Interior Ministry ‘un-Jewing’ citizens through probes
Four descendants of Holocaust survivor have their Jewish status revoked
Two granddaughters and two great-grandchildren of a Holocaust survivor and a Soviet-era refusenik had their Jewish status revoked by the Interior Ministry earlier this year, one of at least six such cases that have arisen in recent months.
The ministry eventually reversed its determination following a petition to the High Court of Justice by the ITIM religious services advisory group. But the organization is worried that the ministry is now routinely conducting
Jewish status investigations into citizens from the former Soviet Union.
This new phenomenon follows a trend in which rabbinical courts have been adding large numbers of citizens to blacklists that revoke their Jewish status.
Representatives of ITIM have said the Interior Ministry has no authority to conduct such investigations, and that these actions presage a worrying new policy whereby the Jewish status of all citizens, especially those born abroad, could be challenged by the state and its various agencies.
ITIM director Rabbi Seth Farber denounced the level of suspicion directed toward citizens from the former Soviet Union and warned that the phenomenon could spread to all Jewish citizens of the state, adding that it is already under way regarding Ethiopian and even North American immigrants.
The Interior Ministry said in response that the Jewish status of the family members was not formally rescinded, but that the Jewish status of the two infants was merely withheld after “facts raised doubts about the issue.”
Miriam, not her real name, was born in Israel in 1984. Her parents were born in Moldova and were married there in a religious Jewish ceremony in 1978.
Miriam’s father immigrated to Israel from Moldova in 1980, but her mother was denied the right to emigrate by Soviet authorities because she had been publicly
involved in Zionist activities in the country, including participating in demonstrations and hunger strikes to liberate Soviet Jewry.
Miriam’s mother was eventually allowed to leave the country and join her husband in Israel in 1983. Their marriage was subsequently validated by the Haifa Rabbinical Court.
Miriam was brought up Jewish with a strong Jewish and Israeli identity, and served in the prestigious IDF military intelligence Unit 8200.
She was married in 2008 through the Rishon Lezion Rabbinate, which conducted an investigation and approved her Jewish status at the time and her request to marry. Her younger sister was married in 2015 through the Shoham Rabbinate.
But following Miriam’s sister’s marriage registration in 2015, the Interior Ministry began an investigation into her Jewish status and that of the extended family, seemingly without cause or, indeed, authority to do so and without informing the family.
In September 2016, an official in the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority phoned Miriam’s father and told him that “after a very serious investigation” the ministry had decided his family is not Jewish.
A year later, when Miriam’s sister tried to register as married in her local Interior Ministry branch, she was told that a note in the ministry’s records showed that she is not Jewish and that she would not be able to register herself as married until the issue was clarified.
In October 2017, Miriam, who was pregnant and was trying to ensure that her baby would be registered as Jewish, received a call from the Interior Ministry saying that because of the ministry’s decision, her child would not be registered as Jewish.
Then, in November 2017, her sister, who had just given birth, went back to the Interior Ministry to register her newborn baby as Jewish and to obtain a birth certificate, but was again denied, with an official stating that since the ministry had determined she was not Jewish her baby’s religious status would remain undetermined.
At this stage, a ministry official wrote to Miriam and her sister and said that the rabbinical courts and the Religious Services Ministry had requested a Jewish status investigation, and that the Population Authority “was not a party to the process.”
ITIM has questioned when the rabbinical courts and the Religious Services Ministry became involved, believing they were asked for input only after the Interior Ministry already made its determination, as early as May 2016.
The family was never informed as to why their Jewish status had been revoked. Despite numerous efforts by the daughters and their father to prove to the ministry that they are Jewish – including the submission of documentation – the ministry refused to change its decision.
Eventually, the family turned to ITIM, which filed a petition with the High Court demanding that the ministry restore the Jewish status of the two daughters and register their children as Jewish.
Following the petition, the Interior Ministry eventually relayed to ITIM its cause of concern regarding the Jewishness of Miriam’s mother.
The issue they highlighted was that documentation for Miriam’s maternal grandmother, which had been included in her mother’s immigration file, included documents with two different surnames for the grandmother.
The reason for the two different surnames was a common, albeit tragic, result of the terrible fate of six million Jews in Europe.
Miriam’s great-grandparents, great uncles, aunts and cousins had all been murdered by the Nazis, but her grandmother had been hidden away with a Christian family and survived the Holocaust.
Her Soviet-era documentation, however, bore her adopted Christian surname and not her original Jewish name.
It appears that because of this discrepancy, the Interior Ministry opened up its investigation into the family’s Jewishness after the younger daughter got married, and determined that the entire family was not Jewish.
ITIM argued in its petition that the Interior Ministry has no authority to challenge the Jewish status of Israeli citizens, and that the Jewishness of the family had been established numerous times by the state and the Chief Rabbinate.
Before the High Court issued its verdict, the Interior Ministry accepted the documentation and explanations provided by the family and ITIM, and reinstated the family’s Jewish status.
ITIM attorney Elad Caplan said that it appears the ministry has begun to initiate its own Jewish status investigations in certain cases when citizens from the former Soviet Union register for marriage, or seek to have their children registered as Jewish, or even when family members immigrate to Israel.
Caplan said there were likely numerous other cases of which ITIM is not aware.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Miriam strongly criticized the ministry for its actions, and said the incident had caused her parents much grief and trauma.
“For a family who came to Israel out of ideological reasons, this was a horrible experience,” Miriam said.
“My parents took it very hard. They were angry, insulted and were very embarrassed, and still are embarrassed. If there is anyone who doesn’t deserve this treatment, it is them, because they came to Israel specifically because they are Jewish.”
Miriam also protested “the ease” with which her family’s Jewishness and very identity were erased, without being given information about why such a decision had been made or the right to challenge it.
“Instead they just changed our status in one moment. I was angry with the state. I didn’t understand how they could they do something like this and the ease with which they did it, negating everything about a person.”
Farber said that the Interior Ministry “has no authority – legal, halachic [according to Jewish law] or moral – to initiate investigations of people who have already been certified as Jewish.” He called the investigations an Orwellian development that threatens the Jewish people.
“Though these investigations have begun with immigrants from the former Soviet Union, there is little question that they will spread to other immigrant populations,” he said.
“In the last month, ITIM has received complaints from two Ethiopian immigrants who were certified as Jews but had their bona fides questioned. One rabbi has already said publicly that as far as he’s concerned, the Jewishness of all immigrants from North America should be questioned.
“These investigations represent the arrival of Big Brother in Israel. Rather than sustaining and supporting a Jewish community built on trust, these investigations demonstrate that no one is trusted any longer except from the bureaucratic machine. We as a Jewish community have a responsibility to insure that these investigations are stopped immediately.”
The Interior Ministry said in response to a request for comment that the Jewish status of the family members had not been formally revoked, but that the Jewish status of the infants had been withheld because of “doubt” that certain facts had raised regarding the case.
The ministry said that the High Court petition had “provided explanations” and that the children had subsequently been registered as Jewish.
The ministry declined to say why the explanations and documentation provided by the family had not been sufficient.
It also declined to answer whether the Interior Ministry has a policy of conducting investigations into the Jewish status of citizens, and on what authority the investigations it has conducted are based. •