Mayor Ken Livingstone is in trouble again, this time for saying of two Londoners (the Reuben brothers), who have lived in London since the 1950s when they immigrated as teenagers, "if they're not happy, perhaps they could always go back to Iran and see if they do better under the Ayatollahs." The Reubens are not, in fact, Iranian, but Bagdadi (Iraqi) Jews born in Bombay, India. Livingstone has been sparring with the Reubens over some development issues. It's not clear why he thought they were Iranian, or whether he realized they were Jewish, but regardless, it's hardly becoming of London's mayor to tell immigrants to "go back where they came from."
Meanwhile, I ran across the following quote from Livingstone: "But I was amazed to discover for example only a couple of months ago that in Israel a Jew can’t marry an Arab. What a load of crap!" A load of crap indeed, for this isn't quite accurate. To avoid religious conflict, when the British controlled Palestine they left family law in the hands of each community's religious authorities. When Israel was established, they kept the British system, probably for the same reason. Thus, the issue isn't whether a Jew can marry an Arab, which implies racism, but whether a Jew can marry a Muslim. Since neither the Muslim nor the Jewish religious authorities allow such a marriage, such a marriage is not recognized by the state if performed in Israel. Indeed, an immigrant from the CIS who has a Jewish father but not a Jewish mother can't marry a Jew in Israel, because this individual is not Jewish under Jewish religious law. And as far as I know, a Druze Arab can't marry a Sunni Arab in Israel. On the other hand, an Arab Muslim who converts to Judaism can get married by a rabbi to a Jew in Israel, and an Israeli Jew who converts to Islam can get married by an Imam to an Arab in Israel. So, there is no "racial" aspect to the law.
Of course, I am against these laws, and there is a strong movement in Israel to permit civil marriage. In the meantime, couples who can't get religious approval to marry in Israel take a short plane ride to Cyprus and get married there; such marriages abroad are fully recognized by Israeli authorities.
In short, Israel should get rid of the religious monopoly on marriage in Israel, but Livingstone, known as a strong critic of Israel, should get his facts straight.
UPDATE: Some commentators below suggest that a Muslim man is permitted to marry a non-Muslim women under Islamic law, though Muslim women are not permitted to marry non-Muslim men. I'm not sure how, if at all, this affects the ability of Jewish women to get married to Muslim men in Israel.
I also don't understand how, in the same paragraph, you can claim (1) that there is "no racial aspect to the law" and (2) that emigrees to Isreal from CIS who are born to Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers cannot marry the apparently purer Jews born to Jewish mothers. In different contexts, "Jewish" could connote faith or race/ethnicity, but you make clear by your example, that Judaism in this context refers to one's birthright. Hence, there is definitely a racial aspect to the law.
As you correctly pointed out, Judaism is both religion and ethnicity. In simple terms the ethnicity is transfered maternally - if the mother is jewish - the kid is jewish (ethnically).
The problem with the CIS emigres, is even though they used the Right of Return to come to Israel, many of them were not "ethnically" jewish - their mother was not. Thus they were allowed to come, but the religious establishment still doubts their "jewishness". Hence the problems
So, no, I don't at all make clear by my example what you say, and you shouldn't make such bold statements if you don't know the background facts.
I believe Israel does not recognize people born to Jewish fathers but not to Jewish mothers as being oficially Jewish at all. Even if those people consider themselves Jewish and practice Judiasim as their religion. This is a controversial stance, but has its roots in the Talmud or the Torah, as I recall, where a 'Jew' was someone born to a Jewish mother, period.
So there is no issue of one Jew being purer than the next Jew, but instead of being a Jew in the first place. Nor is there any issue of being Jewish in the ethnic sense, as opposed to the religious sense.
From a marriage perspective, then, this is the same situation as a Muslim marrying a Jew, or a Jew marrying a Christian, or a Muslim marrying a Christian, etc.: the guy who does not have a Jewish mother is considered by the Rabbis to be non-Jewish and is trying to marry a Jew - another example of two people of different religions trying to get married under a system where the marriage laws are administered by religious authorities that don't want inter-religious marriage.
I was under the impression that you think Livingstone wrongly suggested in his statement that Israel has a racial requirement in its marriage laws but that you think the marriage law actually just ban interreligious marriage. I assume from this that you think a ban on interracial marriage would be more offensive than a ban on interreligious marriage. You did not give a reason, but I would interpret the distinction you seem to be making as based on thinking race is something we are born with and cannot change whereas religion is something we can change even if we shouldn't be expected to (please correct me if I'm wrong).
My point is that a law that prevents marriage between two people who both identify and practice the same religion solely on the basis of genetic lineage is more like discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity than religion. Thus, in my opinion it is fair to say that Israeli marriage law does have a "racial" aspect.
Can you please articulate at some point why you are of the opinion that "Israel should get rid of the religious monopoly on marriage in Israel"?
Should all countries have to be pluralistic to the point that they allow inter-religious marriages?
