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Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Director of Research and Special Projects Liz Berney, Esq. released the following statement:
Israel’s Law of Return was intended to allow Jews an automatic right to become citizens of the Jewish state. But the 1970 amendment to Israel’s “Law of Return,” gave non-Jews with only just one Jewish grandparent - who is not defined as a Jew by any major Jewish movement - the automatic right to immigrate and become Israeli citizens, and it needs to be eliminated or modified. Among other problems, the “grandparent clause” is causing the Jewish State of Israel to be de-Judaized, and actually causing antisemitism and bringing Jew-haters into the Jewish state.
De-Judaizing the Jewish state: Largely due to the grandparent clause, approximately 500,000 non-Jews have settled in the Jewish state from FSU (former Soviet Union) countries, many of whom have no interest in anything Jewish. Reports based on government data indicate that, largely as a result of the grandparent clause, over 50% of all immigrants to the Jewish state last year were non-Jews, and 72% of immigrants from FSU countries into the Jewish state today are non-Jews. See here (citing Knesset Research and Information Center report) and here. This is causing a significant drop in the percentage of Jews living in Israel, endangering Israel’s continuity as the Jewish state.
The Israeli Immigration Policy Center’s analysis of data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) revealed that, primarily as a result of non-Jews entering Israel under the Law of Return’s grandparent clause, the Jewish state’s Jewish majority has been shrinking at a rate of 1% every 3 years.
Over the past 30 years, the Jewish state’s Jewish majority shrunk by 10%; and now stands at only 73.6%, reduced from 84%. (See “2022 Immigration Leads to Decline in Israel’s Jewish Majority,” JNS, Jan. 16, 2023.)
Thus, if the grandparent clause remains in effect and the level of non-Jewish immigration under that clause continues at the same level it has for the past 30 years, Israel will eventually no longer be the Jewish state with a Jewish majority.
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