Israel
(2005)
Israel has no constitution; however,
the law provides for freedom of worship, and the Government
generally respects this right in practice.
There was no change in the status of
respect for religious freedom during the reporting period,
and government policy continued to contribute to the
generally free practice of religion; however, problems
continued to exist stemming from the unequal treatment
of religious minorities, and from the State's recognition
of only Orthodox Jewish religious authorities in personal
and some civil status matters concerning Jews. Relations
among religious groups—between Jews and non-Jews,
between Muslims and Christians, between secular and
religious Jews, and among the different streams of Judaism—often
were strained. Tensions between Israeli Jews and Arabs
increased significantly after the start of the Intifada
in 2000 when Israeli police killed 12 Israeli-Arab demonstrators,
prompting a 3-year public inquiry and investigation.
The Orr Commission of Inquiry established to investigate
the killings, found certain police officers guilty of
wrongdoing, and concluded that the "Government's
handling of the Arab sector has been primarily neglectful
and discriminatory," that it"did not show
sufficient sensitivity to the needs of the Arab population,
and did not take enough action to allocate state resources
in an equal manner." The results of the inquiry
were still a matter of official deliberation and public
debate at the end of the reporting period. While the
Government has taken several steps to address these
issues, tensions remained high due to institutional,
legal, and societal discrimination against the country's
Arab citizens.
The U.S. Government discusses religious
freedom issues with the Government as part of its overall
policy to promote human rights.
Section I. Religious Demography
Based on its pre-1967 borders, Israel
has an area of approximately 7,685 square miles, and
its population is approximately 6.8 million, of which
5.2 million are Jews (including Israeli settlers who
live in the occupied territories), 1.3 million are Arabs,
and approximately 290,000 are members of other minorities.
Although the Government defines nearly 80 percent of
the population as Jewish, approximately 300,000 of these
citizens do not qualify as Jews according to the Orthodox
Jewish definition or the definition used by the Government
forcivil procedures. According to government figures,
approximately 4.5 percent of the Jewish population are
Haredim, or ultra-Orthodox, and another 13 percent are
Orthodox. The vast majority of Jewish citizens describe
themselves as "traditional," or "secular"
Jews, and most of them observe some Jewish traditions.
A growing but still small number of traditional and
secular Jews associate themselves with the Conservative,
Reform, and Reconstructionist streams of Judaism, which
are not officially recognized for purposes of civil
and personal status matters involving their adherents.
Although the Government does not officially recognize
them, these streams of Judaism receive a small amount
of government funding and are recognized by the country's
courts.
Numerous religious groups are represented
in the country. Slightly more than 20 percent of the
population is non-Jewish and the vast majority of them
are ethnically Arab. Of this, approximately 80 percent
is Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 10 percent Druze.
The non-Jewish populations areconcentrated in the north,
in Bedouin communities in the Negev region to the south,
and in the narrow band of Arab villages in the central
part of the country adjacent to the occupied territories.
Relatively small communities of evangelical Christians,
Messianic Jews (those who consider themselves Jewish
but believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah), and Jehovah's
Witnesses also reside throughout the country. In an
April 2005 media report, a leader of the Jewish Messianic
community estimated that Messianic Jews in Israel number
approximately 10,000 persons. Media sources also indicate
that the number of Messianic Jews in Israel has grown
rapidly over the past decade, with many new adherents
coming from the Russian immigrant community.
The Government reported that approximately
60,000 to 70,000 legal foreign workers live in Israel,
but Kav La Oved (Workers Hotline), an Israeli nongovernmental
organization (NGO) advocating for workers' rights, places
the number closer to 100,000 and estimates that the
inclusion of illegal foreign workers brings the total
number of foreign workers to approximately 200,000.
Most of the foreign workers are Roman Catholic, Orthodox
Christian, Buddhist, or Hindu.
The Basic Law on Human Dignity and
Liberty describes the country as a "Jewish"
and "democratic" state. Most members of the
non-Jewish minority are generally free to practice their
religions but are subject to various forms of discrimination,
some of which have religious dimensions.
Section II. Status of Religious Freedom
Legal/Policy Framework
Israel has no constitution; however,
the law provides for freedom of worship, and the Government
generally respects this right in practice. The Declaration
of Independence describes the country as a "Jewish
state," but also provides for full social and political
equality regardless of religious affiliation. While
the law explicitly guarantees freedom of religion and
the safeguarding of "holy places of all religions,"
inequities exist. Israeli Arabs and other non-Jews generally
are free to practice their religions; however, discrepancies
in treatment exist between Jews and various non-Jewish
communities, and between Orthodox Jews and Jews of non-Orthodox
affiliations.
The "status quo" agreement
reached at the founding of the state, and that has been
upheld throughout the State's history, guarantees the
Government will implement certain policies based on
Orthodox Jewish interpretations of religious law. For
example, the Government does not recognize Jewish marriages
performed in the country unless they are performed by
the Orthodox Jewish establishment. The Orthodox Jewish
establishment also determines who is buried in Jewish
state cemeteries, limiting this right to individuals
considered "Jewish" by the Orthodox standards.
In addition, the national airline El Al and public buses
in most cities do not operate on Saturday, the Jewish
Sabbath; however, several private bus companies do.
Additionally, streets in most Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods
are closed to vehicles on the Sabbath. According to
the Law on Work and Rest Hours of 1951, which was upheld
by the Supreme Court in April 2005, Jews in most professions
are prohibited from working on the Sabbath unless they
are granted a special permit by the Ministry of Trade,
Industry, and Employment.
