This post fills me with great sadness to write, and discloses some personal things I probably wouldn’t otherwise, but it needs to be said.
Throughout my life I have always given lip service in opposition to discrimination. It must be obliterated from our world yada yada.
It was not until I came here that I really understood what it meant.
I’ve seen racism, and sexism, and a barrage of other intolerant behaviours. But people having less than egalitarian thoughts about others on the basis of race, creed or colour is a whole different thing to government obstruction of a person of a particular characteristic living their life the way others are allowed to.
One of the things I wanted to pursue while here in the Holy City was converting to Judaism. A worthwhile use of my time, something I’ve been considering for 15 years, and something that is difficult to do in Australia by virtue of the fact that I rarely spend much time in Sydney, rarely live anywhere for the length of time conversion takes, and access to Synagogues and Rabbis is a little difficult the further away you get from the Eastern Suburbs.
That, and the only thing that had been holding up the final decision was my qualms with the behaviour of the State of Israel. If any conversion required me to in effect declare blind allegiance to Israel (and some do) then there was no way in hell I was doing that.
So, kill two birds with one stone, come see for myself wtf is really going here beyond the evening news and global ideological spin war, immerse myself in the culture I have adored for so long and get the official bit done.
I can’t. The Ministry of the Interior of the Israeli Government has issued a directive that only Israeli citizens may convert to Judaism in Israel. The fact that such a directive prevents growth of the very religion the state is supposed to be creating a safe space for is just the kicker.
So, rethink through the issue – how else can I get this done?
Well, I can get eligible for Aliyah. I can either make up some bs story about a grandparent being Jewish. Except that they weren’t. There appears to be a bunch of them back in Prussia in the family tree, but that’s 6+ generations ago.
Or I can marry someone Jewish.
Done! Getting married fixes a bunch of other issues too, let’s do that. Except that I can’t. Israel has no civil marriage, only religious, and mixed faith marriages are not allowed.
Most Israelis will tell you to just ignore the Government and find someone who will do it anyway. That’s the fairly standard Israeli answer to any Government or bureaucratic obstacle, and not something I’m particularly comfortable with. I wish my parents had brought me up worse or something so I could be more comfortable jumping in to ethically questionable behaviours.
But bypassing the system doesn’t erase the issue. I’m currently in a country that doesn’t permit me to marry whom I want or practice the religion that I want. I’d have to leave the country to do either one. And yes, they are both violations of the UN Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 16.1 and 18), not just discrimination.
To the best of my knowledge the only comparable discrimination by the state in Australia is against gay and lesbian people. That is also intolerable, and must be rectified. The difference being that in Australia there is some hope of it being rectified. Here, the insane focus of the Palestinian question seems to drown out domestic matters from ever being adequately addressed, and appears to draw international attention away from matters they should be pressuring Israel to fix.
So what do I do with this?
Part of me wants to jump in to it, catalogue these and similar restrictions on the rights of the people and the numerous other issues I’ve identified in my short time here (worker safety, a less than adequate criminal justice system, cutting red tape, addressing corruption and unethical business practices to name a few) and do what I do, working for the Israeli people to improve their lot. The people of this country are so wonderful – kind, welcoming, friendly, engaged and absolutely worth fighting for.
And the rest of me is so saddened by it, the unmistakable ‘you’re not welcome here, you’re not worthy’, that I think about leaving every single day.
I have not yet completed the task I came here to do, so I’m going to keep pondering that decision for a while.
End rant.
