Israel's Racial Purity Laws

This is a study file of articles published mostly by Jews about Jewish separatism whereby Jews seek to keep their own race pure. The irony is that their leaders seek all other races to intermix and such Jewish groups as the ADL and ACLU have expressed some of this irony from time to time.

"Jewish Majority Vital for Israel's Future"
The Australian Jewish News
May 9, 2006
http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=525

JERUSALEM - Safeguarding Israel’s Jewish majority must be a national priority, according to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. “We must ensure that the State of Israel has a definite Jewish majority, or otherwise the notion of a Jewish state will become void,” the Israeli prime minister said on Monday during a Knesset address in memory of Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl. Olmert, like his predecessor Ariel Sharon, has justified his plan to quit parts of the West Bank by invoking the demographic threat posed by growing number of Arabs.

"Changing Israel's Marriage Law"
The Jewish Week of Greater New York
April 4, 2006
http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editletcontent.php3?artid=4987

Non-Orthodox Jewish couples are forced to submit to an Orthodox marriage ceremony with an Orthodox rabbi and are compelled to attend classes on family purity. No Israeli may marry outside her faith community. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens from the former Soviet Union who are not Jewish or whose Jewish ancestry is in doubt are unable to marry at all inside Israel. And more women every year are chained to men they wish to divorce but who will not give them the get required by Jewish law.

Despite these problems, Israel’s Religious Zionist and haredi communities insist that holding on to the marriage reins is necessary for Jewish continuity. If Jews are allowed to marry outside Orthodox parameters, they say, a “split in the nation” will result.

There are two related worries: intermarriage and illegitimacy. Children of marriages forbidden by Jewish law, or halacha (for example, unions between a kohen and a divorcee, between close relatives, or between a man and a previously married woman who did not undergo a halachic divorce) are considered mamzerim. They and their offspring, stigmatized with an irrevocable brand of illegitimacy, may marry only other mamzerim. A split in the nation, the argument goes, will follow: mamzerut will increase dramatically and it will be difficult to keep track of mamzerim to ensure they do not wed non-mamzer Jews.

On Problems of Jewish Intermarriage & Loss of Jewish Identity
Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith
March 4, 2005
http://www.adl.org/ADL_Opinions/Israel/JewishWeek_030405.htm

Let's be honest. We are losing the battle of Jewish identity. Intermarriage is growing. There is a lot of ignorance. Two generations of Jews in America have passed without their being taught to be Jews. .... A stronger Israel working with American Jews on this challenge cannot only make each stronger, but will reinforce the deep ties that bind us one to the other.

Israel's Marriage Law
Znet Magazine
August 2, 2003
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=3989

Israel's Parliament has passed a law preventing Palestinians who marry Israelis from living in Israel. The move was denounced by human rights organisations as racist, undemocratic and discriminatory.

Under the new law, rushed through yesterday, Palestinians alone will be excluded from obtaining citizenship or residency. Anyone else who marries an Israeli will be entitled to Israeli citizenship. Now Israeli Arabs who marry Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza Strip will either have to move to the occupied territories, or live apart from their husband or wife. Their children will be affected too: from the age of 12 they will be denied citizenship or residency and forced to move out of Israel.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch sent a joint letter to the Knesset, Israel's parliament, urging members to reject the bill. "The draft law barring family reunification for Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens is profoundly discriminatory," Amnesty said in a statement. "A law permitting such blatant racial discrimination, on grounds of ethnicity or nationality, would clearly violate international human rights law and treaties which Israel has ratified and pledged to uphold." B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation, joined in the criticism of the law. Yael Stein, a spokesman, said: "This is a racist law that decides who can live here according to racist criteria."

Some Israelis believe they are sitting on a demographic time bomb, with an Israeli Arab community, already 20 per cent of the population, growing faster than the Jewish population. The discrimination is not only against Palestinians, according to human rights groups, but against Israel's own 1.2 million citizens of Palestinian origin as well. The overwhelming majority of Israelis who marry Palestinians are the so-called Israeli Arabs - Palestinians who live in Israel and have Israeli citizenship.

"This bill blatantly discriminates against Israelis of Palestinian origin and their Palestinian spouses," said Hanny Megally of Human Rights Watch. "It's scandalous that the Government has presented this bill, and it's shocking that the Knesset is rushing it through."

The government pushed the vote through at speed, even agreeing to consider it a vote of confidence to get it through. It was passed by 53 votes to 25, with one abstention. Gideon Ezra, a cabinet minister, said: "This law comes to address a security issue. Since September 2000 we have seen a significant connection, in terror attacks, between Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza and Israeli Arabs." Since 1993, more than 100,000 Palestinians have become Israeli citizens through marriage, Mr Ezra said. But B'Tselem pointed out that only 20 of those 100,000 have been involved in suicide bombings or other militant attacks.

See: Israel's Racist Marriage Law
Jeff Rense Information Archive
August, 7, 2003
http://www.rense.com/general39/isrnewlaw.htm

"The State of Israel practices racism and discrimination in its laws towards the Arab population since before imposing the racist marriage law which was passed by the Parliament on the 13 July 2003. The Israeli Parliament voted to block Palestinians who marry Israelis from becoming Israeli citizens or residents, erecting a new legal barrier as Israel finished the first section of a new physical barrier against Palestinians West Bank." http://www.rense.com/general39/isrnewlaw.htm

The Jewish Ezra Marriage Covenant with God: Never Marry Gentiles
Book of Ezra, Chapter 10, Holy Bible
EZRA 10, Bible Gateway

Ezra Announces the Sin of Inter-Marriage Must End...