In April 2004, the High Court rejected
a petition demanding that the Ministry of the Interior
enforce the prohibition on the public display of leavened
products for sale during the Passover holiday, but it
did not rule on the legality of the prohibition. Then,
in March 2005, following the Interior Minister's announcement
that he would not enforce the prohibition, Prime Minister
Sharon reportedly instructed the Minister to enforce
the prohibition. In recent practice, however, the Government
has not enforced this law. There were no reports of
its enforcement during the reporting period. In regions
inhabited primarily by non-Jews, bread is displayed
and sold openly during Passover.
In 2003, the High Court suspended
several municipal prohibitions and curbs on the sale
of pork and instructed municipalities to allow sales
of pork in neighborhoods where no more than an unspecified,
small portion of the residents would object on religious
grounds. The result of the decision was to allow each
municipality to determine on its own whether to allow
the sale of pork.
The law recognizes as "religious
communities" those recognized by and carried over
from the British Mandate. These include: Eastern Orthodox,
Latin (Roman Catholic), Gregorian-Armenian, Armenian-Catholic,
Syrian (Catholic), Chaldean (Uniate), Greek Catholic
Melkite, Maronite, Syrian Orthodox, and Jewish. Since
the founding of the country, the Government has recognized
three additional religious communities—the Druze
in 1957, the Evangelical Episcopal Church in 1970, and
the Baha'i in 1971. The status of several Christian
denominations with representation in the country has
been defined by a collection of ad hoc arrangements
with various government agencies. The fact that the
Muslim population was not defined as a religious community
was a vestige of the Ottoman period, where Islam was
the dominant religion, and does not affect the rights
of the Muslim community to practice their faith. The
Government allows members of unrecognized religions
the freedom to practice their religion. According to
the Government, there were no religious denominations
awaiting recognition during the reporting period.
With some exceptions, each recognized
religious community has legal authority over its members
in matters of marriage, divorce, and burial. Legislation
enacted in 1961 afforded the Muslim courts exclusive
jurisdiction to rule in matters of personal status concerning
Muslims. For so-called "unrecognized religions,"
no local religious tribunals exercised jurisdiction
over their members in matters of personal status. In
addition, unlike recognized religious communities, unrecognized
religious communities do not receive government funding
for their religious services. The Arrangements Law provides
exemption from municipal taxes for any place of worship
of a recognized faith. Exemption from tax payments is
also granted to churches that have not been officially
recognized by law. In several cases, the Government
has interpreted that exemption from municipal taxes
to apply only to that portion of the property of religious
organizations that was actually used for religious worship.
Not-for-profit religious schools also receive tax exemptions.
The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) had tax-exemption
status for its hospital on the Mount of Olives for more
than 30 years until the District Court revoked this
privilege in 2002. After several rescheduled hearings,
the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear LWF's case for
tax exemption on December 1, 2005.
Secular courts have primacy over questions
of inheritance, but parties, by mutual agreement, may
bring such cases to religious courts. Jewish and Druze
families may ask for some family status matters, such
as alimony and child custody in divorces, to be adjudicated
in civil courts as an alternative to religious courts.
Christians may ask that child custody and child support
cases be adjudicated in civil courts rather than in
religious courts. Muslims have the right to bring matters
such as alimony and property division associated with
divorce cases to civil courts in family-status matters.
However, paternity cases remain under the exclusive
jurisdiction of the Muslim or Shari'a Court. There is
no overarching law or directive that prescribes these
varying approaches.
In March 2004, the Ministry of Religious
Affairs was officially dismantled and its 300 employees
reassigned to several other ministries. As a result,
the Ministry of the Interior now has jurisdiction over
religious matters concerning non-Jewish groups; the
Ministry of Tourism is responsible for the protection
and upkeep of all holy sites, and the Prime Minister's
office has jurisdiction over the nation's 134 religious
councils (one Druze and the rest Jewish) that oversee
the provision of religious services to their respective
communities. Legislation establishing religious councils
does not include non-Jewish religious communities other
than the Druze. Instead, the Ministry of the Interior
directly funds religious services for recognized non-Jewish
communities. The State, through the Prime Minister's
office, continues to finance approximately 40 percent
of the religious councils' budgets, and local authorities
fund the remainder.
According to government budget figures,
the Prime Minister's Office transferred approximately
$30 million for religious councils in 2004 and local
authorities were supposed to transfer $47 million (NIS
214, 926, 720) to the religious councils as well. The
Government also transferred an additional estimated
$15.5 million (NIS 71 million) in a one-time move to
the religious councils pursuant to a court ruling. Together,
the religious councils' budget for 2004 was approximately
$92.5 million. The Government reported that the 2005
religious services budget for the non-Jewish communities
including the Druze (it did not provide 2004 figures)
totaled approximately $6.5 million.
Arab advocacy groups continue to charge
that the State did not allocate adequate or proportional
funds for the provision of religious services in Arab
towns and villages. A reputable representative of the
Arab Christian community criticized the Government in
April 2005 for not allocating enough funds for Christian
institutions. The Government claimed, however, that
funding for religious services in Arab communities has
been proportional to the size of the community.
Under the Law of Return, the Government
grants immigration and residence rights to individuals
who meet established criteria defining Jewish identity.
