6714 —"מיהו יהודי": רק הנולד לאם יהודיה או המתגייר כהלכה, ואין תוקף להצהרה ברישום

B"H, 8 Adar I, 5719
Brooklyn.

To Mr. David Ben-Gurion, may he live long^[1],
Prime Minister

Shalom u'Vrachah!

In reply to your letter^[2] asking for my opinion on the registration of children of mixed marriages, where the father is Jewish and the mother is not Jewish and did not convert before the child's birth. The intent – according to the wording of the decision in that letter – is to define directives that will accord with the tradition accepted in all circles of Jewry, the observant and the free-thinking of all trends, and with the special conditions of Israel as a sovereign state in which freedom of conscience and religion is guaranteed, and as a center for the ingathering of the exiles^[3]:

My opinion is absolutely clear, in accordance with the Torah and the tradition accepted for generations, that in such matters a verbal declaration of the wish to be registered as a Jew has no validity whatsoever, and such a declaration has no power to change reality^[4].

According to the Torah and the tradition of all the generations, which is extant and alive to this day, a Jew – or, in different words but with the same content, one who belongs to the people of the Children of Israel – is he and only he who was born of a Jewish mother^[5], or a convert who was converted through an exact procedure of conversion, the details of which are set out in the books of halachic rulings of our people, the House of Israel, from generation to generation down to the Shulchan Aruch^[6].

The above holds with full force not only with regard to children whose parents, or someone else, declare their wish to register them as Jews, but also with regard to anyone who comes to declare about himself that he wishes to change his status and condition so as to enter the community of Israel^[7]: such a declaration is of no effect whatsoever unless he actually carries out, or has already carried out, the procedure of conversion in keeping with the tradition, as set out in detail in the Shulchan Aruch, as stated above.

With respect and with blessing.

I am not citing the sources, etc., because on the matter of conversion there are settled laws, clear and detailed, in the Rambam, the Tur, the Shulchan Aruch, and elsewhere^[8].

Note:

Everything that follows is brought only as an addition in the margin of the letter – deliberately, so as to stress that even if the points below are not accepted, in part or even in their entirety, this does not in any way lessen the decisiveness of my opinion stated above. The remarks below come only as a response to the explanation, the description of the situation, etc., set out in your letter.

a. The question of registration, by whatever term it is decided, is not a matter confined to Eretz Yisrael alone. For it is self-evident, as is also explained in your letter^[9], that no one is able to set up a partition between the Jews of Eretz Yisrael and the Jews outside the Land. On the contrary, all our brethren, the Children of Israel, wherever they are, constitute one people, from the day they became a people, despite their dispersion to all the ends of the earth. It follows that the solution of the question must be such as is fit to be accepted by all the Children of Israel wherever they are, one capable of drawing them together into one and tightening the bonds between them – and all the more so, one that will not serve as a cause, even a remote cause, of estrangement or division. Therefore, even if you will say that in Eretz Yisrael there are conditions that require special consideration of this question^[10], these conditions do not confine the problem to the domain of Eretz Yisrael; rather, as stated, it is a matter shared by the whole people of the Children of Israel, wherever they are.

b. Belonging to the people of Israel has never been accepted in our nation as a formal, external matter.

From earliest times to this day its meaning and scope have been the very being of the whole Jewish person, and an inner, deep experience bound up with the fibers of his soul and heart. From this point of view, any move that eases and detracts from what is customary and accepted in this area detracts from, and belittles, the feeling of belonging to the people of Israel, and it cannot fail to cause destruction in the serious and deep attitude to the inner bond between the Jew and his people.

c. Easing the passage into, and the joining of, the people of Israel^[11] – particularly in the special situation of Eretz Yisrael, surrounded by countries and peoples that are not friendly to it, and a large part of them far worse than that – is liable to endanger to a significant degree the security interests of Eretz Yisrael.

