IN 2010, the Rabbinate and its Rabbinic Courts issued the Jewish Roots investigation Regulations.
Under section 2 of the Regulations, state rabbinic courts claim authority to investigate Israeli citizens as to their Jewish roots when they file a request for a license to marry. Marriage registrars are given discretion to bypass the need for a Jewish Roots examination if a citizen’s parents married in Israel.
Under section 6, state rabbinic courts claim broad authority to reevaluate a person’s Jewish roots even when it may appear superfluous.
Under section 15, state rabbinic courts claim power to examine the Jewish roots of a citizen at the time of divorce.
In a case decided in 2018, the High Rabbinic Court stresses that the Jewish Roots Regulations were drafted specifically to enable marriage registrars and rabbinic courts to ferret out immigrants from the former Soviet Union who had “defrauded” the state by “lying” about their Jewish status and “defiling” the People of Israel:
- The court … must aim to steadfastly investigate the truth… The possibility of non-Jews intermingling with the Jewish People defiles the holiness of Israel… (emphasis mine—s.w.). [1]
The Center for Women’s Justice is of the opinion that the the state should not be involved in Jewish Roots Investigations which are best left to the determinations of private religious groups and communities. Should the state nonetheless access such power, as it does under the Regulations, the burden of proof should be on the state to deny a citizen’s attestation that he or she is Jewish. .