Law of Return/Halakah Explained-Defining a Jew

One of the hot-button topic that is going on between the Chief Rabbis and Knesset is the conversion issue. Unless you are already a Jew through your mother or have been converted by an orthodox rabbi, you are not considered "Jewish" and can't get the benefits of being recognized a Jewish. Yet, a Jew with a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother can still fall under the Law of Return even if the Rabbis doesn't see him/her as a "real" Jew. Confusing? Unfortunately it is once these kind of people who consider taking advantage of the Law of Return find out what it really means... the issue becomes even more complicated and scary. The Knesset is trying to eliminate the "conversion by orthodox rabbi" part so more olims can claim the Jewish identity in Israel after going through the process with a conservative or a reform rabbi in their countries. The Rabbis just make conversion impossible in Israel-even embarassing and demoralized.

In a series of questions and answers in JPost, someone asked an excellent question about how does Israel decide who's really Jewish and who isn't.

Aharon Martin, Chicago: Why does the Law of Return go against the Halachic definition of what a Jew is, and allow the offspring even just one Jewish grandparent immigrate? It seems this policy has allowed for the legal immigration of hundreds of thousands of gentiles into Israel. Does this not stifle Israel's efforts to maintain a Jewish majority in the state?

Boim: These almost 300,000 new immigrants to whom you refer may not be Jewish according to Halacha but are an integral part of the Jewish People. They have made aliya in order to become a part of the Jewish Nation and the State of Israel. When David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, composed the Law of Return, he felt that it would be most appropriate to open the gates of the fledgling Jewish State to all those victims of the Holocaust who had survived and in memory of the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis; many of these individuals were classified as Jews based on the Nuremberg Laws because their only crime was that they had a Jewish grandparent. Ben Gurion felt that if this criterion was good enough for people to be murdered as Jews it was good enough for those who survived the Holocaust to immigrate to Israel as Jews. This would be the true revenge against Hitler's attempt to annihilate the Jewish People. These new immigrants were fulfilling the Zionist dream of building a sovereign Jewish Nation State after over 2,000 years of exile.

A little uncomfortable to think that the "gentiles" can belong here as Jewish people and help build the State of Israel... but I guess if even a "gentile" can't argue their way out of being deported dring the Shoah just because s/he has only one Jewish grandparent, then they're Jewish by blood....

David Ben-Gurion is basically every Israeli's idol.