The Law of Return () is an Israeli law, initially passed in 1950 and extended in 1970, giving all Jews, persons with at least one Jewish grandparent, and their spouses, legal rights to enter, reside in, and acquire citizenship of, the State of Israel. The 1950 law declared that "every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh [immigrant]". The legislature of Israel sought by the law to give effect to a key objective of the Zionist movement in the wake of the Holocaust: to establish Israel as a Jewish state in which all Jews could live. In 1970, the rights of entry, settlement and citizenship were extended: to any person with at least one Jewish grandparent, and to the spouse of any such person, whether or not such persons were considered Jewish under strict (Orthodox) interpretations of Jewish religious law. However, a person who has previously been a Jew but has voluntarily changed their religion is ineligible (this ineligibility rule applies regardless of religious teachings as to whether or not the person remains Jewish in such circumstances).
On the day of arrival in Israel, or occasionally at a later date, persons entering under the law receive a certificate confirming their oleh status. The entrant then has three months to decide whether they wish to become a citizen; they can renounce or pledge to renounce their other citizenship(s) during this time.
Since 2005, the rights under the law have been restricted such that residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are no longer eligible (a consequence of the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law). The right to an oleh certificate may also be denied if the person has engaged in anti-Jewish activity, poses a threat to public health or security, or has a criminal record and is likely to endanger public welfare in Israel.
History
The Law of Return was passed unanimously by the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, on 5 July 1950. This date had been chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the death of early political Zionism leader Theodor Herzl. It declared:
Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, asserted in the Knesset that the law did not bestow a right but rather affirmed an 'inherent right' Jews possessed by virtue of being Jewish:
Follow-up legislation on immigration matters was contained in the Nationality Law of 1952.
Originally, the rights under the Law of Return applied only to Jews.Navot, Suzi, Constitutional law of Israel, p.188 However, due to an inability on the lawmakers to agree on a definition of "who is a Jew", the Law did not define the term, relying instead on the issue to resolve itself over time. As a result, the Law relied in effect on the traditional halakhic definition. But, the absence of a definition of who is a Jew, for the purpose of the Law, resulted in divergent views of the various streams of Judaism competing for recognition.
Those who immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return are immediately entitled to citizenship in Israel. However, differences of opinion have arisen as to whether a person who has claimed citizenship under the Law of Return should then be automatically registered as "Jewish" for census purposes. According to the halakhic definition, a person is Jewish if their mother is Jewish, or if they convert to Judaism. Orthodox Jews do not recognize conversions performed under the rules of Reform or Conservative Judaism. However, the law provides that any Jew, regardless of affiliation, may migrate to Israel and claim citizenship.
Jewish ancestry amendment The Law of Return was amended in 1970 to extended the right of return to certain people who might not, until then, have been considered eligible.Rosner, Shmuel & Ruskay, John (2016), Exploring the Jewish spectrum in a time of fluid identity: JPPI special report on the 2016 Structured Jewish World Dialogue (Heb. המנעד היהודי בעידן של זהות גמישה: עמדות יהודי העולם), Jerusalem, p. 82 (note 207) (Hebrew)Yedidia Z. Stern & Netanel Fisher (2018), Conversion in Israel: Vision, Achievements, and Challenges, The Israeli Institute for Democracy: Jerusalem, p. 135 (Hebrew). Amendment number 2, 4a, stated:
The law since 1970 applies to the following groups: Those who had been born Jews according to the Orthodox interpretation: namely, those who have a Jewish mother or maternal grandmother. Those with recent Jewish ancestry: namely, those who have a Jewish father, grandfather or paternal grandmother. Those who have converted to Judaism (Orthodox, Reform, or Conservative denominations—not secular—though Reform and Conservative conversions must take place outside the state, similar to civil marriages).
Jews who have converted to another religion are not eligible to immigrate under the Law of Return, even though they are still Jews according to halakha.
The 1970 amendment was induced by the debate on "who is a Jew?"—until 1970, the law did not refer to the question. There are several explanations as to why the definition under the law became so inclusive. One is that given the persecutory Nuremberg Laws had not used a halakhic definition (their definition was broader), the Law of Return definition ought not be overly restrictive simply to conform to traditional halakhic definitions either. Another explanation is that the State of Israel wished to facilitate further immigration related to a wave of immigrants from Poland, following an antisemitic campaign begun by the government there from 1967, including the immigration of many family members of olim who were not, under strict halakhic definitions, Jewish.
A second explanation is that, in order to generally increase immigration levels so as to offset the perceived "demographic threat" posed by growth of the extant Arab population in Israel, the law expanded the base group of those eligible to immigrate to Israel.Ian Lustick, "Israel as a Non-Arab State: The Political Implications of Mass Immigration of Non-Jews,” Middle East Journal, 53:3, 101–117, 1999.
