidi perspective. Government workings are generally dullards and Chareidi ones are probably no exception. So in their mind, it's a simple paradigm. If the guy/girl sitting in front of me looks like one of "us" then he's Jewish. Otherwise he's not. Within that model there's no need to think or apply any form of analytic skills. This is probably where the new rules are coming from.

[Alter Kocker]

Look at the unprecedented power given the the rabbinate. The government of Israel should be revoking any power that the Ultra Orthrodox rabbinate has in any matter. Separation of religious bodies and the state is the earmark of a modern democracy. We are allowing the Talibanization of Israel if this is allowed to continue. What next? All women commanded to stop wearing pants and cover their heads? All secular schools closed as they violate religious law? Bull-fucking-shit. Let these zealots rot in their own yeshivas, without power and without funding!

[Hometown Postville]

When did God give all the power to these men? Granting them the privelege of judgement over other mortals? If I devote 8-10 hrs a day reading my Bible and studying each doctrine, will I also become Charedi? I'm sure many of us can can come up with some sort of Jewish lineage if we look hard enough. By mandating "papers," they are teetering close to Hitler mentality! Each religion has their own interpretation of biblical "laws." Only God knows who are ultimately the "chosen ones!!!" Why aren't more Chareidi challenging this?

[yidandahalf]

I like the way the Jacobins solved the problem of religious parasitism.

[harold]

it's very simple. Just pick up and walk away

... and here we find you at FailedMessiah, covering Orthodox Judaism no less! I wouldn't exactly call it walking away.

[SJ]

... and here we find you at FailedMessiah, covering Orthodox Judaism no less! I wouldn't exactly call it walking away.

Because it's like watching a movie. XD

[harold]

Because it's like watching a movie.

That would explain checking out the stories, but to participate is more than "watching a movie" or "walking away". Sound like there are still unresolved issues at play or some guilt that still needs to be resolved.

I do agree with you by the way, this is a harmless form of entertainment. So enjoy!

[Leibel]

This is scary, but in a strange way I find it amusing/an opportunity to give people a dose of their own medicine. Think about it, gairim actually have papers proving they converted, perhaps we can flip the tables on gair haters by demanding that they prove they're Jewish before we doven with them, date them, etc. I mean how can you know your mom's Jewish, her mother was Jewish, etc. Of course eventually this will lead to a takana that all born Jews have to become gairim (subject to all the regulations, inquisitions, red tape, etc that gairim have to deal with in Israel), you know just in case they're not really Jewish, because machmir is "always better".

[A E ANDERSON]

SCENARIO: Haredi bet din rules you're not Jewish. (ל"ע)
NOW THAT YOU'RE פטור from the מצות, which former sin do you perform first?

1. double bacon cheeseburger
2. hilul shabbes b'farhesiyah (specify how: _______________)
3. gilui 'ariyos (specify which: ____________________________)
4. skip tefilos
5. drink negel vasser
6. shtup a shisksa/sheygetz
7. mevatel zeman (how? __________________________________)
8. Shatnez
9. shluah ha-keyn
10. Accept Rebbe Schneerson as your personal saviour.

[Hanna Moishezon]

I learned at Bais Chana that a person is a Jew if they say so, that is from the Gemara, and the Rebbe mentions it in a Sicha. There were Reform girls there from intermarriage and so long as the mother was Jewish even Reform Rabbi Manis said such a person is of course Jewish and we have a special mitzvah to love them and bring them close

[Isa]

A E Anderson

Do all 10 but in order...

When you do #10 then a Chabad goon squad will 'convince' the beth din that they did terrible mistake ans accept you back

[Mr. Apikoros]

What's negel vasser (nail water)?

[Lauren]

I personally dislike the term
shiksa or shagetz as I was told it means insect -whether or not it does or doesn't - it is a disrepectful way of speaking about someone who is not of the Jewish faith.
Being Jewish doesn't mean you are automaticly better or higher and respect is something everyone deserves if they are a good and ethical person.
Jewish people dislike being calling names we shouldn't call others names either- its below us to do that.
Having both Jewish and non Jewish relatives I find it offensive hearing goyim referred to in a deragotory manner.

[awesome]

awesome!

so now its time to separate the religions of Judaism and Haredism once and for all.

First off we revise history texts so that the haredis are NOT counted among the six million.

No haredi shall be consided Jewish in any sense until genetically proven otherwise. Thats right no aliyah for you Moishy!.

[Mr. Apikoros]

Ultra-Orthodox Judiasm isn't a religion; it's a cult. No different than Scientology in my book.