d. What follows from the above points is that even if an attempt is made to evade the correct solution of the problem by a compromise, such as replacing the word "Jew" with an entirely secular term^[12], this is no way out, for the harm will remain as it was, both as regards tightening the bonds between all our brethren, the Children of Israel, wherever they are, and from the point of view of strength and security, as stated above.

e. It is understood, and even obvious, that no objection can be raised from the fact that there were cases in which a convert who was converted according to law and custom was nevertheless a harmful factor for the people of Israel; and conversely, it is possible that one who merely declares his belonging to the people of Israel will be a most beneficial factor for the people of Israel – just as there is no contradiction to the requirement of the procedure of conversion from the fact that there are righteous among the nations of the world, though, as their name says, they are of the nations of the world^[13].

f. In explaining the terms of the question, the matter of discrimination^[14] is also mentioned. But discrimination pertains to granting or withholding rights or punishments, not to registering an existing reality.

I will conclude with the hope and expectation that Eretz Yisrael in all its details, in the present and in the future, will be a matter that brings near and unites the Children of Israel in all the ends of the earth, the observant and the free-thinking of all trends, by its increasingly conforming in all its affairs to its name – the name by which it is called in the mouth of all the peoples of the world: the Holy Land^[15].

Publisher's notes

This letter and the one after it (אגרת זו ושלאחריה): This letter and the following one were printed in Likkutei Sichos, vol. 11, p. 267 ff.

Regarding registration (בנוגע לרישום): See also above, letter 6624; below, 6733, 6765, 6806.

Notes

1. Mr. David Ben-Gurion (מר ד. בן גוריון שי'): David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel. The background: in March 1958 the Minister of the Interior, Israel Bar-Yehuda, decided that parents could declare their children Jewish even where the mother was not Jewish; the decision caused an uproar and a coalition crisis, and the religious party's members quit the cabinet (the Ministries of Religions and of Posts). On 15 July 1958 the government resolved to set up a committee – the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of the Interior – to examine the registration of children of mixed marriages and to consult "Jewish sages in Israel and abroad"; Ben-Gurion's letter on the question (dated 27 October 1958) went out to some fifty of them, the Rebbe among them. Until the replies came in, the registration regulations were suspended. This letter is the Rebbe's formal reply; the next day he wrote Ben-Gurion a personal letter (letter 6715). Earlier he had written to the London Beth Din that the question must be answered, not left unanswered (letter 6624); later he restated his position in letters to Prof. Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Katz, against the proposal to register such children as "non-identifying Jews" (6733, 6806), and to Eliezer Livneh (6765). According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (4 August 1959), ninety percent of those polled ruled that registration must follow halachah, the entire five-man London Beth Din among them; in 1964 the replies, the Rebbe's included, were published in the book Jewish Identity, edited by Baruch Litvin (JTA, 29 May 1964). Later the Interior Ministry's directives provided that a Jew is to be registered as "one born of a Jewish mother who is not a member of another religion, or one who converted according to halachah".

2. Your letter (מכתב כ'): כ' = כבודו, "his honor", i.e. the Prime Minister; so too below.

3. The wording of the decision (לפי נוסח ההחלטה): The government's decision of 15 July 1958, quoted at the head of Ben-Gurion's letter: the committee was to "consult with Jewish sages in Israel and abroad" and formulate registration guidelines "that accord with the tradition accepted by all circles of Judaism, the Orthodox and liberals of all trends, and with the special circumstances of Israel as a sovereign Jewish nation ensuring freedom of conscience and religion and as the center for the ingathering of the exiles" (English translation of the letter, Posen Library). The Rebbe reproduces the decision's wording almost word for word.

4. Has no power to change reality (ואין בכח הצהרה זו לשנות את המציאות): Ben-Gurion's question was: "Should the child be registered as a Jew on the basis of the parents' wishes and their good faith declaration that he or she is not a member of another religion, or in addition to the wishes and declaration of the parents, should a ceremony be required for the child to be registered as a Jew?" The Rebbe answers that the declaration does not change reality: the question is not what is written in the register but who is in fact a Jew.

