Word: halakha
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Though Israel has been governed by a delicate alliance of secular and Orthodox Jews since its birth as a nation, Jewish religious law-Halakha-enjoys a remarkable prominence in the everyday life of the country. Last week the Israeli Supreme Court handed down a close decision that threatens the status of Halakha and could create a rupture in the ruling coalition. At issue: whether the state may decide...
...been trying for years to register his children (a son, now six, and a daughter, three) as Jews by nationality, if not by religion. The Israeli Interior Ministry, charged with registering births, refused to so do, arguing that Shalit's children do not meet the test of Halakha, which stipulates that a Jew, to be formally considered such, must have either been born of a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism. Shalit's wife Anne, a Scottish gentile, has not converted, nor have the children. The Shalits are both atheists...
...Carmelite friar who sought admission to Israel under the Law of Return, which grants automatic citizenship to any Jew who wants to live in the country. A convert to Roman Catholicism, Father Daniel was born of a Jewish mother. In his case, the court ruled that Halakha did not apply and that on the basis of secular law and the common-sense opinions of men he would no longer be regarded...
...When the Cabinet of former Premier David Ben-Gurion attempted to accept Jews simply by their own affirmation in 1958, the resulting controversy nearly destroyed his government. Already one of the leaders of Israel's National Religious Party has warned that any decision in the case that violates Halakha will bring about the party's resignation from the Cabinet. "Shalit's theory would create an iron gate between Jews inside Israel and those outside," argues Israel Ben-Meir, the Deputy Interior Minister. "It is based on the geographic factor-that being in Israel would determine...
...Interior Minister, Shalit served as his own advocate. "Here I am, a little fellow, fighting against the heaviest odds," said Shalit before the case. "But if I win, a Jew will be a Jew by virtue of his own identification with the Jewish people, and not by virtue of Halakha alone...