Law of Return

Israeli rabbinate under scrutiny as religious issues threaten government’s wartime unity

By David I. Klein — March 21, 2024
(RNS) — A complaint against the rabbinate's control of who is deemed Jewish comes as cracks are beginning to show in the sense of unity fostered by Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7.

Israel is in trouble

By Jeffrey Salkin — February 16, 2023
Giving new meaning to: "The call is coming from inside the house."

Why Israel’s Orthodox Jewish parties want to narrow the country’s ‘Law of Return’

By Avi Shafran — January 11, 2023
(RNS) — The Orthodox parties see the law as a recipe for increased intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews.

Israeli rabbinate under fire for pushing for DNA tests

By Bob Smietana — March 14, 2019
JERUSALEM (RNS) — A rabbinical court has asked some immigrants to Israel to prove they are genetically Jewish before they can be married, a standard some say violates Judaism’s own definitions of Jewishness.

Israeli cabinet allows wider group of Orthodox rabbis to perform conversions

By Michele Chabin — November 3, 2014
JERUSALEM (RNS) The resolution should enable many of the 364,000 Israelis who are not Jewish to find Orthodox rabbis more welcoming than the 33 rabbis picked by the rabbinate to head conversion courts.
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