When Is a Jew Not a Jew?

Answer: when he is a Messianic Jew. Ac­cording to Israeli law, a Jew ceases to be a Jew for purposes of immigration to Israel when he embraces another religion, in particular Christianity. The occasion for treating the question here is an Israeli Supreme Court judgment of July 2, 1992, consolidating several appeals by Messianic Jews in Israel to remain in the country after having been informed that they could no longer do so. As an internation­al human-rights specialist, I was recently asked by those representing the appellants to advise on the case.

Three Jewish families were involved in the long-term legal hassle that eventuated in the July Supreme Court decision. The Beresfords, husband and wife, arrived in Israel from Zimbabwe on tourist visas in 1986. On petitioning for immigrant status pursuant to the Law of Return — which automatically provides residency for ethnic Jews or Jewish converts — they were informed that, even though they were indeed Jews by birth, they could not immigrate under the Law of Return because they believed Jesus to be the Messiah. In maintaining such a belief, the Beresfords had adopted “another religion,” and had fallen under the axe of section 4B of the Law of Return, which defines who is entitled to bene­fit from that Law, specifically, “whoever was born to a Jewish mother or has been converted to Judaism, and who does not belong to another religion.”

Sidney and Linda Speakman and their mi­nor daughter, Dawn, came to Israel in 1988 from Portland, Oregon, where they had op­posed the right-wing, neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic activities of the Pike organization and had been threatened with physical harm as a consequence. Like the Beresfords, they entered Israel as tourists and later attempted to obtain permanent residency under the Law of Return. As Messianic Jews, the parents were informed that their petition could not be granted, but that their daughter could receive Israeli citizen­ship, since when she was born her mother had not yet regarded herself as a Messianic Jew — i.e., the daughter had been a minor when her parents became Messianic Jews (sec. 4A[a] of the Law of Return). The Speakmans argued that it was unthinkable for the family to be split up in this manner, that they had established a productive building-construction business in Israel, and that “we came only to live in Israel and to help build up this land”: all to no avail; appeal denied.

The story of the Kendall family was similar. Only the four Kendall children may remain in Israel. The parents, because of their Messianic convictions, must leave — with or without them.

To be sure, the Law of Return is not the only legal route to Israeli citizenship. Those who do not qualify under that Law may make application under the Entry into Israel Law, designed for non-Jews, and containing no religious restriction. All of the petitioners, once they had been denied the benefits of the Law of Return, then sought to remain in the coun­try by way of this second route — and promptly had this door slammed in their face by the Ministry of the Interior. In point of fact, as the Supreme Court stated, the Interior Minister “is given broad discretion in this matter,” “is not obligated to give reasons for his decision,” and his policy, “applied for many years, is not to grant Permanent Residence Visas to foreigners, except in exceptional cases wherein exist special considerations. This policy has withstood the review of this Court.”

Much could be said on the legal aspects of this sad situation (e.g., the lack of responsible judicial review of the Interior Ministry’s admin­istrative action, which appears prima facie to be arbitrary, discriminatory, and lacking in natural justice, and which clearly evacuates the Entry into Israel Law of virtually all signifi­cance). But our interest here is, principally on the theological side, in reference to the Law of Return.

Quoting a High Court judgment in an earlier case, the Israeli Supreme Court approv­ingly wrote: “We have not yet heard about Jesuits who are considered and accepted as Jews. The thing is simply unacceptable…. Please ask a Jew in the street if such a thing is possible and his definitive answer will be: ‘No.'” Fascinatingly enough, this attempt to take judicial notice of Israeli public opinion was entirely mistaken. A scientific survey by the Dahaf Research Institute in Tel Aviv in 1988 revealed that 78 percent of the interview sample (“Jews in the street”) would give immigrant status under the Law of Return to anyone who believes in Jesus as the Messiah as long as he is “born to a Jewish mother, faithful to the State of Israel, pays his taxes to the State, serves in the army, celebrates the Jewish holidays, keeps the commandments of Israel’s tradition, [and] feels that he is a Jew.” Indeed, almost all first-generation Christians were Jews, and they never considered their belief in Christ to detract one iota from their Jewishness.

The supreme irony of the present situation is that whereas an ethnic Jew who is an athe­ist can readily obtain permanent residence under the Law of Return (the only practical route to residency, as we have seen, since the Entry into Israel Law is an impossibly narrow opening), a Jew who sees Jesus as the ful­fillment of Israel’s hope and wishes to worship in a Messianic synagogue can only visit Israel as a temporary tourist.

Israel is in fact a highly intolerant, repres­sive state. In 1986, at the Greek Court of Ap­peals in Athens, I successfully defended Prot­estant missionaries convicted under the Greek anti-proselytizing law (the “Athens 3” case). A similar enactment exists in Israel: the 1977 Penal Law Amendment (Enticement to Change Religion) Law. In discussing this with the Director of the Israeli government’s Division for Relations with the Churches, I pointed out that such laws strangle the tender plant of freedom, have a chilling effect on the search for religious truth, and serve as a particularly unfortunate commentary on a nation which came into existence as a refuge for a people that suffered terribly from ideological discrimination and the removal of civil liberties. As Amnesty International has shown, the State of Israel has one of the most negative human-rights records of any developed nation. Per­haps Israel is the very country that would benefit most from one Jeshua who declared, “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”