Knesset Kills Religious Bill to Redefine ‘Who Is a Jew?’ : 62-51 Vote Comes After Peres Warns Against Worldwide Insult to Jewish

The Israeli Knesset today killed a controversial bill aimed at narrowing the legal definition of “who is a Jew” after Prime Minister Shimon Peres warned the move would have insulted Jews around the world.

The 62-51 Parliament vote ended at least temporarily a 15-year battle by the Orthodox religious lobby to restrict the definition of a Jew to one born of a Jewish mother or converted by Orthodox rabbis.

The bill had been given an even chance of succeeding.

The measure would have excluded conversions by the Reform and Conservative Jewry--the major branches of Judaism in the United States, which had vigorously opposed it.

After scarcely 90 minutes, the Knesset voted against taking up the bill, making it impossible to raise the issue again for six months.

Debate on the bill was stormy, with speeches frequently interrupted by arguments between leftist and religious lawmakers.

Israel’s four Orthodox religious political parties, with 12 seats in the Knesset, demanded that pre-election promises to introduce the bill be fulfilled despite pressing issues such as the economic crisis and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon.

“Is this the time for this, with so many problems, so many weighty and burning issues before us?” Peres asked.

But Knesset member Avner Sciaky of the National Religious Party, who presented the bill, vowed, “We will bring it back again and again, until we are successful with the help of God.”

The bill was technically an amendment to the 1970 Law of Return, which makes any Jew eligible for Israeli citizenship if he or she claims it. The 1970 law defines a Jew as any person born of a Jewish mother or converted by any ordained rabbi.

Only 20% to 25% of Israel’s 3 million Jews are Orthodox, as are about half of the 6 million Jews in the United States.

“Legislation cannot define who is a Jew--the generations have,” Peres said.

“It is not in the power of a law to save or salvage those Jews who are lapsing,” he said. “It is the right of every Jew to believe more or to believe less, to be more of a Zionist or less of a Zionist.”

Peres said the obligation of Israel is to bring all Jews to the country. “Let us not greet them with conflicts and arguments,” he said.

He added that the government should not be involved in such religious questions. “Religion and politics are two neighbors who don’t lie comfortably with each other,” he said.

At most, only about a dozen new immigrants a year would have been affected by the amendment.

But American Jewish leaders had warned that the measure would endanger the unity of Jewry and could decrease donations to the state of Israel from Jews in the United States.

But Sciaky disagreed.

“This is the central question in Judaism, whether here or in the Diaspora (Jews outside of Israel),” Sciaky said. “This nation was founded to be a Jewish nation, so there would be a Jewish majority.

“He who is not a Jew should not be able to be received as a Jewish immigrant.”

Later, Sciaky said the bill did not seek to divide the Jewish people.