Two of Israel’s leading Orthodox rabbis have spoken out against dangers which they see inherent in the large number of non-Jews intermingled with the Soviet immigrants.
Rabbi Eliezer Schach, head of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and spiritual head of Degel Hatorah, told an audience of thousands Sunday night that some 20 percent of the newcomers were not Jews.
He warned that they, together with the indigenous Arab population of the country, would form the majority within a decade or so and Israel would cease being a Jewish state.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, former Sephardic chief rabbi and now spiritual leader of Shas, told a scholarly audience in Jerusalem that marriage registrars must exercise special care in dealing with Soviet immigrants, and should demand verification of their Jewishness.
In cases of doubt, the olim should be required to undergo conversion — and this, Yosef stressed, meant “kabbalat ohl mitzvot,” the acceptance of the yoke of the commandments.
He suggested, for example, that a would-be convert be required to attend Shabbat services in synagogue for a year prior to his conversion — as a token of his sincere intent to accept the yoke of the commandments.
Similar concern over the demographic and halachic importance of the Soviet aliyah has been expressed by former Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, and by other leading rabbis here.
HALACHIC PROBLEMS WILL ARISE
Virtually all the newcomers receive Israeli identity cards on arrival, on the basis of any prima facie proof of their Jewishness.
But halachic problems are likely to arise when they or their children seek to marry.
According to two landmark judgments by the High Court of Justice last year, the Interior Ministry, which issues the identification cards, is not permitted to examine minutely the validity of prima facie evidence of Jewishness — such as a conversion certificate from any Jewish community abroad — but should accept it at face value.
The marriage registrars, however, who are all Orthodox rabbis working under the aegis of the Chief Rabbinate, are entitled to conduct meticulous examinations, and to insist that marriages be held only in strict accordance with halachah, or Jewish law.
Regarding those Jewish couples where one of the spouses chooses to leave the Soviet Union and settle in Israel, Yosef said their civil marriage in the Soviet Union is not valid under halacha. He thereby appeared to open the way to such olim remarrying in Israel without difficulty.
Schach’s 45-minute address, mostly in Yiddish, was relayed by closed-circuit television to various sites in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem.
Referring to his controversial appearance at the Yad Eliahu sports stadium March 26, when he attacked the kibbutzim — and obliquely the Labor Movement — Schach insisted he had not questioned the “Jewishness” of the kibbutzniks.
But once again, he flayed them for eating non-kosher food and warned that they would not have the strength to resist Israel’s enemies if they persisted in spurning its religious heritage.
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