Included in this definition is a child or grandchild
of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child
of a Jew, and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew. A
separate, more rigorous standard based on Orthodox Jewish
criteria is used to determine the right to full citizenship,
entitlement to government financial support for immigrants,
the legitimacy of conversions to Judaism performed within
the country, and Jewish status for purposes of personal
and some civil status issues. Residency rights are not
granted to relatives of converts to Judaism, except
for children of female converts who are born after the
mother's conversion is complete. The Law of Return does
not apply to non-Jews or to persons of Jewish descent
who have converted to another faith. Approximately 36
percent of the country's Jewish population was born
outside of the country.
The Association for Civil Rights in
Israel (ACRI) has charged that the Ministry of the Interior's
Population Registry has subjected non-Jewish spouses
and non-Jewish adopted children of Jewish immigrants
to unfair and at times arbitrary policies for proving
the bona fides of their relationship for residency purposes.
Most of these cases involve persons who immigrated under
the Law of Return from the former Soviet republics and
their non-Jewish spouses and non-Jewish adopted children.
In August 2004, the Minister of the Interior acknowledged
the problems and took steps to change certain policies.
For example, in August 2004, the Minister of Interior
announced that he was canceling his ministry's requirement
that immigrants from the former Soviet republics deposit
a $7,000 (30,000-shekel) bank guarantee before allowing
their non-Jewish spouses to enter the country. The deposit
was to be returned once the spouse was granted residency.
In 2003, the Government began issuing
new and replacement identification cards that do not
carry a "nationality" (e.g., usually religious)
designation. Citizens and residents are still required
to register with the Ministry of the Interior's Population
Registry as one of a set list of nationalities. During
the period covered by this report, the Ministry of the
Interior issued to individuals arriving in the country
immigration forms with an item for travelers to list
their religion. Immigration officials were inconsistent
in seeking compliance, and the form has since been amended
to omit any questions on religious affiliation.
Under the law, ultra-Orthodox Jews
are entitled to exemption from military service to pursue
religious studies. This exemption allows ultra-Orthodox
Jews to postpone military service in 1 year intervals
to pursue full-time religious studies at recognized
yeshivas, or religious schools. These students must
renew their deferments each year by proving that they
are full-time students. At the age of 22, the yeshiva
students are given 1 year to decide whether to continue
to study full time with yearly renewals until they reach
the age of 40; to perform community service for one
year, and thereafter, 21 days each year until the age
of 40; or to serve in the army until they finish their
military service requirement. According to the Government,
approximately 9 percent of all male candidates for military
service are exempted as full-time yeshiva students.
In February 2004, due to political pressure from the
secular Shinui party and some sectors of society, the
Government appointed a parliamentary committee to propose
ways to broaden military service to include yeshiva
students and to integrate ultra-Orthodox Jews into the
workforce. At the end of the reporting period, the committee
had not issued its recommendations.
Public Hebrew-speaking secular schools
teach mandatory Bible and Jewish history classes. These
classes primarily cover Jewish heritage and culture,
rather than religious belief. Public schools with predominantly
Arab student bodies teach mandatory classes on the Qur'an
and the Bible, since both Muslim and Christian Arabs
attend these schools. Orthodox Jewish religious schools
that are part of the public school system teach mandatory
religion classes, as do private ultra-Orthodox schools
that receive some state funding.
The Government recognizes the following
Jewish holy days as national holidays: Rosh Hashanah,
Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simhat Torah, Passover, and Shavuot.
Arab municipalities often recognize Christian and Muslim
holidays.
Restrictions on Religious Freedom
Muslim, Christian, and Orthodox Jewish
religious authorities have exclusive control over personal
status matters, including marriage, divorce, and burial,
within their respective communities. The law does not
allow civil marriage, and it does not recognize Jewish
marriage performed in the country unless performed by
recognized Orthodox rabbis. Many Jewish Israelis object
to such exclusive control by the Orthodox establishment
over Jewish marriages and other personal status issues,
and to the absence of provision for civil marriage,
for approximately 300,000 immigrants from the former
Soviet Union were not recognized as Jewish by Orthodox
authorities.
The 1967 Protection of Holy Sites
Law applies to holy sites of all religions within Israel,
and the Penal Code makes it a criminal offense to damage
any holy site. The Government, however, has issued implementing
regulations only for Jewish sites. In November 2004,
the Arab Israeli advocacy group Adalah petitioned the
High Court to compel the Government to issue regulations
to protect Muslim sites, charging that the Government's
failure to do so had resulted in desecration and the
conversion of several sites into commercial establishments.
In its petition, Adalah stated that all of the 120 places
designated by the Government as holy sites are Jewish.
At the end of the reporting period, the case was still
pending. The Arab Association for Human Rights (AAHR)
issued a comprehensive report in December 2004 documenting
what it refers to as the "destruction and abuse
of Muslim and Christian holy places in Israel."
In its report, AAHR asserted that 250 non-Jewish places
of worship had either been destroyed during and after
the 1948 war or made inaccessible to the local Arab
population. Lands of destroyed Arab villages were given
to Jewish farmers, and the surviving mosques in these
villages had been used as animal pens or storage depots.
In a town south of Haifa, Ein Hod, the mosque was turned
into a bar. The Government stated that in March 2004,
there was a fire in an abandoned mosque in Beit She'an,
resulting in a collapse of the structure. Beyond this
incident, there were no reports of damage to holy sites
during the reporting period.
During Jewish holidays and following
terrorist attacks, the Government imposed internal and
external closures for security purposes that had the
effect of restricting access to holy sites in the country
for Arab Muslims and Christians, as well as Israeli
Arabs and Palestinians who possess Jerusalem identification
cards. The construction of the separation barrier also
impeded access to holy sites in Jerusalem during the
reporting period.
