To put this into perspective: If America, or any nation for that matter, was forced to adopt racially based immigration policies and check the DNA of potential immigrants before allowing them to settle, all Jewish organizations(1) would be up in arms and screaming “Nazi” and “holocaust” from the rooftops. And everyone knows it.
06/12/2013
A month ago, Rita Margulis and her fiancé Amit (as a career army officer he asked not to use his last name) got married at the Safari in Tel Aviv. There was a Reform rabbi and 450 guests. But according to the state of Israel, the wedding never happened.
That is because Margulis, who immigrated to Israel from Ukraine at age 4, is not Jewish according to Jewish law, because her mother is not Jewish. Jewish law states that only someone born of a Jewish mother or who had an Orthodox Jewish conversion is Jewish. And since there is no civil marriage in Israel, anyone who is not Jewish cannot marry another Jew in Israel.
Until her wedding, Margulis says it didn’t bother her much. She grew up in Israel and became a combat soldier. After her mandatory army service, she went to university and became an economist. She never seriously considered converting to Judaism, she says, and believed she should not have to.
“Getting married is a basic right that every citizen should have,” she told The Media Line. “I’ve become active in trying to get Israel to institute civil marriage.”
Israel is both a Jewish and democratic state. The ultra-Orthodox rabbinate controls all issues of personal status, including marriage and divorce. To get married in Israel to another Jew, you must prove you are Jewish. If that is impossible, as in Margulis’s case, you cannot get married.
(1)Leading an active push for the immigration “reform” bill, which will offer a path to citizenship for some of the (US) nation’s 11 million (more like 30 million–Ed.) undocumented aliens, include the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Bend the Arc and the National Council of Jewish Women. This will be the fulfillment of a sustained campaign by the Jewish community for immigration reform, which has built momentum over the past decade. Of course, it is entirely up to YOU whether it stands or fails.
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