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Switch to Forum Live View Conservative Converts CAN make Aliyah
5 years ago  ::  Mar 04, 2008 - 8:59AM #1
FruitCup
FruitCup
Posts: 3
I read this on another thread and now I cannot find it, but someone told another poster that she could liver her dream of making Aliyah with her Conservative Conversion, and I would just like her to know that she CAN. The Israeli government considers all Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Converts as Jews. I would suggest that she speak to an Aliyah expert, her Rabbi could no doubt get her in touch with one. Good luck to her!
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5 years ago  ::  Mar 04, 2008 - 9:13AM #2
nieciedo
nieciedo
Posts: 5,617
That's not quite true.

Non-Orthodox converts, along with patrilineal Jews, qualify as Jew for the purposes of the Law of Return and thus can benefit from the expedited citizenship process.

However, only those converts whose conversion has been validated by the Chareidi-dominated Chief Rabbinate are officially granted status as "Jews" under Israeli law.

So, yes -- a Conservative convert can make aliyah, but then he or she can't get married to a Jew or buried in a Jewish cemetery or benefit from any other aspect of civil law dominated by the Rabbanut. The question, then, becomes why bother at all?

On the one hand, if there's going to be any change and if liberal Jews are ever going to get fully equality in religious freedom in Israel, liberal Jews will have to fight for it and so each liberal oleh is a potential soldier for the cause.

On the other hand, it would seriously piss me off to go through the trouble of immigrating and have to put up with second-class citizenship until victory has been achieved.

It's a tough call.
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5 years ago  ::  Mar 04, 2008 - 9:20AM #3
FruitCup
FruitCup
Posts: 3
If you make Aliyah, you are a Jew it doesn't matter what type of Jew you are. Aliyah = for Jews.

Her problem was she was told she could not make Aliyah at all which was not true.
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5 years ago  ::  Mar 04, 2008 - 9:41AM #4
nieciedo
nieciedo
Posts: 5,617
[QUOTE=FruitCup;331359]The Israeli government considers all Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Converts as Jews.[/quote]

I just thought it important to clarify this statement. It's true that all converts regardless of movement are considered "Jewish" for the law of Return -- just like everyone who would have been "kosher for Hitler" by having at least one Jewish grandparent. But if your conversion wasn't supervised by a rabbi approved by the Chief Rabbinate or if you can't prove that your mother was Jewish, then you've got problems once you've actually immigrated.

So, we're Jewish enough to get in, but once we're there we're up the creek. :(
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5 years ago  ::  Mar 19, 2008 - 11:12PM #5
yosefrachamim
yosefrachamim
Posts: 374
[QUOTE=nieciedo;331451]ISo, we're Jewish enough to get in, but once we're there we're up the creek. :([/QUOTE]

That's simply because the government is decidedly secular and anti-religious....but all things involving religion must be dealt with according to halacha.

I don't understand how people can just decide that they no longer wish to be bound by Halacha and then be upset that their decision is rejected by those who do accept the Yoke of Torah.

You guys are the ones who unilaterally decided to change the religion.....so why cry about it when the Orthodox community doesn't accept your changes?

Yosef
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5 years ago  ::  Mar 19, 2008 - 11:26PM #6
Rook
Rook
Posts: 12
[QUOTE=yosefrachamim;369054]

You guys are the ones who unilaterally decided to change the religion.....so why cry about it when the Orthodox community doesn't accept your changes?

Yosef[/QUOTE]

Excuse me while I butt in for a moment--I know I've only posted here maybe once before. 

The Jewish population is very diverse, and for Israel to be a country for the Jewish people it needs to accept that the majority are not orthodox. You can shout until your blue in the face that the only real Judaism is orthodoxy, but that doesn't make it true for the vast majority of Jews who have just as much right as you do to determine what shape Judaism should take.
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5 years ago  ::  Mar 19, 2008 - 11:27PM #7
clyde5001
clyde5001
Posts: 3,501

yosefrachamim wrote:

That's simply because the government is decidedly secular and anti-religious....but all things involving religion must be dealt with according to halacha.

I don't understand how people can just decide that they no longer wish to be bound by Halacha and then be upset that their decision is rejected by those who do accept the Yoke of Torah.

You guys are the ones who unilaterally decided to change the religion.....so why cry about it when the Orthodox community doesn't accept your changes?

Yosef



Religion - and halacha - are not frozen in time. And the Orthodox - especially the charedi - are not the arbiters of all things Jewish.

Personally, I think non-Orthodox Jews give Israel far too much support when we get much less from them. I've got two Jewish parents and a Jewish child - no interest whatsoever in going to Israel. I have actively discouraged my son's interest in visiting. He's adopted and couldn't be converted by an Orthodox rabbi, so why would i want him visiting a "Jewish" state that wouldn't accept his as Jewish?

Shema Y'Israel Adnai Eloheinu, Adonei Echad.

Am Y'Israel Chai!

23,298 posts as of 2/27/2009

3,208 after the transition.

A 20,090 difference.
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5 years ago  ::  Mar 20, 2008 - 2:03AM #8
NaftaliNZ
NaftaliNZ
Posts: 193
We would do well to remember, also, that Israel was not founded by "Orthodox, Halacha obiding Jews" but by "Secular, socialist, rationalist Jews".

Who invited the Orthodox to come tell people they're "Not Jewish Enough" anyway?

Judgementalism belongs in Xtianity, not Judaism.
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5 years ago  ::  Mar 20, 2008 - 5:01AM #9
ioz123
ioz123
Posts: 104
[QUOTE=NaftaliNZ;369270]We would do well to remember, also, that Israel was not founded by "Orthodox, Halacha obiding Jews" but by "Secular, socialist, rationalist Jews".

Who invited the Orthodox to come tell people they're "Not Jewish Enough" anyway?

Judgementalism belongs in Xtianity, not Judaism.[/QUOTE]



Quoted for truth. The State of Israel was not founded to be a quasi-theocracy where an Orthodox Rabbinate has the gall to tell other people what their nationality-religion is/isn't.
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5 years ago  ::  Mar 20, 2008 - 6:32AM #10
Bunsinspace
Bunsinspace
Posts: 5,235

yosefrachamim wrote:

...You guys are the ones who unilaterally decided to change the religion.....so why cry about it when the Orthodox community doesn't accept your changes?

Yosef



BS"D

Ouch!!! Israeli Orthodoxy is not at all the same as world Jewish orthodoxy. Israeli orthodoxy is part and parcel of the function of the State. Israeli orthodoxy is as much changed from pre-Branch Judaism (real orthodoxy) as ANY Branch, even MORESO because it is the NEWEST sect of Judaism. I wholeheartedly refute any attempts to equate Israeli orthodoxy which is the religion of the State to any brand of Jewish orthodxy worldwide which is FREE (apolitical) Judaism according to Torah alone and NOT modified by the whims of the modern State.

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