ISRAEL has sparked a heated debate in the Jewish world by taking the first step to restricting immigration, following claims that many of those now moving here are Christians.

The issue came to the fore last week when the law committee of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, supported a bill that would end the so-called ‘grandfather clause’ in the Law of Return that enables non-Jews to immigrate.

The bill is being sponsored by ultra-orthodox Jewish political groups in the wake of claims that hundreds of soldiers in the Israeli army have sworn allegiance to the state on the New Testament.

Most of them are thought to be from the former Soviet Union. In the past decade, Israel absorbed around a million Russian immigrants.

But some Jewish leaders say it is wrong to question the commitment of such immigrants.

Among those who have spoken out against the proposed change in the law is the chairman of the Jewish agency, Sallai Meridor, whose task is to encourage more Jews to move to Israel.

"The Law of Return is one of the most important laws for defining the character of the State of Israel as the state of the Jews," he said. "Any change in the law will adversely affect aliya (Jewish immigration to Israel) and will send a negative message to world Jewry."

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has said his goal is to bring one million more Jews here.

However, members of the Jewish religious factions in his government have raised concerns about the 1950 Law of Return, under which citizenship can be conferred to anyone with a single Jewish parent or grandparent.

Those parties strictly follow the rulings of rabbis over the centuries that only those born of a Jewish mother or who have undergone an orthodox conversion can be recognised as Jews.

Among them is the leader of Shas, Eli Yishai, who is also the interior minister. He points to statistics that indicate only 49% of those who entered Israel in 2000 identified themselves as Jews, compared with 96% in 1990. He claims that by 2010 only 4% of new immigrants will consider themselves Jews.

Yishai caused an uproar earlier this month when he questioned the loyalty of immigrant soldiers because they did not swear allegiance to the army on the basis of the Old Testament.

"Who says that tomorrow they will not go to fight everywhere in the service of other nations," he said. He produced figures showing 900 immigrants from the former Soviet Union had married Israeli Arabs or Palestinians in recent years.

Yishai claimed the statistics had been gathered following evidence that some Arabs married to immigrants had been involved in acts of terror.

The liberal Jewish Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Centre has criticised his comments. Anat Hoffman, the centre’s director, claimed the loyalty of such immigrant soldiers to Israel was not be questioned, when so many thousands of religious Jews had refused to serve in the army.

"At a time when minister Yishai is defending the evasion of thousands of young people from military service, the same soldiers Yishai is castigating are defending the borders of our land," she said.

Jewish Agency chairman Sallai Meridor pointed out that many of the immigrants whose loyalty had been placed in question had in fact come from lands where for years the authorities had forced them to suppress their religious identity, and particularly their Jewish identity.

"Children of Jewish men were considered Jews there and when they came to Israel they suddenly found themselves defined as non-Jews," he said.

But he said Israel should be proud of the gains it had made from receiving immigrants from the former Soviet Union, including scientists and other highly skilled professionals thought to have contributed to Israel’s hi-tech boom.

"Immigrants who came to Israel under the Law of Return, with the authorisation of Israeli consulates throughout the former Soviet Union, have made a very positive contribution to Israeli society in defence, economics, culture, and every aspect of our lives," he said.

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Yep! That's what it says in my book too.