As discussions are held in Knesset committees on the government’s proposed reform to giyur, Reform MK Gilad Kariv (Labor) said that all babies born to non-Jewish mothers in Israel should be converted immediately after birth in the hospital and registered as Jews.
“The state should be megayeir minors before they leave the hospital,” he said. “When a baby is born to a non-Jewish mother, they should offer the family to do a bris milah in the hospital and register him as a Jew.”
Kariv added that this won’t solve the problem of the older generation (referring to the many non-Jews who made aliyah from the former Soviet Union) but at least it will solve the problem for the new generation.
Of course, Kariv, who served as The Executive Director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism (IMPJ) doesn’t profess to adhere to halacha, but unfortunately, there are Rabbanim in Israel who do profess to adhere to halacha who support being megayeir non-Jewish children in Israel living with non-Jewish parents, despite the fact that any commitment to Torah and mitzvos under such circumstances is dubious at best.
In fact, the entire purpose of the proposed giyur reform, one of Avigdor Lieberman’s coalition demands, is to “solve the problem” of non-Jews from the former Soviet Union. Since the Rabbanut will not agree to any “easy” solution, part of the reform is to allow any three Rabbanim of cities in Israel to perform giyur, thereby bypassing the “strict” demands of the Rabbanut to adhere to basic halacha.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
Yemach Shmo.
I did that many years ago at a Bris for my coworkers child. Mother was definitely not Jewish but they agreed to raise him as a Jew. There was no chance he was going to be raised Jewish. I asked a Shaila of my Rebbe ZT”L who was a well recognized posek and he said that as long as we told the young man in question before his Bar Mitzvah that he needed to make a choice on what life he wanted, Jew or non-Jew, it was fine. While I can’t say MK Galov’s proposal is the best idea I’ve ever heard, there is definitely a halachic basis if the parents plan on raising the child as a Jew even if there is a more than reasonable chance that the child will not grow up Shomer Torah U’Mitzvos.
Not only it will not solve ANY problem, it will CREATE more problems the respective children in the future.
Not knowing where they belong, officially being Jewish in practice, not religious school will accept them nor will any decent Rav be mesader Kiddushin it will be hell for him/her.
The biggest issue here is that the Zionist entity, a political entity (that is anti-Jewish to the core, but that’s besides the point) is attempting to determine a matter of halacha: who is a Jew.
The matter of who is or is not a Jew is determined solely by halachic decisors of the Jews, not by any State, even one that lies and presents itself as Jewish.
The Zionists can certainly determine who is an “Israeli”, including gentiles, both at birth and at any other time. But the Zionists have zero business determining who is a Jew; that’s only for Judaism to determine.
RABBONIM IN ISRAEL MUST DECLARE A MORITORIUM ON GIUR IN ISRAEL, SO THAT WE KNOW THAT ANY GIUR IS FAKE.