Prenosimo iz  Forward- The Jewish daily

Israeli Jews Who Aren't Jewish in Eyes of Rabbis Face Kafkaesque Conversion Plight

Immigrants Make Aliyah But Rejected by Rabbinate

By Nathan Jeffay.Published April 04, 2014, issue of April 11, 2014.

...For Israel, some 330,000 immigrants, mostly from the former Soviet Union, represent a big assimilation problem and a big political problem, made worse by the fact that the only solution is seen as a religious one. And the remedy lies exclusively in the hands of the country’s state-sponsored Orthodox rabbis, who, under Israeli civil law, have sole authority to determine the Jewish status of the state’s citizens.

..That promises to leave the large number of Russian immigrants in Israel who are not considered Jewish under Orthodox religious law in limbo. They came into Israel under an immigration law that permits anyone who can claim one Jewish grandparent to become a citizen. But this large population now faces the disabilities imposed by other laws that use Orthodox religious law to determine one’s status as a Jew. This includes marriage law in Israel, where there is no civil marriage, and only individuals recognized as Jewish under traditional religious law may marry other Jews. Non-Jews wishing to marry Jews are forced to go abroad to wed, and then apply to have their foreign marriages registered and recognized in Israel. Except for converts, Orthodox religious law considers a Jew to be only someone with a Jewish mother....