About 50% of French Jews are intermarried, meaning many of the French Jews who would come to Israel would bring with them a non-Jewish spouse and non-Jewish children. Because of that, top Ashkenazi haredi rabbis say Israel should not encourage their immigration to Israel because that immigration will inevitably lead to more intermarriage and assimilation.
Above: Hyper Cacher kosher supermarker, the site of an Islamist fundamentalist terror attack ealier this month that killed four French Jews
Don’t Encourage French Jews To Move To Israel Because It Will Lead To Intermarriage, Haredi Rabbis Say
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
About 50% of French Jews are intermarried, meaning many of the French Jews who would come to Israel would bring with them a non-Jewish spouse and non-Jewish children. Because of that, top Ashkenazi haredi rabbis say Israel should not encourage their immigration to Israel because that immigration will inevitably lead to more intermarriage and assimilation, Ynet reported.
The non-Jewish spouses and children of French immigrants will also find it difficult or even impossible to convert to Judaism because haredi rabbis have chosen to demand the strictest level of religious observance from converts on one hand and discourage and even exclude such conversions on the other, sources reportedly said.
Various haredi media outlets reportedly wrote that many of the immigrants would refuse to convert or would convert through Orthodox conversion courts that do not meet strict haredi standards. And either will lead to more mixed marriages in the future, they wrote. Therefore, French Jews should not be encouraged to move to Israel.
Yated Ne’eman, the newspaper-mouthpiece of the mainstream non-hasidic Ashkenazi haredi faction headed by Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman, spoke with haredi rabbis perform conversions and asked if they thought the haredi public was prepared to absorb new immigrants from France.
The rabbis reportedly responded they were fearful that Jews who observe mitzvot (i.e., who are Orthodox or traditional) now in France would come to Israel, become involved with the secular Israelis and would then stop keeping Shabbat and would violate other mitzvot.
The #2 mainstream faction leader, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, reportedly ruled that a person may only make aliyah "if he finds himself in a clear religious place."
Steinman, the supreme mainstream faction leader, reportedly said the call for immigration of Jews from France to Israel was "hasty.” There is no reason to make aliyah, Steinman said, “because the Messiah has yet to arrive." According to a report in the haredi Kikar HaShabbat website, Steinman also said that the security situation is difficult in Israel, too, and that Jews are also being murdered in Israel.
HaPeles, the mouthpiece of the non-hasidic Ashkeanzi haredi rebel faction headed by Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, also opposes bringing French Jews to Israel. It wrote that the call for French Jews to immigrate to Israel is really driven by Zionism’s power drunkenness, – which haredim oppose on theological grounds – not French Jews’ security needs.