What's been happening

Julie, who left these shores a month or two ago, has a blog up and running. She's a keen follower of sports, so if you want an enlightened discussion on a sporting event, she's the girl to ask and this is the blog to read.

I read in the JC (Jewish Chronicle- full article is subscription only) that Israel is thinking about limiting the right of aliyah. This is enshrined in the Israeli Law of Return and guarantees to anyone in the diaspora with a Jewish mother, or anyone who has converted (whether or not throught the auspices of the Orthodox synagogue), the right to claim citizenship of, and live in, Israel. The Sephardi movement (being Jews of mediterranean origin, as opposed to Ashkenazim who hark back to East Europe and Russia) proposes to stop the Law of Return applying to converts. The whole point of Israel was that it was where Jews could go. Jews have been victims of systematic opression and violence and, before Israel's creation, were not welcomed in any country in anything like the volume required. They were sometimes sent back to their port of origin, which in some cases was nothing more than handing them to executioners. For Israel to limit the Law of Return in any way at all seems to be stepping aside from the original concept of the state, and one of the founding principles of the country.

Let's hope the proposal gets shot down in flames. Not that I want to move to Israel right now, but it's a bit of a kick in the teeth for any Jew, and relevant to any convert and there have been far too many of these issues where a convert is somehow judged as not Jewish enough. I know of two cases (both in the papers, one a family friend) where the mother converted in Israel and has been decreed not Jewish enough for her children to attend JFS (a Jewish secondary school in London). A conversion is a conversion is a conversion. To start imposing a standard within it is to start to debase the conversion process. Personally I think converting is quite tough enough without having to worry if your chosen rabbi has the right accrediations. You shouldn't mess with absolutes like this.

I wonder if Isla Fisher (of Home and Away/ Wedding Crashers fame) feels similarly - I heard in the taxi back from the airport that she's converted to Judaism too. Having googled "Isla Fisher Judaism", I'm not clear when she converted, and I don't think it's common knowledge as to which branch of the faith she converted to. I've always thought she was beautiful (red-headed girls usually are) and now I think she's even more special.