¹ While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites-men, women and children-gathered around him. They too wept bitterly. ² Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, one of the descendants of Elam, said to Ezra, "We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel. ³ Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God. Let it be done according to the Law. ⁴ Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it."

⁵ So Ezra rose up and put the leading priests and Levites and all Israel under oath to do what had been suggested. And they took the oath. ⁶ Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the room of Jehohanan son of Eliashib. While he was there, he ate no food and drank no water, because he continued to mourn over the unfaithfulness of the exiles.
⁷ A proclamation was then issued throughout Judah and Jerusalem for all the exiles to assemble in Jerusalem. ⁸ Anyone who failed to appear within three days would forfeit all his property, in accordance with the decision of the officials and elders, and would himself be expelled from the assembly of the exiles.

Men of Judah and Benjamin Meet, Agree to Send Away their Foreign Gentile Wives and Only to Marry Jewish Women in the Future

⁹ Within the three days, all the men of Judah and Benjamin had gathered in Jerusalem. And on the twentieth day of the ninth month, all the people were sitting in the square before the house of God, greatly distressed by the occasion and because of the rain. ¹⁰ Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, "You have been unfaithful; you have married foreign women, adding to Israel's guilt. ¹¹ Now make confession to the LORD , the God of your fathers, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives."
¹² The whole assembly responded with a loud voice: "You are right! We must do as you say.

¹³ But there are many people here and it is the rainy season; so we cannot stand outside. Besides, this matter cannot be taken care of in a day or two, because we have sinned greatly in this thing. ¹⁴ Let our officials act for the whole assembly. Then let everyone in our towns who has married a foreign woman come at a set time, along with the elders and judges of each town, until the fierce anger of our God in this matter is turned away from us." ¹⁵ Only Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah, supported by Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite, opposed this.

¹⁶ So the exiles did as was proposed. Ezra the priest selected men who were family heads, one from each family division, and all of them designated by name. On the first day of the tenth month they sat down to investigate the cases, ¹⁷ and by the first day of the first month they finished dealing with all the men who had married foreign women.

Those Guilty of Intermarriage

¹⁸ Among the descendants of the priests, the following had married foreign women:

From the descendants of Jeshua son of Jozadak, and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib and Gedaliah. ¹⁹ (They all gave their hands in pledge to put away their wives, and for their guilt they each presented a ram from the flock as a guilt offering.)

²⁰ From the descendants of Immer:
Hanani and Zebadiah.
²¹ From the descendants of Harim:
Maaseiah, Elijah, Shemaiah, Jehiel and Uzziah.
²² From the descendants of Pashhur:
Elioenai, Maaseiah, Ishmael, Nethanel, Jozabad and Elasah.

²³ Among the Levites:

Jozabad, Shimei, Kelaiah (that is, Kelita), Pethahiah, Judah and Eliezer.
²⁴ From the singers:
Eliashib.
From the gatekeepers:
Shallum, Telem and Uri.

²⁵ And among the other Israelites:

From the descendants of Parosh:
Ramiah, Izziah, Malkijah, Mijamin, Eleazar, Malkijah and Benaiah.
²⁶ From the descendants of Elam:
Mattaniah, Zechariah, Jehiel, Abdi, Jeremoth and Elijah.
²⁷ From the descendants of Zattu:
Elioenai, Eliashib, Mattaniah, Jeremoth, Zabad and Aziza.
²⁸ From the descendants of Bebai:
Jehohanan, Hananiah, Zabbai and Athlai.
²⁹ From the descendants of Bani:
Meshullam, Malluch, Adaiah, Jashub, Sheal and Jeremoth.
³⁰ From the descendants of Pahath-Moab:
Adna, Kelal, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattaniah, Bezalel, Binnui and Manasseh.
³¹ From the descendants of Harim:
Eliezer, Ishijah, Malkijah, Shemaiah, Shimeon, ³² Benjamin, Malluch and Shemariah.
³³ From the descendants of Hashum:
Mattenai, Mattattah, Zabad, Eliphelet, Jeremai, Manasseh and Shimei.
³⁴ From the descendants of Bani:
Maadai, Amram, Uel, ³⁵ Benaiah, Bedeiah, Keluhi, ³⁶ Vaniah, Meremoth, Eliashib, ³⁷ Mattaniah, Mattenai and Jaasu.
³⁸ From the descendants of Binnui: ^[1]
Shimei, ³⁹ Shelemiah, Nathan, Adaiah, ⁴⁰ Macnadebai, Shashai, Sharai, ⁴¹ Azarel, Shelemiah, Shemariah, ⁴² Shallum, Amariah and Joseph.
⁴³ From the descendants of Nebo:
Jeiel, Mattithiah, Zabad, Zebina, Jaddai, Joel and Benaiah.

⁴⁴ All these had married foreign women, and some of them had children by these wives. ^[2]