Behind the News
Who Is a Jew? The Law of Return, Identity, and Israel’s Demographic Dilemma
How the Law of Return evolved, why it is under renewed debate, and what its consequences mean for Israel’s future
(Photo: Shutterstock)From time to time, the controversy surrounding Israel’s Law of Return — and especially the question of “Who is a Jew?”, returns to the public and political conversation in Israel.
Following is a brief description of the Law of Return.
The History of the Law of Return
The Law of Return was approved by the Knesset in 1950 (5710). The law stated at the time that “every Jew has the right to immigrate to Israel.”
At first, the law did not explicitly define the term “Jew.” As a result, the Minister of the Interior at the time, Israel Bar-Yehuda, instructed Interior Ministry clerks that any child whose parents asked to register him as Jewish would be registered as such. This instruction triggered a political crisis that led to the National Religious Party (Mafdal) leaving the coalition.
In 1958, a first discussion took place regarding the question “Who is a Jew?” At its conclusion, it was decided that “an adult will be registered as Jewish if he declared so in good faith.”
After it became clear that the decision did not resolve the dispute between the sides, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion turned to 50 public figures whom he considered “the sages of Israel” — religious and secular intellectuals from Israel and abroad, asking them to express their opinion on the matter. 45 responded; a clear majority of 37 supported the religious-Orthodox position that halacha is the only basis for defining “Jew.” Only 8 argued that Jewishness is determined on the basis of ethnic, cultural, or national identity.
At the end of 1959, a Mafdal member of Knesset, Chaim-Moshe Shapira, was appointed Minister of the Interior. He changed the regulations and ruled that “only someone born to a Jewish mother, or who converted according to halacha, may be registered as Jewish.”
In 1968, Benjamin Shalit, who had married abroad a woman who was not Jewish, asked to register his children as without religion but of Jewish nationality, and his request was rejected. Shalit petitioned the High Court of Justice, arguing that he intended to raise his children in Israel and educate them as Jews. The High Court accepted the petition by a majority of five judges against four. The main reasoning was that the concept “Jew” in the law is not subject to “halachic” interpretation because the law is “secular” in nature.
Following the Shalit ruling, a public storm erupted. In 1970 (5730), the Law of Return was amended, and it was determined that “a Jew is someone born to a Jewish mother, or who converted, and who is not a member of another religion.”
Members of Knesset Yaakov Shimshon Shapira and Moshe Kol added that the law would also apply to the spouse and children of a Jew, as well as to someone whose one grandparent — his own or his spouse’s, was Jewish. (It should be noted here that the law excluded someone who had been Jewish and voluntarily converted to another religion.) Ultimately, Mafdal gave its reluctant consent to granting the right of immigration to grandchildren of Jews, expecting that “only a few would seek to immigrate on the basis of being a ‘grandchild of a Jew.’”
Who Has the Authority to Convert?
Even after the law defined “Who is a Jew?”, another question remained open: religious parties demanded that authority over conversion be determined according to Orthodox halachic rules and/or the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, while other streams, such as Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism, demanded that they too be granted that authority.
In 1985, the Committee for the Integrity of the Jewish People organized a petition signed by about one million people, requesting that Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir amend the law so that only someone who converted according to halacha would be considered Jewish.
In 1995, the High Court ruled in the case “Elian (Chava) Passero Goldstein” that a distinction should be made between the Orthodox halachic determination and the administrative determination regarding the question “Who is a Jew?” With this, the Court provided legal recognition for conversions carried out outside the halachic framework.
A Couple — or Separate
Another question that arose over the years: Is a non-Jew who married a Jewish Israeli citizen entitled to immigrate under the Law of Return?
For many years, the Interior Ministry followed a policy whereby the spouse of a Jewish Israeli citizen was also entitled to immigrate. In 1995, the Ministry changed its procedures and stopped recognizing such a spouse as eligible. In 1999, this was also affirmed in a Supreme Court ruling issued by a panel headed by Justice Mishael Cheshin.
An Israeli “Start-Up”: the “Jewish Non-Jew”
In its current format, the Law of Return grants non-Jews the ability to immigrate to Israel if they prove the existence of a Jewish father, grandfather, or grandmother for one of the spouses seeking to make aliyah. As noted, consent for this arrangement was given because the hope was that use of these clauses would be extremely limited.
Indeed, from the law’s enactment in 1970 until the end of the 1980s, this clause was used very little, and therefore no broad public debate emerged.
However, with the renewed immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, many non-Jews immigrated to Israel on the basis of being “grandchildren of a Jew.” Since then, the demand to change the law has resurfaced repeatedly, with the goal of reducing the number of non-Jews immigrating to Israel under it.
Supporters of the law as it currently stands justify it with the following argument: under the Nuremberg Laws, adopted on the basis of Nazi racial ideology, even a person who is not Jewish according to halacha but is of Jewish descent was defined as such.
Opponents of the current formulation argue that bringing large numbers of non-Jews to Israel and integrating them into the general Jewish population will lead to mass assimilation and pose a real danger to preserving the identity and tradition of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel.
Regarding the claim that the Nazis defined as Jewish even someone not Jewish by halacha, opponents respond:
A. The Nazis certainly are not the ones who will determine or define for us “Who is a Jew.” A person’s Jewish status is determined only by the rules of Jewish halacha, preserved with devotion over thousands of years.