5. Born of a Jewish mother (שנולד מאם יהודי'): After Kiddushin 68b: ולדה כמותה מנלן א"ר יוחנן משום ר"ש בן יוחי דאמר קרא כי יסיר את בנך מאחרי, בנך הבא מישראלית קרוי בנך ואין בנך הבא מן העובדת כוכבים קרוי בנך אלא בנה, "From where do we know that her child is like her? Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai: the verse says (Devarim 7:4), 'For he will turn away your son from following Me' – your son from a Jewish woman is called your son, but your son from a gentile woman is not called your son but her son." So rules the Rambam (Laws of Forbidden Relations 15:4): זה הכלל, בן הבא מן העבד או מן העכו"ם או מן השפחה או מן בת עכו"ם הרי הוא כאמו ואין משגיחין על האב, "This is the rule: a child born of a slave, a gentile, a maidservant or a gentile woman is like his mother, and no regard is paid to the father."

6. Down to the Shulchan Aruch (ועד להשולחן ערוך): After Yevamos 47a: תנו רבנן גר שבא להתגייר בזמן הזה אומרים לו מה ראית שבאת להתגייר... ומודיעין אותו מקצת מצות קלות ומקצת מצות חמורות, "Our Rabbis taught: a prospective convert who comes to convert at this time, we say to him: what did you see that you came to convert?... and we inform him of some of the lenient mitzvos and some of the stringent mitzvos." The Rambam rules (Laws of Forbidden Relations 13:4–5): וכן לדורות כשירצה העכו"ם להכנס לברית ולהסתופף תחת כנפי השכינה ויקבל עליו עול תורה צריך מילה וטבילה והרצאת קרבן... ובזמן הזה שאין שם קרבן צריך מילה וטבילה, "So too for all generations: when a gentile wishes to enter the covenant, to shelter under the wings of the Divine Presence, and accept upon himself the yoke of Torah, he requires circumcision, immersion and the offering of a sacrifice... and at this time, when there is no sacrifice, he requires circumcision and immersion."

7. Anyone who comes to declare about himself (כל מי שיבוא להצהיר על עצמו): Not only the question of children, which he was asked, but also the government's decision regarding adults – "The Government has determined that the religion or nationality of adults will be listed as 'Jewish' if they declare themselves in good faith to be Jewish and not a member of another religion" (as cited in Ben-Gurion's letter): such a declaration is of no effect whatsoever.

8. The Rambam, the Tur, the Shulchan Aruch (ברמב"ם, טור, שולחן ערוך): Rambam, Laws of Forbidden Relations, chs. 13–14; Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 268 (Laws of Converts). Shulchan Aruch there, 268:3: כל ענייני הגר בין להודיעו המצות לקבלם בין המילה בין הטבילה צריך שיהיו בג' הכשרים לדון וביום... חוץ מקבלת המצות שמעכבת אם אינה ביום ובשלשה, "All the matters of the convert – informing him of the mitzvos and his accepting them, the circumcision and the immersion – must take place before three who are fit to judge, and by day... except for the acceptance of the mitzvos, which invalidates [the conversion] if it is not by day and before three." Conversion is effected through a beis din, acceptance of the mitzvos, circumcision and immersion – not through a declaration.

9. As is also explained in your letter (וכמבואר גם במכתב כ'): In the fourth point of his letter Ben-Gurion wrote that "the Israeli nation does not see itself as separate from Diaspora Jewry; on the contrary, no Jewish community in the world exhibits such a profound feeling of unity and identity with Jews the world over as the Jewish community in Israel." See also letter 6624: the very approach to the Jews abroad refutes the claim that they have no say in the affairs of the Land.

