IN THE Supreme Court sitting as the High Court of Justice before the President, Justice Meir Shamgar, the Deputy-President, Justice Miriam Ben-Porat, and Justice Menahem Elon, in the matter between Shoshana (Susan) Miller, petitioner, versus the Minister of Interior and another, respondents (H.C. 230186).
THE PETITIONER converted to Judaism in the United States within the framework of the Jewish Reform Movement. She had taken a conversion course under the supervision of a rabbi in which she studied Jewish religious commandments, the philosophy and history of the Jewish People, and the Hebrew language, and she also underwent immersion in a ritual bath. At the conclusion of the whole process, she received a conversion certificate.
She came to Israel in October, 1985, and was given a certificate under the Law of Return of 1950 as an olah, i.e. a Jew who had come to settle in Israel. She then went to the Ministry of Interior to receive her identity card, introduced herself as Jewish, and presented her conversion certificate.
The official refused to register her as Jewish, and referred her to the Rabbinical Court to receive confirmation of her conversion. The petitioner averred that the official had also suggested that she be registered as a Christian, or that the registration of her religion remain blank. She was later informed that the respondents were prepared to register her, as to le'om (national group) and religion, as "Jewish (Converted)."
She was not prepared to accept this, and applied to the High Court of Justice for an order on the respondents to register her as Jewish without the addition relating to her conversion.
THE FIRST JUDGMENT of the court was given by JUSTICE Meir Shamgar. The respondents, he said, had relied on precedents of the Supreme Court under which the question whether or not a person had converted to another religion was to be decided by the tests laid down by that religion. Since the registration officer could not decide whether the petitioner's conversion was valid or not, it was only right, the respondents submitted, that that question should be decided by the most competent organ in the state, namely, the Rabbinical Court.
The respondents also argued that the particulars in the register and in an identity card were not only a matter of statistics, for they afforded information to every other authority in the state. The registering authority, therefore, was fully entitled, and even obliged, to warn, in particular, the Registrar of Marriages and Divorces, that the petitioner was a convert, in order to enable that official to make the necessary inquiries.
The president then analysed in detail the relevant provisions of the Population Registry Law of 1965. Section 2 prescribed which personal details of a resident were to be registered, including national group and religion. These details had been laid down by the legislature, and were not left to the discretion of the registering officer. Under section 25 of the law, an identity certificate was to contain the particulars of registration laid down by the minister of interior, with the approval of the Law, Constitution, and Justice Committee of the Knesset under section 27, nothing could be entered in the certificate otherwise than in accordance with a law, or with regulations of the minister similarly approved. Justice Shamgar then cited sections of the law dealing with altering particulars in the register, and pointed out that these sections referred to alterations relating to events after the original registration, and not before.
THE PRESIDENT went on to refer to decisions of the Supreme Court whereby a person to be registered as a Jew was one so recognized under section 4B of the Law of Return, namely, the child of a Jewish mother, or a person who was "a converted Jew and had no other religion."
He also cited sections 3A and 19B of the Registration Law, and held that a person claiming to be a Jew was to be registered as such unless some of the counter-indications specified in section 3A were found to exist. After examining other sections of the Law, Justice Shamgar held that, since the legislature had laid down clearly what particulars were to be registered, neither the minister of interior nor any registration officer had the power to make additions to the particulars specified in the Population Registry Law. Such additions could only be authorised by regulations made under the Law with the approval of the Knesset Law Committee.
In conclusion, the President cited an extract from a judgment of former Chief Justice Agranat, who said, in another context: "The great event of the establishment of the State of Israel, namely, the renewal of the statehood of the Jewish People in the land of its birth, did not occur in order to drive a wedge into the people who dwell in Zion, and divide it into two peoples, Jews and Israelis. Such a division -- should it, Heaven forbid, ever occur -- would contradict the national aspirations for which the state was established, and would mean the frustration of those aspirations, and the undermining of the unity of the Jewish People as a whole."
For the above reasons, the President proposed that the court order the respondents to register the petitioner simply as a Jew.
JUSTICE Menahem Elon agreed that the registering authority had no power to add the word "converted" to the word "Jew." He held that this addition also had no place under the Halacha (Jewish law).
He cited the following passage from a 1984 precedent of the Supreme Court dealing with an election petition:
"The Jewish People does not 'seek souls' to attract members of other peoples to its ranks (Micah,IV,5; Maimonides, Melachim,8,10); but once the son of another people has joined the Jewish People, he becomes a member of that people, both as to his rights and obligations.
'Ye shall have one statute, both for the stranger, and for him that is born in the land' (Numbers,IX,14); 'Neither let the alien, that hath joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying 'The Lord will surely separate me from His people... For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples' (Isaiah,LVI,3-7). And not only from now onwards, but also as regards the past; for this was the reply of Maimonides to Ovadia the convert: "Anyone who converts does so for ever, and he who joins his name to that of the Holy One, Blessed be He, is, as is written in the Tora, a pupil of Abraham our father, may peace be upon him, and they are all children of his household...and there is no distinction between them and us in any respect whatever. And do not treat your ancestry lightly; if we are related to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you are related to Him who created the world (Maimonides, Responsa, Edition Freimann, 369)."
THE TALMUD points out, Justice Elon resumed, that the Torah warns against afflicting the stranger in 36 passages -- referring to any form of causing him pain, whether in speech, action, or judicial records. There were two principal factors at play. The first was the historical memory of the Jewish People.
"Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exodus XXIII 9).
In his above reply to Ovadia, Maimonides wrote, "...You must realize that the majority of our fathers who went out of Egypt were idolators, intermingled with the gentiles, and learned their ways, until the Holy One, blessed be He, sent our teacher Moses -- may peace be upon him -- the father of all prophets, and separated us from other peoples, and brought us under the wings of the Divine Presence, ours and that of all strangers, and gave us all one law."
The other factor, Justice Elon continued, was our particular sympathy towards one who has left the social and spiritual surroundings in which he was born and grew up, was educated, and lived his life, and entered a different social and spiritual environment, assuming different obligations and a different way of life. As it is written, "Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger; for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exodus XXIII 9).
Justice Elon then cited further authorities in the Halacha, and concluded by saying that there was not doubt that by adding the word "convert" in brackets to the nationality and religion of the petitioner, we should be differentiating between her and everyone else. We have been warned, he said, not to act in this way.
THE DEPUTY-president agreed with her colleagues.
For the above reasons, the petition was allowed, and an order was made accordingly.
Advocate Arnold Spaer and Advocate Anat Green appeared for the petitioner, and Advocate Renato Yarak for the respondents.
Judgment given on December 2, 1986.