A third explanation promoted by religious Jews is that the overwhelmingly secular leadership in Israel sought to undermine the influence of religious elements in Israeli politics and society by allowing more secular Jews and their non-Jewish spouses to immigrate.Eleonara Poltinnikova-Shifrin. "The Jewish State and the Law of Return." 1 January 2002.
The Israeli Rabbinate is a purely Orthodox body that is far more strict in defining "who is a Jew". This creates a situation in which thousands of immigrants who are eligible for citizenship under the Law of Return's criteria, are ineligible for Jewish marriage by the Israeli Rabbinate.
As of 2021, 3,340,000 Jews have immigrated to Israel since its independence in 1948. Hundreds of thousands of people who do not have Jewish status under Orthodox Jewish interpretations of halakha received Israeli citizenship, as the law confers citizenship to all offspring of a Jew (including grandchildren) and their spouses.
Denial of citizenship Section 2(b) of the Law of Return empowers the Minister of Interior to deny Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return on a number of grounds: For example, an applicant may be denied citizenship if they are considered a threat to the security of the State of Israel (e.g., treason against the Jewish State), or have a past criminal record involving a serious crime, such as murder, and pose a danger to the well-being of the State of Israel; or, for example, may be a fugitive in another country for any felony (unless they are persecution victims); or such persons who, by virtue of their illness, may pose a serious public health risk to the people of Israel; as also any person who may be actively engaged in any campaign that vociferously speaks out against the Jewish people and undermines their cause (such as demagoguery).
This provision has been used to exclude applicants a handful of times since Israel's establishment. Notable cases include Robert Soblen, an American Communist who spied for the Soviet Union and fled to Israel in an attempt to escape a life sentence; Meyer Lansky, an American mobster who was initially granted entry to Israel but was expelled two years later; and Victor Vancier, an American Kahanist activist convicted of involvement in a series of bombings.
In 1962, the case of Oswald Rufeisen, born a Polish Jew and later a Catholic convert, came before the Israeli Supreme court. The Supreme Court decided that "no one can regard an apostate as belonging to the Jewish people".Yabuda Savir, The Definition of a Jew under Israel's Law of Return, 17 Sw L.J. 123 (1963)
In 2024, Leo Franks, a Jewish Briton who was in the process of applying for Israeli citizenship, had his citizenship application closed and his deportation from the country ordered by the Ministry of the Interior. This came after he was arrested at an anti-war protest in Jerusalem and after having been detained twice in the West Bank, once when accompanying Palestinian shepherds and once when "filming settler violence against Palestinians". Franks interpreted his deportation and denial of citizenship as a change to the Law of Return, saying to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: "the courts have given the Ministry of Interior free rein to make decisions about who can be a Jew in Israel on the basis of his politics". The lead editorial of both the English and Hebrew editions of the Israeli broadsheet Haaretz made the same claim about the political significance of Franks' case, titling the English-language version of the editorial as "Only the Right Jews Can Make Aliyah in Today's Increasingly Undemocratic Israel".
The granting of citizenship under the Law of Return does not prevent a person from being extradited back to another country under an extradition treaty with that other country.
Same-sex spousal relationships On 10 June 2011, the applicability of the Law of Return to same-sex couples was tested when a gay male couple, one Jewish and one Catholic, made aliyah to Israel. This couple was the first same-sex, different-religion, married couple to request joint aliyah status. (Opposite-sex, different-religion, married couples had hitherto received joint aliyah as a matter of course.) The Jewish man quickly received citizenship but the decision on his husband's new citizenship was delayed by the Ministry of the Interior; this was despite the law's explicit and unqualified statement that the spouse of a Jewish returnee is also to be granted citizenship. However, within two months of the entry, on 10 August 2011, the Ministry of the Interior granted citizenship to the non-Jewish husband as required by the law.
In 2014, Interior Minister Gideon Sa'ar clarified that Jews in same-sex relationships who had been married abroad and wished to immigrate to Israel under the law of return were eligible to do so, with their spouse. This included those with a non-Jewish spouse, consistent with the terms of the law. Both same-sex spouses would, like different-sex couples, receive Israeli citizenship.
Controversy Followers of Messianic Judaism The Supreme Court of Israel ruled, in a 1989 case, that Messianic Judaism constituted another religion, and that people who had become Messianic Jews were not therefore eligible for aliyah under the law, which excepted those Jews who had voluntarily changed their religion.
On 16 April 2008, the Supreme Court heard a further case brought by a number of people with Jewish fathers and grandfathers whose applications for citizenship had been rejected on the grounds that they were Messianic Jews. The argument was made by the applicants that they had never been Jews according to halakha, and were not therefore excluded by the conversion clause. The court upheld this argument in its ruling; and the government agreed to reprocess their applications. Thus, Messianic Jews are considered eligible for return if they can claim Jewish ancestry (eg, through a Jewish father or grandfather).