[Chaim]

Why aren’t we hearing all the screaming about the Hhilul Hashem the Israeli government did with the ships?

Oh, I forgot, they are not the “despised religious Jews”..

[harold]

Why aren’t we hearing all the screaming about the Hhilul Hashem the Israeli government did with the ships?

That is true, how dare they have the chutzpa to respond when they are being attacked. Don't they know that Jewish blood is cheap? When will they learn.

[DontWorry]

Don't worry about any of this. As you speak Hamas' friends in the Arab world and the EU and Turkey, with American connivance are well on their way to isolating Israel and fully legitimating Hamas right to rearm its terrorist machine with as much ordinance and supplies as it can stuff into its belly. You will be happy to learn that to them pretty much everybody is a Jew who looks like a Jew or walks like a Jew or who has two Jewish parents or one or a grandparent or is unarmed and a clear shot.

Problem solved.

No Israel.

No Jews.

[harold]

You will be happy to learn that to them pretty much everybody is a Jew who looks like a Jew or walks like a Jew or who has two Jewish parents or one or a grandparent or is unarmed and a clear shot.

Except for SJ who is no longer Jewish because he simply walked away.

Funny, that didn't help the German Jews under Hitler.

[A E ANDERSON]

negel vasser - ("nail water") is the dirtied water remaining from the morning bedside ablutions required in Jewish law. One may not walk 4 cubits nor may one recite a name of God before pouring water, with a vessel, over each hand. That is why the prayer recited immediately upon awakening, the "Modeh Ani," does not contain a divine name. On one basic level, the hands are thought to be impure by contact with bodily orifices or other usually-covered body parts through the course of the night. On another more mystic note, the hand washing causes the evil spirit that overtakes the body during sleep to be washed away from the fingertips where its vestiges reside. The hands are washed 2 or 3 times, according to custom, alternating one pour over each hand, and then switching to wash the other (whereas the washing before bread is 2-3 times on each hand before switching).

It's all in Ganzfried's Kitzur Shulhan Arukh, which has been available since the 1920s in English from the Hebrew Publication Society (Hyman Goldin, translator)- http://www.amazon.com/Code-Jewish-Law-Solomon-Ganzfried/dp/0884827798

[A E ANDERSON]

Dear Hanna from Beis Hannah:

Of course, they teach you a somewhat sanitised and simplified version of Judaism at Beis Hanna... the last thing they want you to do is lose the sheitel and run off in fear of bearded rabbis controlling every aspect of your life from cradle to grave while hubby toils away to write the checks that support their religious apparatus. Habad calls calls it Yissaschar and Zevulon; in Israel, it's known as being somebody's "friar."

That said, there are different standards of proof of Jewishness throughout the rabbinic literature, from different time periods and different geographic locations, mostly depending on the situation.
In general, the חזקת כשרות(presumption of fitness) enjoyed universally by Jews until recent times has been set aside by the liberal-haredi kulturkampf. There are reasons other than Jewishness per se that require checking into one's background: bastardy, priestly status, etc.

As much as I dislike the haredim and their clerics who have taken over the rabbanut in Israel, it is reasonable to say that they can make reasonable inquiries, based on standardised rules of proof fairly and equally applied, as to the Jewishness and fitness to marry. Halakhically, the standards of proof for marriage are higher than those for, say, membership in a shul. Still, the rabbanut has a obligation -- which they often fail to understand, it seems -- to make accomodations and find solutions for those who fall between the cracks and cannot readily produce evidence of parent's gravestones. Obviously, the caring solution of a rabbi, who is also a רעה צאן is to find solutions that satisfy the basic elements of halakha and at the same time prevent the breakup of established families, and the other מעשה עולה that have all too often come to characterise the Orthodox Rabbinate today, in Israel and elsewhere.

It is not a rabbinic solution, it is not a halakhic solution (nor is there basis in fact) to declare a Jew not-Jewish simply because one can't find their great-grandmother's ketubah, or their father's gravestone. The semi-educated or timid (I am not sure which applies), seem to find comfort in grasping at the most stringent interpretation. However, as I have repeated elsewhere, the superficial stringency of declaring a person not-Jewish amounts to a much greater leniency, as the sum total of that person's קיום המצות is of infinitely greater weight than the חשש בעלמא that the person may not be as provably Jewish as today's haredi world might like (the Jew presenting himself as such remains under the preexisting חזקת כשרות, after all). Of course, the immediate mitzvah being prevented by the unnecessarily machmir dayyan is the fundamental one of pru urvu.

