Israel: Actress Must Choose Between Career And Jewish Conversion, Chief Rabbinate Says

---

Admitted to Israel under the country’s “Law of Return,” which grants citizenship to anyone with a Jewish grandparent, the immigrants are not considered Jewish by the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: The Huffington Post / Religion News Service
By Michele Chabin | March 21, 2014

The Chief Rabbinate, which has sole authority to determine who is and isn’t Jewish in Israel, is refusing to allow an actress to convert to Judaism unless she gives up her acting career.

Alin Levy, a 24-year-old Israeli who immigrated to Israel from Ukraine with her Jewish father and Christian mother, told Israel Channel 2 news that she recently halted the learning process leading up to her Orthodox conversion after the rabbinate told her that “acting as a career does not go together with the spirit of religion.”

Levy’s dilemma has struck a chord in Israel, where some 300,000 non-Jewish immigrants, most from the former Soviet Union, live in a kind of religious limbo. Admitted to Israel under the country’s “Law of Return,” which grants citizenship to anyone with a Jewish grandparent, the immigrants are not considered Jewish by the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate.

While many would like to convert, they say they cannot abide by the rabbinate’s insistence that they maintain a strictly Orthodox lifestyle both before and after the conversion. They note that most Israeli Jews-from-birth aren’t Orthodox.


Read original post here: Actress Must Choose Between Career And Jewish Conversion, Chief Rabbinate Says


This content-post is archived for backup and to keep archived records of any news Islam Ahmadiyya. The views expressed by the author and source of this news archive do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of Ahmadiyya Times.