The Government permits religious organizations
to apply for state funding to maintain or build religious
facilities. Funding has been provided for the maintenance
of facilities such as churches, Orthodox synagogues,
mosques, and cemeteries. Funding for construction has
not been provided for non-Orthodox synagogues. Several
civil rights NGOs assert that Orthodox Jewish facilities
receive significantly greater proportions of funding
than do non-Orthodox Jewish and non-Jewish facilities.
Muslim groups complain that the Government has not equitably
funded the construction and maintenance of mosques in
comparison to the funding of synagogues. AAHR reported
that the Government was reluctant to refurbish mosques
in areas where there is no longer a Muslim population,
and has never in its history budgeted for the building
of a new mosque. The Government stated that the AAHR
report referred to abandoned sites and not to active
sites, and the abandoned sites were not properly maintained.
There is no restriction on the construction of new mosques
in Israel, but the Government noted that while the state
budget does not cover the costs of new construction,
it does provide assistance in the maintenance of mosques.
The Government cited examples of mosques that received
government assistance for their maintenance in 2004,
including mosques in Romana, Bartaa, Baana, Daburiya,
Bir al Maksur, Bustan Almarge, Maala Iron, Hualad, and
Hura, which altogether received approximately $313,000
(NIS 1,420,000).
Muslim residents of the Be'er Sheva
area, including members of Bedouin tribes, have protested
the municipality's intention to reopen the city's old
mosque as a museum rather than as a mosque for the area's
Muslim residents. The High Court rejected a petition
from Adalah, representing the area's Muslim community,
to enjoin the municipality from renovating the mosque
into a museum. The petitioners argued that there were
no alternative mosques in the Be'er Sheva area. In January
2005, the High Court issued an interim opinion suggesting
that the mosque be used as an Islamic cultural and social
center by the Muslim community of Be'er Sheva, but not
for prayer. In February 2005, the municipality issued
a response rejecting this suggestion, and insisting
that the mosque be opened as a museum. According to
Adalah, the Attorney General also submitted a response
to the High Court supporting the Be'er Sheva Municipality's
position that the building not be used as an Islamic
Cultural Center. The case was pending at the end of
the reporting period.
Building codes for places of worship
are enforced selectively based on religion. Several
Bedouin living in unrecognized villages were denied
building permits for construction of mosques, and in
the past, the Government has destroyed mosques built
in unrecognized Bedouin communities. In 2003, Government
officials demolished a mosque serving approximately
1,500 residents in the unrecognized Bedouin village
of Tel al-Maleh that was constructed without a permit.
According to the Regional Council for the Arab Unrecognized
Villages in the Negev, in 2003 and 2004, the Government
issued demolition orders for three mosques in Um al-Hiran,
al-Dhiyya, and Tel al-Maleh respectively; all three
were unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev and
built without the proper permits. The Regional Planning
and Building Committee in the Negev stated that it was
unaware that the building marked for demolition in al-Dhiyya
was a mosque. By the end of the reporting period, the
demolition orders still stood. In Um al-Hiran, the Government
had issued orders to demolish the mosque and the villagers
have been fined approximately $7,000 (NIS 30,000) for
building the structure without a permit. The Tel al-Maleh
case was transferred to a lower court for review and
the case was pending. In contrast, according to a former
Tel Aviv municipal council member, in recent years approximately
100 illegal synagogues have operated in Tel Aviv, some
within apartment buildings and others in separate structures.
A 1977 anti-proselytizing law prohibits
any person from offering or receiving material benefits
as an inducement to conversion. No reports exist of
attempts to enforce the law during the reporting period.
Missionaries are allowed to proselytize,
although the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(Mormons) voluntarily refrains from proselytizing under
a signed agreement with the Government.
The Knesset has not yet ratified the
Fundamental Agreement establishing relations between
the Holy See and Israel that was negotiated in the 1990s.
In a separate process, representatives of the Government
and the Holy See held several negotiating sessions since
September 2004 with the aim of reaching an agreement
(concordat) on fiscal and legal matters. The negotiations
addressed the issues of tax exemption of Roman Catholic
institutions and property and the access of the Roman
Catholic Church to Israeli courts. No agreement had
been reached by the end of the period covered by this
report.
Since the Government does not have
diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, Muslim citizens
must travel through another country, usually Jordan,
to obtain travel documents for the Hajj. The average
number of Hajj pilgrims traveling from the country each
year is approximately 4,500, and the overall number
allowed to participate in the Hajj is determined by
Saudi Arabian authorities. According to the Government,
travel to hostile countries, including travel to Saudi
Arabia for the Hajj, may be restricted; however, these
restrictions are based on security concerns rather than
on any religious or ethnic factors.
During the reporting period, many
groups and individuals of numerous religions traveled
to the country freely. Members of the Messianic Jewish
community, however, charged that during the year, Government
officials detained and denied entry to several of their
members who were seeking to enter the country. For example,
in November 2004, an American citizen, who identified
himself as a Messianic Jew, reported to the press that
officials at Ben Gurion Airport charged him with the
intent to engage in illegal missionary activity, temporarily
denied him entry into Israel, threatened to expel him,
and held him in a jail near the airport for 24 hours.
He was eventually allowed to enter Israel.