I believe Bernstein's point is simply that civil marriage does not exist in Israel. All weddings in Israel are carried out by religious authorities - Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or other. Thus it is not correct to say that Israel "bans interreligous marriage." In fact, as he points out, interreligious marriages are fully recognized, but the weddings must be performed elsewhere.
A marriage is a statement of commitment to the community, but it is also a contract whose terms are set by and changed by the state from time to time and whose terms most married people are only vaguely aware of. This should change. A marriage is a substantially bigger transaction than a house purchase and it should look and feel like a house closing, with a contract negotiated by the couple [although in practice most couples would choose one of several forms with small changes, as is the case with house purchase contracts] and with the implications of the contract being carefully explained to the participants by their lawyers.
"Have a lawyer at every marriage signing?", you say? Yes. While that exposes every couple to an expense of a few hundred dollars, the existence of a contract agreed to at the start would make breakups a lot less contested. Courts know how to enforce contracts reasonably well, and the fact of a contract would make a contest less likely, and in the case of a breakup by and large the people would do what they agreed to do. Better everyone spend $300 than that the half that gets divorced spend tens of thousands.
-dk
A Sunni Muslim could marry a Druze, if his social circle accepted that Druze were Muslim (many don't). The real hitch would come with the Druze, who try to keep a pure line. The Druze community would probably not respect that marriage.
But there are, of course, lots of people who don't follow the religious rules, necessarily. I attended a wedding in Bahrain in which the daughter of a Shi'a imam married the son of a Jewish merchant. Nobody got stoned for it. At most, there was a shrug of the shoulders and a "Couldn't s/he do any better?"
If anyone is like Goebbels it his him and not the people he rants against.
To me Livingston is more like Karl Luger (I hope I got his name right) the late 19C mayor of Vienna who is considered the first anti-Semite.
the name is Karl Lueger (1844 - 1910); and he was by no means the first anti-Semite, neither in Vienna nor in Europe at large, where a religiously motivated anti-semitic tradition exists since the 12th Century at least. What was new about Lueger was that he was no longer anti-Semitic on a purely religious base but also in a more modern racist way, influenced by Arthur de Gobineau and Edouard Drumont.
However, it should be noted that he proved to be an outstandingly good mayor of Vienna as far as municipal organisation and politics go and that his public racism was in large part a pose to obtain votes. He was anti-Semitic mostly because Semitism in Vienna was politically synonymous with the ascendancy of the Liberal Party, an undemocratic electoral law, political corruption and crony-capitalism.
Nonetheless it's true that Lueger was credited by Adolf Hitler as an inspiration for his own virulent hatred of anything Jewish. As for demagogy he definitely took a leaf out of Lueger's book, at least in his early years.
* The "British system" that David cites actually goes back to the Ottoman Turks who ruled the area for centuries before the end of World War I. It was the Ottoman way of accommodating minority religions.
* Hitler is not the authority on who is Jewish. That is the role of Jewish law. At least since Roman times, 2000 years ago, Jewish law has taken the position that the religious identity of the mother determines the religious identity of the child. (There is a book by Shayne Cohen, Who was a Jew, that addresses the origins of this?) A poster above tries to characterize this as ethnic identity. This is questionable. Molly Bloom in Ulysees, who has a Jewish mother, would be recognized as Jewish by any rabbi, and the same would be true of her children.
* Reform Jews no longer follow the matrilineal rule, but also recognize as Jewish anyone with a Jewish father. There is virtually no Reform movement in Israel. Jews there are either Orthodox or (much more likely) entirely secular. If a Reform rabbi in Israel performed a marriage involving someone who is Jewish by patrilineal descent, that marriage would not be recognized in Israel. On the other hand, suppose that marriage were performed in the United States. In that case, the marriage would be recognized in Israel. There was a brief attempt a few years ago in Israel to recognize only those American marriages that would be recognized if performed in Israel. Reform and conservative congregations in the United States went nuts, and the idea was quietly dropped.
A Congolese woman sought asylum in the U.S. after being imprisoned for a month and raped several times a day, including after her miscarriage.
The immigration judge who denied her application found that experience to be incredible ... in the words of the Fifth Circuit,In the year 2006, someone has to explain this? (Leaving aside that, IIRC, that was exactly the response that many Jews found?)
It appears that the only problem with interfaith marriages in Israel is finding someone to perform the ceremony. I believe that divorce law in Israel also involves the religious authorities and that you can't generally get a civil divorce. I'd like to see a cost/benefit analysis on that.
There's a lot about this kind of thing over at asktheimam.com, or whatever it's called. I think generally, marriage to a non-Muslim woman is okay because (a) it is unthinkable that she would be able to convert the man away from Mohammedism; and (b) a Muslim woman who marries a man probably would be tempted away from her faith (y'know, because she's so weak and womanly and whatnot).
I have known a number of British Jews with that last name, changed from Levinson or another variation.
So, is Livingstone of a Jewish background?
That would make it even stranger!
Children from such marriages, of course, are expected to be raised Muslim.