Ninety percent of the 61 world-famous Jewish scholars around the world, polled by a special Israeli Cabinet committee on the touchy problem of who should be acknowledged as a Jew in Israel, have ruled that strict Jewish religious law should be the rule.
That would mean that a child must be registered in accordance with the religion of the mother. Thus, children of mixed marriages, where the mother is not Jewish, could not be registered as Jewish without ritual conversion to Judaism.
Those in favor of the strict interpretation of Jewish religious law on this question include a famous professor at Harvard, and other famous scholars and rabbis, including some who are not Orthodox Jews. The view was underwritten by the entire five-man board of the London Rabbinical Court. A few of the scholars polled would impose a rule even more strict than that required by traditional Judaism, while a small minority is opposed to strict interpretation.
Prime Minister David Ben Gurion circulated the replies of those who were polled to the members of the Cabinet here today Summaries of the replies are expected to be made public this week.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
