The World - News from June 26, 1986

The Israeli Interior Ministry has disclosed a controversial plan to identify some converts to Judaism by listing them as such on their identity cards. Shoshana Miller, converted to Judaism by a Reform rabbi in the United States, told a reporter that the Interior Ministry refused to grant her Israeli citizenship even though Israel’s Law of Return automatically grants citizenship to any Jew who asks for it. Orthodox Jewish legislators have long sought to recognize as Jews only those converted by Orthodox rabbis. After a legal appeal by Miller, the ministry--headed by an ultra-Orthodox rabbi--agreed to register her as a Jew but said her identification card would label her a convert.