I wonder how many of these haredi rabbis really possess the yiras shamayim to realise what a Pandora's Box of evil they are opening by beginning to question the חזקת כשרות of Jews who present themselves as such. When these rabbonim daaven on Yom Kippur, when they offer the viddui confession for their sins, are they really sincere when they pound their chests and confess their transgressions committed out of lack of ahavas yisroel? Do they think about all the mitzvos not fulfilled by those they have declared to be nocrim and sheainam bnai bris? As leaders of the flock, they are personally responsible on Judgement Day for the sins (of commission or omission) that they have caused others to commit. If I were a rabbanut dayyan or registrar, I'd be saying tehillim a few times before I took upon myself, cavalierly, to pronounce people willy-nilly as non-Jews. There will no doubt be a special bes medrash in Gehinnom just for these rabbis, and the fiery words of Torah will be for them not words of nechamah, but a constant torment reminding them of the lives they have ruined out of their own lack of ahavas yisroel.

[A E ANDERSON]

Hamas Provocation Ship analyses

ANALYSIS / Israel has forgotten the lessons of the Exodus
Israel played into Hamas' hands by storming the boats of the 'Freedom Flotilla.'
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/analysis-israel-has-forgotten-the-lessons-of-the-exodus-1.293391

MESS Report / After Monday's ocean bloodbath, Israel must work fast to prevent third intifada
If rumors are confirmed that Muslim leader Raed Salah is among casualties of Israel's raid on a Gaza aid convoy, the country's Arab population could explode.

By Amos Harel
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/mess-report-after-monday-s-ocean-bloodbath-israel-must-work-fast-to-prevent-third-intifada-1.293203

[DontWorry]

Not really. The Exodus isn't Hamas. Turkish terrorists aren't jews. And the fate of the St Louis imo is the real example of what happens with Jews on boats if those Jews trust their tender necks to the mercies of the nations when those nations have decided its time for Israel to vanish. It wasn't a bloodbath. Video is available showing these Islamic thugs attempting to beat IDF soldiers to a pulp. Maybe the real lesson is that you don't confront friends of Hamas with paint guns and no-shoot orders if they are spoiling for a fight, Maybe the real lesson is that if you are going to use force you use force professionally to do the job. Maybe the real lesson is that if the country's Arab population explodes it should be contained with all means necessary up to and including mass expulsion. Maybe that's the lesson. HItler isn't Anne Frank.

[Yoel Mechanic]

SJ, what does "XD" stand for?

[Radical Feminist]

Does this mean I can eat pork and slep with sexy Italians?

[PS99]

Born in Brooklyn at Maimonides, parents married at Ocean Parkway Jewish Center (non-orthodox), mother's name misspelled on the ketuba, one set grandparents married orthodox, never seen their ketuba and don't know the name of the rabbi, other grandparents eloped and were married by the Jewish Chaplin of Sing-Sing prison in 1926. Guess I'm not Jewish, either. Bring on the BLT.

[SJ]

>> Funny, that didn't help the German Jews under Hitler.

Laaaaaaaame scare tactics.

Yoel, XD is an emoticon like :D

[Mr. Apikoros]

They should have had this nonsense during the Third Reich. One is Jewish only if one can prove it conclusively before a bunch of rabbis. There'd be about 6 million more Jews (plus their descendants) around today.

[Michael David Kittell]

Re: Jewish Identity. It is very simple. If we are not talking about marrying a cohen, or a yibum situation, or whether a get was valid, just stam yahadu: A person was always presumed to be Jewish if they say so. This is obvious every time Chabad gives a stranger an aliyah or puts tefillin on someone. Chabad and other Haredi groups recognize someone as Jewish when convenient and don't accept them when it's not convenient. Only money is not mekabel tum'ah by Haredim.
The State of Refuge is neither fish-nor-fowl and used to accept as Jewish anyone with one Jewish grandparent but now, in the thrall of Haredism,they would not accept many of those same people including some of those who support the new stricter standards of Who Is A Jew.
Many Orthodox people could not "prove" their Jewishness if they had to-- they should try btw as an experiment, even if they have no intention of making aliyah! The Rabbanut been the primary factor in many Israelis not getting married at all and living as Chaver and Chaverah, or getting married civilly in chutz la'aretz, leading to many more "safek" situations re: the next generation's Jewish identity.
The excuse I always hear for not accepting Jews is "we don't want two Klal Yisraels" but the Haredim already won't marry a non-Haredi or the wrong type of Haredi etc. so in effect we already have two mutually exclusive Klal Yisraels.
Israel needs to be flat-out secular or a theocracy and stop the juggling act.

[who knows]

Haredi slogan "We are against two klal Israels, we will make 100s of klal Israels"