A couple of days ago, I read an interesting article in the March issue of “The New Yorker”, titled “But Who’s Counting”. The article, written by Ms. Jill Lepore, discusses the history of the phenomenon called “Census”. It is interesting to read how the need of countries, kings and dictators through all time, to count their underlings has developed. The article deals mostly with the way the U.S. Census Bureau developed the American census through the ages and the struggles that resulted from it. With the U.S. having to deal (in the early days) with dilemmas regarding the (then still) slave population and the Native Americans and their status, in 1850 the census started to ask questions regarding “Color”. The choices included at the time only “white”, “Black” and “Mulatto”. In 1860 the notion “Ind” was added for at least some of the native Americans. The latter is interesting because, being counted as “Ind” meant that you were an American who could exercise his rights as a citizen, but you were not “white”.
With the progress of technology, the Census was able to ask more and more details about American Citizens, and in 1910 it was suggested to ask questions about divisions among humans, based on four ideas: Race, People, Stock, and Nationality. One of the races on the list was “Hebrews”. This change in approach needed to be approved by Congress and the strongest objection came from the American Jewish Committee in New York. As part of the opposition, Senator Simon Guggenheim of Colorado wrote: “American Citizens are American Citizens and as such their racial and religious affiliations are nobody’s business”. Congress defeated the amendment.
While I do not know what the exact questions being asked today are, Senator Guggenheim, a Jew born in Philadelphia but who would under the amendment have been classified as a “Hebrew” and not as an American, did the American population and the Jewish community a big service.
A hundred years later, in the Jewish State, being classified as a Jew is not a trivial issue anymore, and people, in many instances, go to great length to have the Interior Ministry classify them as Jewish. The ministry from their side, makes every effort to ascertain that indeed you are Jewish, especially if you are an immigrant, and proof has to be presented that your mother is Jewish and that her mother was Jewish as well. And proof means in many instances documents from Jewish institutions that are no longer active and whose archives are not available. Recently the Israeli High Court of Justice approved that DNA testing may be demanded by the Rabbinate to prove Jewish identity.
Until a number of years ago, the Israeli Identity card, which every citizen has and is obliged to carry with him, had the designation “Nation”. And while the word nation may be interpreted in several ways, here it was intended to show only one thing, if you are Jewish, or something else. The designation was removed 15 years ago but not because it could be interpreted as discriminatory. The Interior Minister at the time refused to include the designation of “Jewish” on ID cards of Reform Jews (part of the famous “Jewish Wars”) and the only way he saw to prevent that from happening was to remove the designation completely. But even now, I, a non-Jew, who travels 3-4 times a year abroad (or at least I did until the Corona crisis), when I am asked at Ben Gurion Airport to present my ID card, immediately the type of questioning by the security officer changes and it is clear that from something on the ID card, he deducted that I am not Jewish.
The classification of being Jewish in Israel has the same purpose as the Census Bureau in the U.S. had in mind in 1910. There is a need or perceived need to determine the race of the citizen. At the time, in the U.S. there was worry that it would be used in a discriminatory fashion against the Jews. Today in Israel, it is used again to determine if a citizen is Jewish or not, and it is used in a discriminatory fashion, only this time the Jewish citizens are on the “good” side of this discrimination.
In Israel, if you are not Jewish, you cannot get married. There is no civil marriage in Israel and the only options you have are a Jewish or a Muslim wedding. If your mother was not Jewish, or not recognized as such by the Rabbinate, you are not Jewish either, nor will your children.
As a Jew you have immediate rights of citizenship, while as a non-Jew, such a right does not exist. I am a resident and a citizen of Israel only because I am married to an Israeli woman whose Jewishness is not (yet) in question, which is also the reason that my children are counted as Jews.
Last year Israel passed a law, the Nation” law, which states very clearly that when you are not Jewish, you may be allowed under some circumstances to live here, but this is not your “Home”. This controversial law, (which hopefully may still be struck down by the Israeli Supreme Court), designating the State of Israel as the home of the Jews only, is a particularly hard blow for the Arab population with roots as deep if not deeper than most Jews here, but who are apparently left without a “home”.
Of course the root of this whole problem is the fact that in Israel, when issues of religion overlap with issues of the state, religion prevails every time. The lack of separation between Religion and State, with as a result that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate decides who can receive citizenship and not the State, who can marry and who can divorce, makes Israel look more like a theocracy than a Democracy and the situation is deteriorating.
Thus, next year when Israel will have its own census, I, and all non-Jews in this country, will be counted, but they should have no illusions, they don’t count.
