Israeli Minister Calls for Immigration Curbs

Israel’s immigration minister ignited a political dispute today by calling for curbs on Soviet immigration, saying that four out of 10 newcomers are not Jewish.

“We are flooding our country with non-Jewish Russians who are coming under the Law of Return. We will regret this for generations,” newspapers quoted Immigration Minister Yitzhak Peretz as saying while on a visit to Moscow.

Also today, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir expanded his ruling coalition by signing on an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party with promises of stricter religious laws that include outlawing the sale of pork.

More than 120,000 Soviet Jews have moved to Israel this year, and officials expect 1 million by the end of 1992, swelling Israel’s 4.7 million population by one-fifth.

Peretz, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, said up to 40% of the immigrants are not Jewish according to religious law.

Religious law defines a Jew as anyone born to a Jewish mother or who converted to Judaism. But the definition for immigration to Israel is far broader.

A 1970 amendment to the Law of Return extended automatic citizenship rights to any non-Jewish spouse, child or grandchild of a Jew. Soviet citizens with just one Jewish grandparent qualify to come to the Jewish state.

Some opposition members of the Knesset (Parliament) demanded that Shamir recall Peretz immediately, and the Jerusalem Post published an editorial calling Peretz’s proposal “scandalous.”

Shamir’s agreement with the Agudat Israel party, which has four members of the Knesset, gives greater stability to his 5-month-old right-wing government. But it also threatens to reopen wounds between ultra-religious Jews who want biblical law enforced by the state and the secular majority, which fears religious coercion.

As part of the agreement he promised to push four religious laws through Parliament as quickly as possible.