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Beyond Red Tape
Prominent Zionist's niece told she needs to prove her "Jewishness."
Raphael Ahren
Haaretz.com
H
illary Rubin felt she was living
out her ancestors' dream when
she decided to move to Israel in
2006. Now she says she is being forced to
leave the country to fulfill her own dream
— getting married.
"Zionism runs in my family," the Detroit
native says, adding that her grandfather's
uncle was Zionist leader Nahum Sokolow.
But after filing for a wedding license
and being told she needed to prove the
Jewishness of her maternal lineage for four
generations, she is wondering whether she
made the right decision in immigrating to a
Jewish state that doubts her Jewishness.
"I'm furious with this country right now','
the 29-year-old international relations
student told Haaretz's Anglo File."I'm the
great-great-niece of a prominent Zionist
and I am always a supporter of this coun-
try, but this really frustrated me, and I can
totally understand why a lot of my Anglo
friends left this country"
Rubin is the daughter of Jack and Joanne
Rubin of West Bloomfield and Boynton
Beach, Fla.; and Ellen and Joseph Stuban of
Wolverine Lake.
Rubin, who was raised in a Conservative
household, produced letters from four
Conservative rabbis and one Chabad
rabbi attesting to her Jewishness. But the
Herzliya Rabbinate said the letters were
not enough and asked her to bring ketu-
bot, or religious wedding contracts, as
well as birth or death certificates of her
mother, grandmother, great-grandmother
and great-great-grandmother.
"It was made very clear that without
ketubot and without birth certificates
from four generations, I would need to go
to the Beit Din [local rabbinical court],"
Rubin told Anglo File. "I told him, time
and time again, that my grandparents are
Shoah survivors [and thus their ketubot
no longer exist], and I was told that wasn't
his problem."
The Herzliya Rabbinate responded that
it kept to strict standards "of Moses and
Israel" for affirming one's faith.
More Than Paperwork
There is no civil marriage in Israel, forc-
ing couples to either go through a local
Rabbinate or marry abroad. The Chief
Rabbinate recently enacted new guidelines
automatically sending marriage candidates
Hillary and Craig at their wedding at Moshav Bnei Tzion
whose parents did not wed in Israel to a
local rabbinical court to determine whether
they are really Jewish.
The new regulations do not specify
which documents are needed to conclu-
sively determine a person's Jewishness. It's
likely that Rubin's letters would not have
proven sufficient for them, according to a
rabbi with knowledge of the system.
Rubin fears the rabbinical court might
declare her a non-Jew and thus decided to
get married without the Rabbinate's bless-
ing. Instead, Rubin and her Johannesburg,
South Africa-born fiance Craig Glaser
planned their Aug. 8 wedding in a
Conservative ceremony on a moshav in
the Sharon region. Because Conservative
weddings are not recognized by the state,
they plan to fly for one day to Cyprus for a
civil marriage — an option used by many
Israeli couples unable, or unwilling, to sat-
isfy the Rabbinate's demands.
"My Judaism wasn't the only one in
question',' said Rubin. "Craig was raised
Orthodox in South Africa and his Judaism
was also questioned.
"I had a letter from Rabbi Chaim
Bergstein of Bais Chabad of Farmington
Hills. If it weren't for Rabbi Bergstein,
I wouldn't have gotten as far with the
Rabbinate as I did:'
The rabbinical court does not actually
declare somebody a non-Jew without proof
of their belonging to another religion, but
Rubin would still run the risk of being left in
the situation of not being officially Jewish by
the state's standards should she turn to them.
Fighting Mad
"At this point, I no longer want to play by
their rules. I want to fight what they're
doing',' said. Rubin, who observes Shabbat
and keeps kosher.
When Anglo File called the Rabbinate's
marriage department, a man who said
he was its director but declined to state
his name said he remembered the case.
He said the couple was referred to the
rabbinical court in Tel Aviv to have their
Jewishness affirmed, and that before this
is done he cannot let them get married.
When he learned they had decided to get
married in Cyprus to avoid the rabbini-
cal court, he said nonchalantly: "Good
for them. We are only marrying people
according to the law of Moses and Israel:'
Rubin and her fiance — whose docu-
ments were accepted by the rabbinate as
valid proof of Jewishness — did not even
want to try to convince the rabbinical court
that she is a Jew. "I can't provide them with
the documents they want. I am the grand-
daughter of four Holocaust survivors, any
documents my grandparents may have had
from their families we don't have anymore.
Who has a death certificate from somebody
who was gassed to death? These things are
frustrating because my grandparents were
persecuted for being Jewish, and here I am
being told I'm not exactly Jewish:'
She is also concerned they might not
declare her Jewish because her parents
are divorced and she can no longer pro-
vide their ketubah. The fact her parents'
get, or bill of divorce, was prepared by a
Conservative rabbi and her mother has
since remarried a Catholic would further
lead the rabbis to deny her their official
approval, she said.
The young couple believes the conse-
quences of going through the rabbinical
court are "much worse" than not going at all.
"It's as if one day you wake up and
you're no longer a Jew in the Jewish State
but outside Israel you are still Jewish
enough to be hated by most of the world:'
Rubin says. "It's a weird feeling. It's
hard enough to grasp the idea that your
Judaism may not be valid but then to be
told you're not actually Jewish according
to the Jewish state — it's ostracizing."
"I have no plans to leave Israel just yet:'
said Rubin. "Craig and I need to finish our
studies at the Interdisciplinary Center in
Herzliya but no matter what, we'll always
be Israeli:'
❑
JN Senior Writer Shelli Liebman Dorfman
contributed to this report.
August 12 • 2010
53