B. Even the Nuremberg Laws defined as Jewish only:
Someone with at least three Jewish grandparents;
Someone with two Jewish grandparents who also belonged to the Jewish community, or was married to a Jewish woman, or was born in violation of the Nazi racial laws. (In addition, another definition was invented: Mischling — a “mixed-blood” person, creating an intermediate status that was neither “Jewish” nor “Aryan,” and the attitude toward them was mixed.) The Law of Return expands the definition far beyond the Nazi definition.
C. Only if there is a concrete and immediate danger to the lives of people of Jewish descent should one consider a temporary immigration permit given as an emergency provision; today, there is no danger to people of Jewish descent, and there is no reason to bring them.
Russia at the Corner of Israel
Below is a collection of data and numbers that shed light on the grim reality of immigration from the former Soviet Union:
During the immigration from the former Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands immigrated to Israel; by the beginning of 2000, their number reached one million people.
About 77% of all immigrants who came to Israel between 1990–2015 immigrated from the former Soviet Union: 1,040,000 out of 1,343,000.
According to Interior Ministry data, about 30% of immigrants in the early 1990s were not Jewish according to halacha; this rate rose sharply and reached 59% in 2002.
As of 2016, 85% of new immigrants from Russia under the age of 40 were not Jewish according to halacha.
In 2020, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) reported that the share of Jews among immigrants from the former Soviet Union fell to about 28%.
In this context, it should also be noted that according to CBS, the number of immigrants to Israel from all over the world in 2018 was 32,600, of whom only 12,600 were Jews.
In 2014, about 72% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union living in Israel were Jewish and about 28% were non-Jewish.
Data published by the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration indicate that in 2008, about 320,000 (!) people in Israel were not Jewish according to halacha, having immigrated under the Law of Return, and were from the Russian-speaking CIS.
According to the estimate of the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, by 2036, the number of immigrants and their descendants who are not Jewish according to halacha is expected to reach about 1,000,000 (!).
“Fake Judaism”
All of the above are the “formal” numbers, while unofficial estimates point to much higher percentages than those reported, for reasons such as: many certificates proving immigrants’ linkage to Judaism are forged and unreliable; many immigrants adopted borrowed identities; a large portion of marriage documents and conversion documents are fictitious and do not reflect genuine intent; and more.
(Photo: Shutterstock)Absorption Basket — and That’s It
Beyond the severe harm to the character of the state as a Jewish state, it is also argued that many of the non-Jewish immigrants do not feel an essential connection to the Jewish people, but rather take advantage of the improved social conditions the state grants immigrants: eligibility for an absorption basket, tax benefits, assistance in purchasing housing, and more.
It should be added that the law includes a basic condition that the immigrant must express a desire to settle in Israel. According to various studies, the share of immigrants from the CIS who, after some time, emigrate from Israel to other countries is very high — about 50% of all those who leave Israel. Their number today is estimated at more than 150,000 emigrants.
By way of example only, here is one detail from a comprehensive study conducted among immigrants in 2009 by Prof. Elazar Leshem.
The study examined “the integration of immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel, 1990–2005.” Respondents were asked: “When you define your primary/exclusive identity, how do you feel about yourself?” These were the answers, broken down between Jews and non-Jews:
Jewish immigrants (registered as Jewish on the Israeli ID card and born to a Jewish mother, and registered as Jewish in their passport in the former Soviet Union): Jewish – 52.9% | Israeli – 30.7% | Russian – 16.4%
Non-Jewish immigrants (those who do not meet the criteria above): Russian – 45.7% | Israeli – 41.5% | Jewish – 12.8%
(Photo: Shutterstock)“A Law for Importing Non-Jews”
In 2014, there were about 23 million people worldwide eligible under the Law of Return, of whom about 9 million were not Jewish according to Orthodox halacha.
Professor Sergio DellaPergola, considered one of the most important demographers of Jewish communities worldwide, published in 2022 that about 18 million people worldwide are eligible under the Law of Return, but more than 50% — close to 10 million, are not Jewish.
In addition, it emerges that every year more eligible non-Jews are added, while the number of eligible Jews consistently declines: in the last decade, about 2,000,000 non-Jewish eligible immigrants were added, and only 400,000 Jewish eligible immigrants.
“Open the Gates, and Let a Righteous Nation Enter, That Keeps Faith”
It is impossible to present all of the weighty arguments against the Law of Return here. However, it seems that even the few data points we brought are sufficient to understand some of the difficult and painful consequences of the law in its current form.
The time has come to correct the historical distortion and to lock the gates of the State of Israel to non-Jews who exploit living conditions in Israel and come without any connection or belonging to the Jewish people, its culture, and its values. After that, full public attention must be given to the terrible damage that has already been done, and attempts should be made to repair it as much as possible.
It is true that “the Eternal One of Israel will not lie,” but it seems that those who seek to undermine the foundations of the Jewish people, to turn the State of Israel into “a state of all its citizens,” and thus supposedly to “defeat” the people of Israel — do lie. Sadly, they lie to us, but above all, to themselves…
In this spirit, we conclude with the prayer commonly said by every Torah-observant Jew: “Guardian of Israel, guard the remnant of Israel, and let Israel not be lost — those who say: ‘Hear, O Israel.’”
