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Returning, With Rights

Non-Jewish immigrants spur raging
debate in Israeli society.

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OPEN MONDAY - SATURDAY
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1 2/3

1999

22

LYNNE MASTER, M.Ed

Owner, Director

government officials, about 25 percent
of the more than 800,000 immigrants
from the former Soviet Union over the
past decade are not Jewish. More than
Jerusalem
50 percent of those arriving this year
s the conflict between
are
gentiles.
Azerbaijan and Armenia
Although statistics are sketchy, offi-
escalated in the early 1990s,
cials say the vast majority of non-Jews
Yuri Bocharov, a petroleum
have come to Israel legally, in line with
engineer from the Azeri capital of
the Law of Return.
Baku, wanted to save his family.
The problem with the immigration
Although Bocharov is not Jewish,
of
non-Jews, according to Natan
his wife, Rima, is, so the couple and
Sharansky, the
their son filed
minister of the
papers with the
interior and
Jewish Agency
g
perhaps
Israel's
for Israel and
most famous
moved to the
§ Russian
Jewish state.
grant, is that
The family now
the addition of
lives near Haifa,
a sizable non-
where Yuri
Jewish
popula-
works in the
tion
may
strain
construction
an already frag-
industry.
ile society.
Although the
The reason
"nationality"
why
there are
clause on his
so
many
pas-
identity card
sions
and
has been left
extremes when
blank, he con-
we
deal with
.siders himself a
these questions
full-fledged citi-
is because we
zen. But that
are in the
puts him —
Russian immigrants arrive at the Tel Aviv
process of
like an estimat- airport terminal.
forming the
ed 200,000
character of
immigrants —
Jewish
Israeli
society,"
Sharansky,
the
at the center of a debate raging in
head of the Yisrael B'aliyah immi-
Israel over its policy on non-Jewish
grants-rights party, said in a telephone
immigration.
interview. "On the one hand, we want
"This is a state of the Jews, it is part
to build a state which has a unique
of Jewish history," Bocharov says in
Hebrew. "But we are building a democ- connection with the Jewish people,
and its laws have to express this," he
ratic state, too. Why don t they ask you
said. "On the other hand, we are
in the U.S. or England who you are?"
accepting people who are part of the
That question summarizes the
family of the Jews but who are not
debate that has swept Israel as it grap-
part of the people.
ples with its identity as a Jewish state,
In Israel, where Orthodox rabbis
as well as its responsibility toward a
control marriage, divorce and burials,
growing number of non-Jewish rela-
the acceptance of non-Jewish immi-
tives of Jews who want to live in the
grants has often been far from famil-
country.
ial, and a host of practical problems in
The debate surfaced at the Cabinet
these areas need to be resolved.
meeting on Sunday as Prime Minister
In recent weeks, some haredi, or
Ehud Barak firmly rejected any move
fervently Orthodox, politicians and
to change Israel's Law of Return,
rabbis have raised the issue even high-
which grants children, spouses and
er
on the public agenda with a series
grandchildren of Jews the right to
automatic citizenship. According to
RETURNING, WITH RIGHTS on page 26

AVI MACHLIS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Oak Park

Bloomfield Hills

'