Knesset Members Protest to Minister Against Supreme Court Justice

Parliamentary members of the National Religious Party asserted today that Supreme Court Justice Haim Cohen had disqualified himself from sitting in cases dealing with matters of personal status, because of statements he made at the American-Israeli “Dialogue” held in Jerusalem last month under the auspices of the American Jewish Congress.

Justice Cohen’s comments, which were sharply critical of the legal basis for the determination of Jewishness in Israel, touched off a public debate, and were the subject of an unprecedented public rebuke by the Israel Chief Rabbinate. The issue was taken up again by a Religious Party Knesset deputation at a meeting with Justice Minister Dov Joseph. The deputies conveyed to the Justice Minister the “gravity” with which they viewed the Justice’s comments.

They cited a statement from a transcript of the Justice’s remarks, quoting him as telling participants in the “Dialogue” that “it is, I think, one of the bitterest ironies of fate that the same biological or racist approach which was propagated by the Nazis and characterized in the infamous Nuremberg laws should, because of an allegedly sacrosanct Jewish tradition, become the basis for the official determination or rejection of Jewishness in the State of Israel.”

Specifically, the Justice added, “I consider it one of the most deplorable failures of the State that it has hitherto been unable to absorb originally non-Jewish women and other non-Jewish or half-Jewish survivors of Nazi persecution as full-fledged Jews for all intents and purposes.”

The religious deputies told Minister Joseph that the statement was a “serious insult to the nation’s honor and tradition.” They noted that rabbinical sources had pointed out that members of all the categories cited by Justice Cohen could assume full Jewish status, according to both Jewish religious law and Israeli law, by conversion to Judaism, a procedure readily available in Israel.