According to representatives of Christian
institutions, the process of visa issuance for Christian
religious workers significantly improved after a period
in 2003 when the Government refused to grant residence
visas to approximately 130 Catholic clergy assigned
to Israel and the occupied territories. The Ministry
of the Interior's Christian Department reported that
it approved most of the 3,000 applications made by clergy
during the reporting period.
The Government discriminates against
non-Jewish citizens and residents, the vast majority
of whom are Arab Muslims and Christians, in the areas
of employment, education, and housing. The Orr Legal
Commission of Inquiry, established to investigate the
2000 police killing of 12 Israeli-Arab demonstrators,
issued a final report in 2003 noting historical, societal,
and governmental discrimination against Arab citizens.
The Orr Commission's report also charged the Government
with failure to allocate state resources in an equitable
manner, and concluded that government neglect resulted
in poverty, unemployment, a shortage of land, significant
shortcomingsin the education system, a substantially
defective infrastructure, and other serious problems
in the Arab sector.
According to a March 2005 media report,
approximately 8,000 non-Jewish soldiers were serving
in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The IDF policy
is to allow non-Jewish soldiers to go on home leave
for their respective religious holidays. Military duties
permitting, Jewish soldiers can leave on holidays. These
duties rotate to allow some soldiers to go home for
Jewish holidays. The IDF itself conducts commemorative
activities appropriate for each respective Jewish holiday.
The IDF does not have any Muslim or
Christian chaplains because, according to Government
sources, the frequent home leave accorded all soldiers
allows Muslim and Christian soldiers easy and regular
access to their respective clergy and religious services
at home. There have been discussions between the IDF
and the National Security Council regarding chaplain
appointments for non-Jewish IDF soldiers, but no decision
has been made. The Government uses private non-Jewish
clergy as chaplains at military burials when a non-Jewish
soldier dies in service. In 2003, however, according
to the family of an Israeli Christian soldier killed
in a terrorist attack, the IDF did not have a military
priest available to officiate at their son's burial.
The soldier was buried in a non-Jewish section of the
military cemetery in a non-religious ceremony without
a religious figure to officiate. All Jewish chaplains
in the IDF are Orthodox.
The IDF sponsored Orthodox Jewish
conversion courses for Jewish soldiers who do not belong
to Orthodox Judaism and for non-Jewish soldiers seeking
to convert to Judaism. The IDF does not facilitate conversion
to other religions.
Military service is compulsory for
Jews and Druze. Orthodox Jews can obtain exemptions
from service for full-time religious study. Some Arab
citizens, mainly Bedouin, are accepted as volunteers.
Approximately 90 percent of Israeli Arabs do not serve
in the army. Israeli-Arab advocacy groups have charged
that housing, educational, and other benefits, as well
as employment preferences based on military experience,
effectively discriminate in favor of the Jewish population,
the majority of whom serve in the military. In December
2004, the Ivri Committee on National Service recommended
to the Government that Israeli Arabs be afforded an
opportunity to perform alternative nonmilitary service.
By the end of the reporting period, the Government had
not yet considered these recommendations.
During the year, observers noted that
airport immigration officials denied entry on several
occasions to non-Jews who arrived with mutilated passports,
whereas Jews with damaged travel documents were allowed
entry.
The Government has different education
standards for Orthodox Jewish and non-Orthodox Jewish
schools receiving funding. State-subsidized ultra-Orthodox
Jewish religious schools have not been compelled, as
have other types of schools, to comply with the law
requiring all state-funded schools to teach core curriculum
subjects, such as mathematics. The High Court ruled
in December 2004 that ultra-Orthodox Jewish religious
schools that do not comply with the Education Ministry's
core curriculum by the opening of the 2007 school year
will not be eligible for any funding from the Ministry.
The ruling was a response to a petition filed by the
Secondary Schools Teachers' Association against the
Ministry of Education charging that while the Ministry
cut funding to the public school system, causing hundreds
of teachers to lose their jobs, it provided approximately
$40 million to autonomous ultra-Orthodox schools that
do not comply with Ministry pedagogical requirements.
In response to the court ruling, the Ministry is reportedly
establishing criteria for the funding of schools that
are not state-run.
Government resources available for
religious/heritage studies to Arab and to non-Orthodox
Jewish public schools are proportionately less than
those available to Orthodox Jewish public schools. According
to the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), approximately
96 percent of all state funds for Jewish religious education
were allocated exclusively to Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox
Jewish schools, both public and private Arab public
schools offer studies in both Islam and Christianity,
but the funding for such studies is disproportionately
less than for religious education courses in Jewish
Orthodox schools.
Quality private religious schools
for Israeli Arabs exist; however, parents often must
pay tuition for their children to attend such schools
due to inadequate government funding. Jewish private
religious schools, however, receive significant government
funding in addition to philanthropic contributions from
within the country and abroad, which effectively lowers
the schools' tuition costs.
Government funding to the different
religious sectors is disproportionate to the sectors'
sizes. Civil rights NGOs have charged that the Government
favors Orthodox Jewish institutions in the allocation
of state resources for religious activities.
IRAC noted that approximately 97 percent
of public funding for Jewish cultural and educational
activities goes to Orthodox Jewish organizations, despite
IRAC's estimate that non-Orthodox Jewish institutions
account for approximately 20 percent of all Jewish cultural
activities. In response to a petition filed by IRAC
in 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in December 2004 that
the Government must create new criteria for state funding
of Jewish cultural activities.
