tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309929059139673041.post3601054357043495446..comments2024-03-29T06:06:58.796+03:00Comments on Daas Torah - Issues of Jewish Identity: Shavei Israel - Proselytizing or discovering Jews?Daas Torahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07252904288544083215noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309929059139673041.post-85054583893331876812008-09-08T09:52:00.000+03:002008-09-08T09:52:00.000+03:00Exploiting the loophole in Israel's Law of Ret...Exploiting the loophole in Israel's Law of Return for not having "giyur kehalacha" in it. <BR/><BR/>It was interesting that in the article about the Polish "hidden Jews" published in the latest Jewish Press, which is really just a press release from Shavei Israel that the JP, as is their style, has published, there is not a single word about Halacha and geirus. Not even the broader generalized terminology of "Jewish law" and "conversions" yet when one clicks on to the Shavei Israel website there are many links about that all the work they do is in accordance with the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and that they facilitate real conversions.<BR/><BR/>This is often the two-facedness, in other words hypocrisy (often self-created) of many Israeli governmental, kiruv and outreach type organizations. To win friends and influence people -- and of course to set the ground for major fund raisng appeals with the unsuspecting Jewish public being softened up by these kind of media campaigns, and after all, Michael Freund head of Shavei Israel is described on their website as "Deputy Director of Communications & Policy Planning in the Prime Minister's Office under Benjamin Netanyahu" so he knows the whole PR game and how even press releases that pose as "articles' can be used as self-created "endorsementa" allowing for outright proselytising.<BR/><BR/>When the Holocaust destroyed Europe's Jewish centers, the survivors who came to Israel were all Halachik Jews. When Arab nationalismn and antisemtism made life in Islamic lands impossible for Jews forcing them to come to Israel, they were 100% Halachic Jews. But then funny things started to happen. The fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of antisemitism brought forth people who wanted to take advantage of the well-established Israeli state. Evryone knew that the Jews of the USSR had non-Jewish relatives. The State of Israel and its secular elites, in a an ongoing fit and manifestation of POST-Zionismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Zionism allowed the forbidden by opening the gates to people who should have been denied entry for the simplist of reasons, they did not qualify by the standrds of Israel's own key 1950 Law of Return http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return that could and should have easily excluded questionably Jewish Russians, Poles, Chinese, Indians and whatnot because they did not meet even Ben Gurion's original criteria for Israeli citizenship based on core classical Jewish indentity. <BR/><BR/>The fatal loophole in the law that was compromised, was that the Law of Return, while talking of Jewish matrilineal descent, did not have in it the qualifying proviso of "giyur kehalacha" a "convert according to Halacha"! <BR/><BR/>And so the crack was opened and began a flood-gate. In poured the Russians, Falashas, so-called "Anusim", and now Shavei Israel and others like them take further advanatge in the name of "Zionism" and "Judaism" and on their website even "conversion" but it will not be long before even these games will be dropped and anyone who thinks they are "Jewish" will decide they have the "right" to immigrate to Israel.<BR/><BR/>For the record, it was none other than the last Lubavitcher Rebbe who waged the strongest and longest political war to get the Israeli government to add the "giyur kehalacha" addendum as part of religious party's pre-conditions for joining the Shamir government. The uproar and counter-attacks against Chabad were furious, but the religious party's did not succeed, either by not insisting enough or being rejected, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe backed off at that time. Pity.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309929059139673041.post-88496628278394793802008-09-08T01:59:00.000+03:002008-09-08T01:59:00.000+03:00"the adoptees or their descendants have begun to u..."the adoptees or their descendants have begun to uncover their Jewish roots. In recent years, a growing number of such people, known as the “Hidden Jews of Poland,” have started to return to Judaism and to the Jewish people, with many contemplating aliyah."<BR/><BR/>In other words, in the case where Jewish boy who was hidden during the war marries a Polish gentile woman and has children, those children are "Jews" according to Mr. Freund and are entitled to be assisted in their "return" to Judaism.<BR/><BR/>My education is not the greatest, but I thought everybody knew that only the child of a Jewish woman is a Jew. Has this changed?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309929059139673041.post-42777460999703484462008-09-07T21:00:00.000+03:002008-09-07T21:00:00.000+03:00There are 1.5 million people already in Israel who...There are 1.5 million people already in Israel whose paternal ancestry is Jewish. There are another 5 million who have patrilineal Jewish ancestry AND who can document a claim to property in the land of Israel. <BR/><BR/>Another 375 million people of patrilineal Jewish descent reside in the Middle East. <BR/><BR/>They are called Arabs. <BR/><BR/>Why do "Zionists" seek out Chinese, Hispanic, Portuguese, Russian and Polish olim who claim paternal Jewish ancestry while at the same time rallying to exile the 1.5 million Arabs who already live there?<BR/><BR/>Not only do Syrian, Palestinian and Jordanian Arabs claim Jewish ancestry from Avraham Avinu but they can PROVE it via their DNA samples which matche that of Jewish Cohanim. <BR/><BR/>If paternal Jewish ancestry counts, then 375 million Arabs in the Middle East also have a right of return. <BR/><BR/>Why is it that the only "Jews" Micheal Freund and the Evangelical Christians who fund him are interested in are those who were Christians before coming to Israel??Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309929059139673041.post-43522749757578500792008-09-07T19:14:00.000+03:002008-09-07T19:14:00.000+03:00All of this talk about the question over advisabil...All of this talk about the question over advisability on whom to convert got me thinking regarding the Russian olim about whom many of them may have non halichic motivations on why they would want to convert. <BR/><BR/>I was thinking that if civil marriage was permitted in this country, it would take away the motivation of many of this group to convert with the exception of the sincere ones. Now that I have run my mouth off again does anybody have any feelings regarding this?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309929059139673041.post-85908778071910455732008-09-07T19:06:00.000+03:002008-09-07T19:06:00.000+03:00I am not so sure that I agree with recipients and ...I am not so sure that I agree with recipients and publicity on this issue.<BR/><BR/>There is a major difference between doing kiruv on people who are Jewish or that there status is a suffik to actively mekarving non Jews who are married to Jewish spouses. <BR/><BR/>There is also a difference between let us say converting a Russian where the situation is that many of them are converting for social purposes and the Bnei Menashe who were brought up yearning to live there lives religiously as Jews in Israel. <BR/><BR/>I can go on however you have to show me where it says in halacha that you cannot proselytize a suffik Jew.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com