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Comment by pavelrub | Hacker News Reader

> this is about Arab or Christian Israeli citizens

This is incorrect. There is no distinction in the law between Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis. The law applies equally to Israeli Jews who wish to marry a resident of the WB/Gaza, or one of the other countries mentioned in the law.

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The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.

Are you trying to say that there's something inherent to the Jewish population that they're less likely to marry a non-Jewish person than a Muslim is to marry a non-Muslim?

An arab israeli is very likely to marry an arab from Palestine. I'm guessing a number close to zero Israeli Jews are looking to marry an arab from Palestine (religion, hate, etc).

No. They're saying that a Jewish Israeli citizen is less likely to marry a Palestinian than a Muslim Israeli citizen. And given public statements from the lawmakers advocating for this law, they agree.

I am not sure, where you draw that conclusion from, but yes that would be correct.

Because the jewish religious law (which many jews have to follow to peer pressure, even if they are not religious by themself) explicitely forbids marrying non jews and no one can convert to the jewish religion.

Muslims on the other hand can marry non muslims, but are supposed to convert them. So this is indeed way more comon.

> no one can convert to the jewish religion

Citation needed / this is not correct. It isn't easy, but it is perfectly kosher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_to_Judaism

Ok, it seems I have been wrong about this as a general statement and liberal (or even most?) jew movements indeed consider it possible.

Last time I checked - it seems I read a viewpoint from a rather orthodox rabbi (but his article was the first one, that showed up in google at that time, now I cannot find it anymore), which clearly stated, this is not possible at all, with no exception.

The only way, would be to recognized as a "lost jew", meaning being of jewish origin, who lost connection to the tribe (even some generations ago). And the recognition would need years of devotion.

Maybe that is the case with some small, insular sects of Orthodox Jews? Some of the groups among those often referred to as the "Ultra Orthodox" - I don't know.

It is not aligned with the vast majority of Jewish views about conversion to Judaism.

In general, conversion is possible. As far as I can tell there are even clearly-enough defined requirements.

Jews are not supposed to treat converts any differently than non-converts. People being people, this doesn't always happen, but that is the reasonable principle.

Given that Jews for centuries have not proselytized to non-Jews, many believe you cannot convert to Judaism. You can.

I really cannot find that article anymore, but yes, it seems it must have come from an ultra ultra orthodox section and who knows why it ranked number 1 on google at that time (some years ago), fooling me. Because apparently yes, you absolutely can convert to judaism. It just isn't easy, like it is with other religions.

It would be interesting to see the ration between the Arab Israelis wishing to marry an Arab from WB/Gaza and Jewish Israelis wishing to marry a Jewish from WB/Gaza. Laws make sense in a context of a society.

There is a fundamental difference between a law that prohibits a specific ethnicity from doing X, and a law that prohibits everyone from doing X, but a specific ethnicity/minority is more affected by it than others. The former is pretty much never legitimate, while the latter is often unavoidable, and I imagine exists to some extent in any country with minorities.

This law very explicitly discriminates against non-Jewish Palestinians (and Lebanese and a few others). It also disproportionately affects Israeli Arabs and others who are much more likely than Israeli Jews to have spouses who would be discriminated against by this law.

> The law applies equally to Israeli Jews who wish to marry a resident of the WB/Gaza

There is no problem for Israeli Jew to marry a resident of WB/Gaza who is also Israeli Jew. This happens all the time (except Gaza, no Israeli Jews live there).

Concept of Israeli Jew marrying a non-Jew (no matter the residency) doesn't exist in Israeli law.

The state may (but not obliged to) recognize the marriage registered abroad.

For non-Muslim non-Israeli spouses of Israeli Jews there is a 5+ year naturalization procedure where outcome is not guaranteed and every half a year one has to recount all the spots and birthmarks of significant other in front of state official to prove the marriage is not a fake.

This specific law is for Muslim non-Israeli spouses. Instead of 5+ year procedure it's just a firm "No".

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