A recent surge in legal immigration has led to a reduction in Israel’s Jewish majority, according to a study of data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Channel 14 reported Sunday.
The Israel Immigration Policy Center, an NGO established in 2012 to publicize an immigration policy that serves Israel’s strategic interests, found that the record number of new immigrants in 23 years last year resulted in a drop from 0. 3 in Israel’s Jewish majority, to 73. 6 Array compared to 73. 9% at the end of 2021.
This continues a 30-year trend, with the country’s Jewish majority having declined by a total of around 10% during that period, wasting around 1% each and every 3 years on average.
“It is not imaginable that new immigrants will cause a decline in the Jewish majority. This is a demographic deficit that will damage the Jewish identity and character of the country,” said attorney Yona Sherki of Israel’s Immigration Policy Center.
Last year, another 77,000 people gained prestige in Israel, adding 71,000 new immigrants who entered under the “Law of Return,” which recognizes a user with only one Jewish grandparent as eligible for citizenship. However, those other people are not Jews according to halacha or devout Jewish law.
Due to the “grandparents clause” of new immigrants in 2022, 32,000 (45% of the total) were Jewish.
Among non-Jews entering Israel, an average of 85 percent immigrate under the “grandparents clause” of the Law of Return.
With regard to the Law of Return, the Prime Minister of the time, David Ben-Gurion, with the creation of the Jewish state that: “Anyone who is born of a Jewish mother and is not of another religion, or anyone who has changed according to Jewish law,” will be considered as Jewish.
In 1970, it was that the children and grandchildren of a Jewish user could only immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return. During those years, many discussions have taken place to determine who is Jewish and how to define a user who converts through a social network. Unorthodox conversion process, but in vain.
The factor came to the fore recently after a wave of immigrants from Russia and Ukraine entered Israel after Moscow invaded that European country, most of whom were Jewish, just 3 in 10, according to mid-November data from Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority. . .
In November, Israel’s Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Rabbi David Lau, suggested to the Knesset that it amend the Law of Return to curb non-Jewish immigration.
Earlier this month, leaders of seven primary Jewish and Zionist organizations warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the proposed adjustments to the Law of Return could be just the unity of world Jewry.
“Any replacement in the delicate and delicate prestige quo over issues such as the Law of Return or conversion may threaten to sever ties between us and distance us from each other,” the leaders said in a letter to the prime minister.
Signatories Mark Wilf, chairman of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors; Doron Almog, president of the Jewish Agency; Yaakov Hagoel, president of the World Zionist Organization; Steven Lowy, Chairman of Keren Hayesod’s Global Board of Directors; Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA); and Julie Platt, president of JFNA.
They were referring to coalition agreements signed between Netanyahu’s Likud party and Zionist and ultra-Orthodox parties calling for a replacement of the “grandparents’ clause. “
Printed by: https://www. jewishpress. com/news/israel/aliyah-israel/2022-immigration-leads-to-decline-in-israels-jewish-majority/2023/01/16/