By Toma Sik ISRAEL (From an article in The Mondcivitan Bridge Issue 1)

The Israeli High Court of Appeals' three Judges, Mr. Bernsson (President) Mr. Vitkon and Mr. Etziyoni unanimously decided last Sunday (29-4) to accept the claim of war resister and world-citizen Jesa'ajahu-Toma Sik (Shick) of Aloney-Yitzchak youth-village to be enabled to be registered in the Ministry of Interior's files without mentioning nationality (belonging to a people, not citizenship). Formerly, some 5 years ago, the Ministry had approved J.T. Sik's request for cancelling the registration of religion but refused to do so with nationality. The two daughters of the Sik-Ajzik couple have birth certificates in which the "nationality and religion" space is cleanly empty. Bela Ajzik, the wife of Jesajahu had been also registered without religion, but her nationality has still to be requested to be omitted.

There is in Israel quite a big number of citizens who are considering requesting the cancellation of religion and nationality registration in governmental files; many who have been refused in the past. This new decision of the High Court would give a new chance to these objectors of the present situation of the "personal (marital) status" situation in Israel, which state prohibits international and inter religious marriages.

The next issue for these objectors might be the abolition of the "identification numbering system",which labels an Israeli born from his birth and gives the new immigrants profitable advantages by its "serial" number at the beginning. But that wouldn't be the end of the struggle against bureaucratic discriminatory registration in Israel, because one can still tell who is "Jewish" and "non-Jewish" just by looking at the car-numbers.

The Sik family's personal struggle for the abolition of discriminatory laws in Israel reflects the bureaucratic point of view which exists. Their campaign started in 1955 when Jesajahu requested for the first time an ID Card stating he was a "Cosmopolitan". Through different stages of long correspondence and nudging of officials and several trials in the High Court of Justice, they gained the situation described above. In all this there is yet another "open" point. This is their marital situation . Living together for 13 years, having 2 children and despite different endeavours, the marriage is still not recognised for registration. The reason is, that the couple didn't want to marry by a religious ceremony in which they didn't believe. They made a private contract by a lawyer.

A year or more ago Bela claimed at the High Court of Justice to have the same family name as her couple-mate and her children but a majority of two to one decided against her, "because , using the name of the husband would cause public disorder by bringing the people to think that they were legally married"; on the other hand it gave Bela the chance to use the name Sik whenever she wanted unofficially.

The purpose of this struggle might seem to be a little strange for broad-minded people, asking, "why the hell do they need the recognition of the state?" That's true in general, and principally they don't need it at all. But the situation in Israel is that there is a number of discriminatory actions that are based on a couple of laws which use the term "Jewish"; not only that, but also these are the base for religious coercion and a privilegatory attitude.

The Law of Return gives automatic Israeli citizenship to a Jew whenever he steps on Israeli earth. Recently it was used also for granting Israeli citizenship to Russian Jews who wanted to leave Russia but were being prevented by USSR authorities; on the other hand, it is not automatic for a-(British) Palestinian or Israeli born Arab to have Israeli citizenship.

The Law of Marriage and Divorce for Jews allows only religious marriage and therefore avoids what is called "mixed-marriages". Out of this situation and the basic primitive attitude that the law preserves, there were number of tragic cases where young Jewish girls were killed or persecuted by their own families for having relationships with Arabs.

In recent years there was legislated an amendment to this law, which enables civil courts to deal with (only) divorce cases of such "mixed-couples", whom the religious courts cannot or don't want to deal with. This amendment was in a certain sense an easing, since before that the Jewish religious court just declared the marriage as non-valid from its beginning. On the other hand it is an odd situation, that "mixed" can only divorce but not marry.

The recent decision is a big victory for the lawyer of the Siks, Mr. Yoseph Ben-Menashe from Tel Aviv, who is well known in Israel for his personal, public and legal struggle for the abolition of religious coercion and discrimination. One of his recent trials was for instance the struggle for the recognition of the Hebrew Negroes. This is a semi-Christian-Jewish sect which believes that they are the only true Jews; they come from the USA and want to settle in Israel according to the Law of Return, but are not granted even visas as tourists now. On the other hand Israeli secular authorities would accept kindly the Ethiopian Falashy Jews, but the Orthodox Rabbinate would accept them only after passing a Judaising ceremony, which not all of the Falashy agree to pass saying that they were always Jewish. Other groups discriminated against in Israel are the Samaritan, the Karaite, the Bnei Israel (India), and others. The whole population of Israel is living under religious coercion especially over Sabbath public services lockout, no bread on Passover week, marriage and burial services, supervision of butchery adding to prices, etc.

The decision opens now a new dimension of the "Who is a Jew" problem in Israel, and may be it will lead to the abolition of the whole registration. The proposal of the High Court of Justice in another case some years ago(for the registration of a child as Jewish), was followed by the government making a change in the registration law to the contrary.