10. Even if you will say (אפילו אם תמצא לומר): I.e., granting that. This answers the "special circumstances" Ben-Gurion set out in his letter: the freedom of conscience and religion guaranteed in the State, its being the center of the ingathering of the exiles, and that the Jews of Israel are not a minority under the pressure of a foreign culture.

11. Easing the passage into the people of Israel (הקלת המעבר והצירוף לעם ישראל): Against what Ben-Gurion wrote in the third point of his letter: in Israel there is no fear that the Jews will assimilate among the gentiles; "on the contrary, here there exists the possibility and trend for a certain assimilation of non-Jews into the Jewish people, particularly in families in which the children of mixed marriages have immigrated to Israel." The Rebbe answers that precisely this easing endangers the security of the Land. So too below (letter 6806): ועלי' המונית כזו דורשת לא חלישת המחיצות המבדילות בין ישראל לעמים, אלא אדרבה חיזוק וחיסון... לרבות השטח הבטחוני כפשוטו, "such a mass immigration requires not the weakening of the partitions that separate Israel from the nations, but on the contrary their strengthening and fortifying... including the domain of security in its plain sense."

12. An entirely secular term (בתואר חילוני בהחלט): I.e., registering such children under some other term instead of "Jew". Later (letter 6733), against the proposal to register them as "non-identifying Jews", the Rebbe wrote: יתר על כן, אפילו אם תמורת התואר "יהודי" ישתמשו בתואר חילוני מקביל, גם כן יש סכנה זו מטעם האמור, שכשהענין נעשה רכושו של רבים מפקיעים הבעלות עליו, "Moreover, even if a parallel secular term is used instead of the term 'Jew', the same danger exists for the reason stated: when a thing becomes the property of the many, its ownership is forfeited."

13. The righteous among the nations of the world (חסידי אומות העולם, אף שכשמם כן הם): After the Rambam (Laws of Kings 8:11): כל המקבל שבע מצות ונזהר לעשותן הרי זה מחסידי אומות העולם ויש לו חלק לעולם הבא, "Whoever accepts the seven mitzvos and is careful to observe them is of the righteous of the nations of the world and has a share in the World to Come." כשמם כן הם, "as their name, so are they", echoes Shmuel I 25:25, "for as his name is, so is he." Their very name says they are of the nations: who is a Jew does not depend on a person's merit or on the benefit he brings to the Jewish people.

14. Discrimination (הפלי'): הפלי' = הפליה, "discrimination". Ben-Gurion wrote: "The laws of Israel forbid any form of discrimination between individuals on the basis of differences of race, color, nationality, religion, or sex." So too the Rebbe later (letter 6806): מעולם לא הבנתי מה ענין אחד לשני, שהרי כמה נוצרים ומושלמים וכו' דרים בארץ ישראל שעל פי התחוקה גם להם ניתנה זכות דשלילת הפלי', ואף על פי כן לא יעלה על הדעת לרשום אותם כיהודים, "I have never understood what the one has to do with the other: many Christians and Muslims, etc., live in Eretz Yisrael, and under the law they too have been given the right of non-discrimination, yet it would not enter anyone's mind to register them as Jews."

15. The Holy Land (ארץ הקודש): After Zechariah 2:16: "And G‑d shall inherit Yehudah as His portion upon the holy land." In his personal letter of the next day (letter 6715) the Rebbe adds that Ben-Gurion himself had written "the Holy Land" on the booklet he sent him, and that the term "holy", like the term "Jew", had its content defined by the generations of the Jewish people since the Giving of the Torah.

Summary

In his formal reply to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion's query on registering children of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, the Rebbe states that a Jew is only one born of a Jewish mother or converted according to halachah, and that a declaration has no power to change this, for children or adults. In added remarks he shows that the question concerns all Jewry, that easing entry weakens Jewish identity and endangers Israel's security, that a secular substitute term solves nothing, and that registration has nothing to do with discrimination.