Israel’s statistics bureau poised to expand its definition of ‘Jewish’

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Nearly half a million Israelis come under the bizarre population category of “others,” used by the Central Bureau of Statistics to refer to those who are classified as neither “Jews” nor “Arabs.”

These “others” qualify for citizenship under Israel’s Law of Return, but are not defined as Jewish by halakha, or religious law. In other words, they were not born to a Jewish mother, but they do have at least one Jewish grandparent.

The vast majority are Russian-speaking immigrants who came to Israel during the huge aliyah wave of the 1990s and, increasingly in recent years, their offsprings.

Because they are not halakhically Jewish, members of this population category cannot marry legally in Israel or be buried in Jewish cemeteries in the country. Being called “others,” they say, adds insult to injury.

But that is about to change.

An advisory committee has recommended that the bureau amend its definition and create the new category of “enlarged Jewish population” that would include all Israelis who qualify for citizenship under the Law of Return, whether or not they are halakhically Jewish. (Under the religious classifications used by the bureau, those who are not halakhically Jewish, however, would continue to be categorized as “not classified by religion” – separately from Jews.)

The recommendation to eliminate the “others” category was submitted two weeks ago to the executive board of the agency by a committee headed by Eliahu Ben Moshe, a demographer and statistician from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A spokesman for the bureau said the issue was “under examination,” but members of the committee predicted that the recommendation would be adopted.

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Ben Moshe said that the top decision-makers at the agency were well aware that designation of a population group as “others” was “demeaning and problematic.”

A driving force behind the initiative was Intelligence Minister Elazar Stern, a member of the centrist Yesh Atid party. Stern had been a leading candidate for the position of chairman of the Jewish Agency but was pressured to withdraw from the race several months ago, after he suggested in a radio interview that he routinely shredded sexual harassment complaints while serving in his previous role as head of the army’s manpower division.

Several months ago, he sent a letter to the advisory committee saying it was distasteful to refer to a group of citizens as “others” and requested that the term be changed. “We had already reached that conclusion ourselves, so he was pretty much bursting into an open door,” recounted Ben Moshe.

Children play at a mixed school of Arabs, Jews, Ethiopian Christians and Russian immigrants, in Jaffa, June 2021.Hadas Parush

Until 1995, the statistics bureau did not keep a separate category of “others” but included under “Jews” all citizens who were part of Jewish society. Indeed, the category of “Arabs” includes all citizens who are part of Arab society: Muslims, Christian Arabs and Druze.

“In the United States, it is accepted that children of mixed marriages get included in the tally of the Jewish population,” said Ben Moshe. “So, we are more or less using that as our model.”

Sergio DellaPergola, Israel’s leading demographer and a professor emeritus from the Hebrew University, described the proposed change as “more cosmetic than anything else.”

“If you ask these nearly half a million citizens if they are Jewish, a good half would say ‘yes,’ while the others would probably say, ‘I’d like to be, but I’m not allowed in.'”

Israel’s Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana is drafting legislation that would make it easier for these citizens, who are not halakhically Jewish, to undergo Orthodox conversions.