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A racist, wicked policy
Why does State ignore law and expel non-Jewish partners of Jews who passed away?
A family where one partner is Jewish and the other one isn’t decides to move to Israel and settle there. They leave their place of work, sell the home, bid friends and relatives farewell, and move here. On the basis of the Law of Return both have the same rights as any other immigrant, headed by the right to be granted citizenship.
Yet the interior Ministry decided to twist this principle, and created separation between the two partners. The Jewish partner, the one whose mother is Jewish, is granted citizenship. The other partner must face tests of time and bureaucracy until he or she are granted citizenship, which sometimes takes more than five years after moving to Israel.
But we had some cases where the Jewish partner passed away while the widowed partner has not yet been granted citizenship or all the other rights given to an immigrant by the Interior Ministry. And then, the Jewish State’s Interior Ministry gladly rushes to expel the “gentile” from Israel. He or she has already been denied citizenship, and now that they no longer have a Jewish partner comes the order: Get out!
But out where? Where would the widowed partner left without their Jewish partner go? There is no job, no home, everything was given up before the move to Israel, to the great promise. But in Israel, who cares about the fate of widowed people when they’re gentiles?
Why didn’t they warn them before: Should the Jewish partner pass away before the Interior Ministry and its officials are kind enough to grant the other partner citizenship, the entire deal will be called off. There is no room for gentiles amongst us! The same ruling applies to the partner of a Jewish man who abused her and beat her up after the move to Israel until she was forced to leave him. We had a divorce? Then she will be expelled from Israel even if she has a small child from her Jewish husband who needs her as a mother. This doesn’t count here.
The child can stay in Israel in the capacity of the Jew’s son, but the woman is expelled! Where will she go when she has neither a job nor a home in her country of origin? And what about the good of the child who needs his mother? That’s not important, the ultra-Orthodox will adopt him, convert him, dress him up in black clothes and we’ll gain yet another “Jewish soul.” And what about the woman?
But in fact, who cares? She is a gentile, and we are a “Jewish state.” It is very difficult to keep saying that it is also “democratic.” Sadly and shamefully, this phenomenon repeats often. The Interior Ministry’s policy regarding the partners of new immigrants is racist and wicked.
Indeed, the amendment to the Law of Return dating back to 1970 changed the previous procedure. The essence is as follows: Those who in good faith claim that they are Jewish and are not members of another religion and wish to settle in Israel are entitled to citizenship. The amendment added a definition: A Jew is someone born to a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism without being a member of another religion.
Yet in order not to break up families and boost the numbers of those entitled, it was ruled that the law grants rights to both Jews and their partners for the sake of getting citizenship and new immigrant benefits. We should also keep in mind that this law is a “civilian law” rather than a rabbinical or religious law. As such, it refers to the Law of Return and not to laws pertaining to marriage and divorce or to religious matters or the purity of the Jewish people.
The 1950 Law of Return says that the rights of a Jew and the rights of a new immigrant are also given to the child and grandson of a Jew, the partner of a Jew and of a son and grandson of a Jew, with the exception of a person who was Jewish and converted voluntarily.
Yet the expulsion of non-Jewish partners raises a question: Where did those “wise people” find the nerve to be mercilessly racist and wicked? This is a civilian law that grants equal rights to the non-Jewish partners. One wonders who invented this patent for “cleaning up” the Jewish people, where was it determined, and when was the law changed in this spirit?
Are they shamelessly fighting for the purity of the race while the State of Israel’s constitutive document,
the Declaration of Independence, determined that Israel would maintain complete social and political equality of rights to all its citizens regardless of religion, race, and gender, while guaranteeing the freedom of religion and conscience?
Apparently citizenship is being prevented from non-Jewish partners despite what the law says, in the hopes that at a time of crisis the law can be completely ignored. All that is left for us to do is to applaud this despicable sophistication, in the absence of shame or historical memory.
