MERCAZ USA Newsletter — Fall 2001

Masorti Movement Protests Rabbinate's New Demands

Rabbi Ehud Bandel, President of the Israeli Masorti Movement, has issued a formal protest to the new demand of the Chief Rabbinate requiring all new immigrants who made aliyah from any country since 1990 to prove they are Jewish before a special rabbinical court if they want to be married in Israel by the Rabbinate.

In order to certify the immigrant's claim of Jewishness, the new rabbinical courts are requiring prospective spouses to submit their original birth certificate, that of their mother and other maternal relatives, their parents' marriage certificates, family photographs and other documents.

"Unfortunately, the Rabbinate acts from the supposition that every immigrant from the former Soviet Union is a lying non-Jew, until he proves otherwise," said Bandel.

At the same time, the Masorti Movement has also challenged recent attempts by the religious authorities at the Kotel to extend the area requiring the separation between men and women to include the entire plaza area in front of the Western Wall. "If people want to separate voluntarily, then they can," said Rabbi Andrew Sacks, director of the Rabbinical Assembly-Israel Region. "But the Orthodox have no right to impose their rules on property that belongs to the entire Jewish world."

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