Rav Elyashiv:
"Independent Registry an Urgent Necessity"
by Moshe Schapiro
As hundreds of thousands of gentile immigrants continue to pour
into Israel from the former Soviet Union, the Torah leadership of Eretz
Yisroel has reached a momentous decision: to set up an independent
registry to keep track of who is Jewish. Rav Yosef Shalom Eliyashiv and
Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman strongly support the plan.
"There is no longer any doubt that the majority of
immigrants coming to this country are not Jewish," says Rav Yosef
Efrati, Rav Eliyashiv's closest disciple. "The Jewish Agency itself
admits this, and yet many immigrants are [falsely] given documents stating that
they are Jewish. Two generations from now, their children will speak
fluent Hebrew and behave like regular Israelis, and no one will be able
to tell the difference. What will prevent them from marrying Jews?"
According to Rav Efrati, Rav Eliyashiv shed many tears before
finally arriving at this decision. He realizes that the establishment of
an independent registry will divide the Jewish nation and evoke a
strong backlash from the Israeli government and from the Reform and
Conservative movements, as well as confuse and possibly alienate many
non-aligned secular Jews. However, the alternative -- standing aside and
allowing the wholesale infiltration of hundreds of thousands of gentiles
into the Jewish People -- is totally unacceptable.
To date, over 500,000 non-Jewish immigrants have entered Israel
under the aegis of the Law of Return. The law grants full citizenship
status not only to Jews, but also to gentile descendants of Jews, and to
the gentile next of kin of gentile descendants of Jews. Often, the
Jewish Agency flies entire clans of gentiles to Israel on the basis of a
long-forgotten Jewish grandfather of one of its members. Lately,
gentiles throughout Russia have been applying for citizenship on the
basis of forged documents linking them to fictitious Jewish relatives
who supposedly lived several decades ago.
Though the immigration issue forced the decision to establish an
independent registry, the system would solve many other problems that
are not being addressed effectively by the governmental registry. For
example, better tracking of mamzerim and Karaites [who have special marriage
restrictions under Jewish Law].
In view of the long-term repercussions of establishing the
independent registry, the Torah leadership of Eretz Yisroel will involve
spiritual leaders from around the world in the plan so as to gain as
wide a consensus as possible before implementing it in practice.
"Most Jews-even non-religious ones-identify with the
halachic definition of who is a Jew. The key will be in how the
plan is presented to them," Rav Efrati says. "This is one of
the major obstacles to implementing the plan at this time. The
Torah leadership of Eretz Yisroel wants to avoid alienating
non-religious Jews at all costs. This would be counterproductive,
since the objective here is to encourage every halachic Jew in the world
to join the registry."
The American Torah community will play a central role in the
implementation of the plan, since Israeli law prohibits the
establishment of independent registries inside the country.
Therefore, it is likely that the data bank will be situated in the
United States.
The sheer logistics of registering approximately 12,000,000 Jews
in all parts of the world are another daunting challenge. However,
this has not deterred the spiritual leaders of Eretz Yisroel.
"Some people say that one should not ring the alarm when one
does not have the complete solution to a problem," says Rav Efrati.
"Rav Eliyashiv, however, disagrees. He believes that one
should cry out even if one does not have the complete solution, for the
very act of crying out will alert others and motivate them to work for
the good of Klal Yisroel."
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