In spite of legal provision for public
funding to build non-Orthodox synagogues, the Government
had not funded the construction of any non-Orthodox
synagogues. In 2003, IRAC petitioned the High Court
on behalf of a reform congregation in Modi'in to require
that Modi'in municipality fund construction of a reform
synagogue. The city already funded eight Orthodox synagogues,
but none that were conservative or reform. The High
Court ruled in 2003 that it was permissible to use state
funds for the construction of a Reform synagogue in
the city of Modi'in and ordered the municipality to
repeat the process for determining which congregations
would receive funding and to use criteria that would
guarantee and provide equal treatment. Nevertheless,
the request for funding stalled in the Modi'in municipality,
while the municipality had been using Housing Ministry
funding to make allocations to Orthodox synagogues.
IRAC again petitioned the High Court to compel the municipality
to hold a hearing to consider all available budget requests
for synagogue construction in light of the needs of
Modi'in residents. IRAC also petitioned the court to
freeze all municipal allocations for synagogue construction
in Modi'in until such a hearing is held. At the end
of the reporting period, the case remained pending with
the municipality.
In 1998, the High Court of Justice
ruled that discrepancies in budget allocations between
religious institutions in the Jewish and non-Jewish
sectors constituted "prima facie" evidence
of discrimination. In 2000, the plaintiffs from the
1998 High Court case brought a case contending discrimination
in the allocation of resources for religious cemeteries.
The High Court agreed with the plaintiffs that non-Jewish
religious cemeteries were receiving inadequate resources
and ordered the Government to increase funding to such
cemeteries.
The 1996 Alternative Burial Law established
the right of any individual to be buried in a civil
ceremony, and required the establishment of 21 public
civil cemeteries throughout the country. However, at
the end of the reporting period, 1 public civil cemetery
had been established in the country, in Be'er Sheva,
and approximately 15 Jewish cemeteries in the country
contained a section for civil burials. Several domestic
civil rights and immigrant groups asserted that the
Government failed to allocate adequate space or sufficient
funds for the establishment of civil cemeteries. Civil
burials are also offered by certain Kibbutzim, but,
according to some NGOs, such burials are expensive.
The Government reported that the 2004 capital budget
for civil cemeteries was approximately $760,000. It
reported that in 2004, the administrative budget for
Jewish cemeteries was approximately $2 million, and
claimed that no capital budget was allocated.
Only approximately 7 percent of land
is privately held. Most Israelis who control land, either
for residential or business use, including farms, lease
their land from the Government on long-term leases.
Of the 93 percent of the land not in private hands,
the Government directly controls the vast bulk, but
approximately 12.5 percent is owned by the state through
the quasi-public Jewish National Fund (JNF). The Israel
Land Administration, a government agency, manages both
the land directly owned by the Government and the JNF
land. The JNF's charter prohibits it from leasing land
to non-Jews. In addition, the Jewish Agency, an organization
that promotes Jewish immigration to the country and
develops residential areas on both public and JNF land,
as a matter of policy does not lease land to non-Jews.
In 2000, the High Court ruled that the State may not
allocate land to its citizens on the basis of religion
or nationality, even if it allocates the land through
a third party such as the Jewish Agency. The Court's
decision precludes any restrictions on the leasing or
sale of land based on nationality, religion, or any
other discriminatory category. With respect to this
ruling, official JNF policy has not changed; no other
cases arose after the initial 2000 ruling during the
period covered by this report.
In October 2004, civil rights groups
petitioned the High Court of Justice to block a Government
bid announcement involving JNF land that effectively
banned Arabs from bidding. The Government then halted
marketing of JNF land in the Galilee and other areas
of the north, where there are large Arab populations.
In December 2004, Adalah petitioned the High Court to
require the Government to apply nondiscriminatory procedures
for allocating land and to conduct open land sales/leases
to Arabs as well as to Jews. In January 2005, the Attorney
General ruled that the Government cannot discriminate
against Israeli Arabs in the marketing and allocation
of lands it manages, including lands that the Israel
Land Administration manages for the Jewish National
Fund. Adalah criticized the Attorney General, however,
for also deciding that the Government should compensate
the JNF with land equal in size to any plots of JNF
land won by non-Jewish citizens in government tenders.
Exclusive control over marriages resides
by law with recognized bodies of the recognized religious
denominations. Accordingly, anyone wishing to marry
in a secular ceremony, Jews wishing to marry in non-Orthodox
religious ceremonies, Jews not officially recognized
as Jewish by the Orthodox Jewish establishment but wishing
to marry in Jewish ceremonies, and Jews wishing to marry
someone of another faith must all do so abroad. The
Ministry of the Interior recognizes such marriages.
According to Central Bureau of Statistics figures released
in March 2005, 7,089 Israelis married abroad in 2002,
compared to 3,639 in 1997. Others hold weddings unrecognized
by the Government, including Reform and Conservative
weddings and those conducted by Kibbutz authorities.
In March 2004, the Knesset (Parliament)
rejected two bills that would have allowed for civil
marriage in Israel. In July 2004, the chairman of a
Knesset committee established to formulate a civil marriage
option announced that the committee would not complete
its work or issue recommendations due to what he characterized
as political interference with the committee's work.
In April 2005, the High Court instructed the Government
to inform it within 3 months of the Government's position
on whether to recognize so-called "consular marriages,"
those conducted by officials of foreign embassies in
the country. Government recognition of consular marriages
would enable couples in Israel with no religious affiliation,
or those of a religion not recognized by the Government,
to wed in such civil ceremonies.
In December 2004, the Government reached
an agreement with the Chief Rabbinate to limit required
prenuptial instruction to those Jewish religious laws
that are directly connected to the marriage ceremony
and not require Jewish couples to receive instruction
on Orthodox Jewish laws of ritual purity.
