Melchior: More than half of recent CIS immigrants not Jewish

http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/28.Oct.1999/News/Article-4.html
Thursday, October 28, 1999
Melchior: More than half of recent CIS immigrants not Jewish
By Haim Shapiro

JERUSALEM (October 28) - More than half of last year's immigrants from the former Soviet Union were non-Jews, Minister of Jewish Affairs Michael Melchior said yesterday, describing the issue as a ticking time bomb.
Melchior was speaking at the first meeting of the Ministerial Committee on Conversion. He said that in previous years, 25 percent of these immigrants were not Jewish. They pose not just a religious problem, but a social and national problem, he said.
The meeting was attended by only three of the 11 ministers on the committee - Melchior, the chairman, Interior Minister Natan Sharansky, and Religious Affairs Minister Yitzhak Cohen. Also absent were representatives from the Reform and Conservative movements.
Melchior said that more than half of the 65,000 people who immigrated from the CIS last year were not Jewish. "It's a ticking time bomb," Melchior added.
In response, Mike Rosenberg, director of the Jewish Agency's immigration and absorption department, said he did not have last year's figures, but he could confirm that the number of those who were not halachicly Jewish among the immigrants from the former Soviet Union has been growing every year. In 1989, he said, there were 94 percent Jews and 6% non-Jews and by 1997, the last year for which the Agency had statistics, the ratio was 65 Jews to 45 non-Jews.
Rosenberg stressed that the policy of the Jewish Agency is to bring whoever is eligible under the Law of Return and this is determined by the Israeli consular offices.
However, he added that having brought the immigrants, the Jewish Agency and the state have a responsibility to be very active in strengthening their Jewish identity.
"Jewish identity is very lacking both among the Jewish and the non-Jewish immigrants. It is a problem for all the immigrants from the former Soviet Union," Rosenberg said.
He added that he feels very strongly that for those who want to convert, every effort should be made by the Jewish Agency and the government to make this possible. Today, he said, it is very difficult.
Jewish Agency spokesman Michael Jankelowitz said that the issue of the growing number of non-Jewish immigrants is one of the items being discussed at this week's board of governors meeting.
The non-Orthodox movements stayed away from the ministerial committee meeting on conversion because their people had been invited not as representatives of the respective movements, but as members of the board of the joint conversion institute, which has been opened as part of the implementation of the Neeman Commission recommendations.
They also objected to the fact that Melchior's first order of business was to ask the High Court of Justice to delay hearing a petition by the Conservative movement against the Interior Ministry decision not to register as Jews adopted children converted by its rabbis in Israel, which was set for November 9.
Rabbi Ehud Bandel, president of the Conservative movement, said yesterday that his movement could not agree to yet another delay in a case which had dragged on for four years.
"Instead of entering a dialogue and promoting accord, Minister Melchior has embroiled us in a dispute which we did not seek," Bandel said.
He added that, in any case, the court would not reach a decision on November 9 and that to find another date on which 11 justices could sit together could take as long as eight months.
Rabbi Uri Regev, director of the Reform movement's Israel Religious Action Center, pointed out that the IRAC is representing over 40 petitioners, all of them converts whose cases are dependent on a judgement in the case of the adoptees.
One such petitioner is a woman over 80. "How long does she have to wait," asked Regev, in a letter to the committee.
In response, Melchior said he spoke to the Reform and Conservative representatives and they welcomed the fact that the committee had been set up.
"I understand them. They have a great deal of experience with delays, but they promised me their cooperation and I intend to invite them to the committee meetings," Melchior said.
Regarding the non-Jewish immigrants, Melchior called for more classes on Judaism in the former Soviet Union and an expansion of the conversion institute.
"Our main message is one of cooperation between the streams of Judaism and finding a long-range solution to the problem [of conversion]." he said.
The committee intends to deal not just with the issue of conversion, but with all issues relating to religion and state, such as the issue of non-Orthodox Jews praying at the Western Wall.
Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, director of the Rabbinical Courts, said that last year all the various [Orthodox] rabbinical courts had converted some 3,500. During the past four years, some 10,000 have been converted, he said.

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