The State does not recognize conversions
to Judaism performed in the country by non-Orthodox
rabbis. In March 2005, the High Court ruled that, for
the purpose of conferring citizenship rights, the Government
must recognize those non-Orthodox conversions of noncitizen
legal residents that were begun in Israel but formalized
abroad by acknowledged Jewish religious authorities,
even if not of the Orthodox strain. In a separate May
2004 ruling, the court determined that non-Jews who
move to the country and then convert in the country
through an Orthodox conversion are eligible to become
immigrants and citizens pursuant to the Law of Return.
Previously, non-Jews were entitled to immigrate to the
country and obtain full citizenship only if these conversions
were conducted entirely abroad and under Orthodox standards.
The High Court did not, however, rule on whether the
Government must recognize non-Orthodox conversions formalized
in Israel.
The Shinui Party, which ran in the
2002 national elections on a platform of ending the
exclusive power of the Orthodox establishment over such
issues as marriage and citizenship, left Prime Minister
Sharon's governing coalition in December 2004 in protest
over the allocation of approximately $70 million in
the 2005 budget for ultra-Orthodox religious institutions.
Prime Minister Sharon allocated the funds as part of
a coalition agreement with the ultra-Orthodox United
Torah Judaism party to secure that party's support for
the Gaza disengagement plan.
Under the Jewish religious courts'
interpretation of personal status law, a Jewish woman
may not receive a final writ of divorce without her
husband's consent. Consequently, thousands of women,
so-called "agunot," are unable to remarry
or have legitimate children because their husbands have
either disappeared or refused to grant divorces.
Rabbinical tribunals have the authority
to impose sanctions on husbands who refuse to divorce
their wives or on wives who refuse to accept divorce
from their husbands. One Jewish U.S. citizen served
more than 2 years in jail rather than grant his wife
a writ of divorce. He was released approximately 1 year
ago. In May 2004, a rabbinical court decided for the
first time to jail a woman who refused to accept a divorce
from her husband. Rabbinical courts also may exercise
jurisdiction over, and issue sanctions against, non-Israeli
Jews present in the country.
Some Islamic law courts have held
that Muslim women may not request a divorce but that
women may be forced to consent if a divorce is granted
to the husband. One Arab Muslim woman who won a divorce
from her abusive husband in a Muslim court subsequently
filed a civil suit against the husband with the Magistrates
Court in northern Israel. The court set a precedent
in March by awarding the woman approximately $10,000
in compensation for damage to her status and chances
of re-marrying. Divorced Arab women are stigmatized
in their communities and experience difficulties remarrying.
Members of unrecognized religious
groups, particularly evangelical Christians, sometimes
face problems in obtaining marriage certifications or
burial services similar to the problems faced by Jews
who are not considered Jewish by the Orthodox establishment.
Informal arrangements with other recognized religious
groups provide relief in several cases.
Most Orthodox Jews believe that mixed
gender prayer services violate the precepts of Judaism.
As a result, such services are prohibited at the Western
Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, and men and women
must use separate areas to visit the Western Wall. Women
also are not allowed to conduct any prayers at the Western
Wall wearing prayer shawls, which are typically worn
by men, and cannot read from Torah scrolls. In 2003,
the Women of the Wall, a group of more than 100 Orthodox,
Conservative, and Reform women, lost their 14-year legal
battle to hold formal women's prayer services at the
Western Wall. The High Court ruled that the group could
not hold prayer services at the Western Wall and instead
would be permitted to hold them at nearby Robinson's
Arch, part of an archeological site. The court ordered
the Government to prepare an area at Robinson's Arch
where women could read aloud from the Bible and conduct
group prayers, and the Government inaugurated a plaza
in this area for women's services in August 2004. According
to IRAC, however, women who want to pray there must
either provide the Government with 2 days' notice or
pay the regular fee applicable for visiting the archeological
site.
In 2003, IRAC petitioned the Supreme
Court to overturn the government practice whereby the
Adoption Service of the Ministry of Social Affairs places
non-Jewish Israeli children only in Orthodox Jewish
homes. Existing law requires that the adopted child
must be of the same religion as the adopting parents.
However, Representatives of IRAC reported that when
no family of the same religion is willing to adopt the
child, adoption officials consistently place the child
with an Orthodox family. In such cases, the child's
conversion to Judaism must be completed before the adoption
is finalized. The Government defended its practice by
arguing that the placement of non-Jewish children in
Orthodox homes eliminates any subsequent legal uncertainty
about the Jewish status of the children. At the end
of the reporting period, the case was still pending.
There were no reports of religious
prisoners or detainees.
Forced Religious Conversion
There were no reports of forced religious
conversion, including of minor U.S. citizens who had
been abducted or illegally removed from the United States,
or of the refusal to allow such citizens to be returned
to the United States.
Abuses by Terrorist Organizations
Palestinian terrorist organizations,
including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the
Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, committed acts of terror against
Israelis during the period covered by this report. These
attacks included an August 2004 twin suicide bombing
of buses in Be'er Sheva, killing 16 persons and injuring
more than 100. Hamas claimed responsibility. In November
2004, a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv killed 3 Israelis
and wounded 30. The Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine (PFLP) claimed responsibility. Rocket attacks
in June and September 2004 killed a total of four residents
of Sderot. At least one group claiming responsibility
for attacks, Hamas, includes anti-Semitic material on
its website.
Improvements in Respect for Religious
Freedom
The Government appointed Oscar Abu-Razek,
a Muslim Israeli Arab, as director general of the Ministry
of Interior, the first Arab to serve in such a senior
position in a government ministry. In addition, for
the first time since the establishment of the State,
an Arab was appointed as a permanent justice of the
High Court.
According to government data, the
number of non-Jewish directors on the boards of state-owned
companies increased from 5.5 percent in 2002 to 8 percent
in 2005. Prime Minister Sharon has stated publicly that
increasing the number of non-Jewish board directors
and the number of non-Jewish civil service employees
are government priorities.
Members of the Knesset and the Chief
Rabbinate attended a seminar in January 2005, hosted
by the American Jewish Committee, to increase understanding
of the various branches of Christianity. To enhance
interfaith relations, seminar participants also visited
the heads of various Christian denominations in Israel,
including the Latin and Armenian patriarchs and a representative
of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.
A Knesset subcommittee was established
in December 2004 to track the needs of the Israeli-Arab
sector and recommend changes in the 2005 budget to benefit
that sector. Mohammed Barakeh, a Knesset member from
the Israeli-Arab party "Hadash," was appointed
to head the subcommittee.
The Government established a new department
in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to fight anti-Semitism
and commemorate the Holocaust.
Section III. Societal Attitudes
Relations among different religious
groups--between Jews and non-Jews, between Christians
and Muslims, between Christians of different traditions,
and among the different streams of Judaism--often are
strained. Tensions between Jews and non-Jews are the
result of historical grievances as well as cultural
and religious differences, and they were compounded
by governmental and societal discrimination against
Israeli Arabs, both Muslim and Christian. These tensions
were heightened by the Arab-Israeli conflict, and manifested
in terrorist attacks targeting Israelis, IDF operations
in the occupied territories, incidents of Jewish militants
targeting Israeli Arabs, and incidents of Israeli Arab
involvement in terrorist activity.
According to a March 2005 poll conducted
by the Dahaf Institute, a majority of Israeli Jews believe
that the state should encourage Israeli Arabs to emigrate.
Similar surveys have also revealed a continuing increase
in distrust between Israeli Jews and Arabs. An ultra-Orthodox
weekly, Sh'a Tova, reportedly carried a comic strip
for children with negative depiction of Arabs, including
the statement, "Yes, a good Arab is a dead Arab."
During the reporting period, Israeli Jewish fans of
a Jerusalem soccer team shouted racist slogans against
Israeli Arab soccer players during a match. In 2004,
several Israeli Jews were indicted in one incident for
shouting such slogans.
During the reporting period, incidents
occurred in Jerusalem in which ultra-Orthodox Jewish
youths assaulted Arabs and spray-painted anti-Arab graffiti.
In October 2004, a yeshiva student
spat at the Armenian archbishop of Jerusalem while he
was engaged in a religious procession through the Old
City. The student was arrested and ordered to remain
away from the Old City for 75 days. He also made a formal
apology. The Holy See and the country's Chief Rabbinate
issued a joint condemnation of the assault at the end
of a meeting of Catholic and Jewish officials near Rome
shortly after the incident.
The phrases "Death to Arabs"
and "Death to Gentiles" were spray-painted
in March on 10 graves in a Christian cemetery in Jerusalem's
Gilo neighborhood. Police continued to investigate but
had not made any arrests by the end of the reporting
period.
According to a reputable Jewish organization
in Israel, recent years have seen an increase in anti-Semitic
graffiti in outlying immigrant towns. The organization
attributes these acts to "disaffected" immigrant
youth rather than to individuals motivated by anti-Semitic
beliefs.
Advancement of Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's controversial plan to withdraw all citizens
from the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the northern
West Bank caused tensions in Israeli society between
supporters and opponents of the plan, the latter often
being members of religious Zionist groups. During the
year, a rabbi issued a religious edict permitting settlers
to physically harm Bedouin and Druze soldiers who participate
in the evacuation of settlements pursuant to Sharon's
plan. In response to the edict, a Bedouin Sheikh urged
Bedouin soldiers to respond forcefully, including with
live fire, to any settler attacks against them during
the evacuation.
Death threats in various forms, including
graffiti, have been made against government officials
who support the disengagement plan, including against
Prime Minister Sharon. During a March 2005 sermon, Shas
party spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef suggested
that God would see that Sharon dies for implementing
disengagement. The national office of the Anti-Defamation
League (ADL) issued a public statement condemning Yosef's
sermon for its inflammatory language and his subsequent
apology as inadequate. Neo-Nazi graffiti was sprayed
on monuments honoring, and actual gravesites of, several
well-known Israeli historical figures, including the
grave of the country's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion.
In May 2005, swastikas and graffiti comparing Prime
Minister Sharon to Adolf Hitler were sprayed on the
road leading into the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in
Jerusalem. A reputable Jewish organization attributed
these acts to extremist opponents of Prime Minister
Sharon's disengagement plan. In April 2005, police discovered
two fake bombs in Jerusalem and arrested two far-right
religious activists with planting those bombs and others,
in their efforts to distract government attention from
the disengagement plan.
In February 2005, Druze rioters damaged
a Melkite Catholic church and damaged or burned dozens
of Christian businesses, homes, and cars in the northern
village of Mughar after a Druze falsely claimed that
Christian youths had placed pornographic pictures of
Druze girls on the Internet. Eight persons were reported
injured, and many Christians fled the city and refused
to allow their children to return to school for weeks
in the aftermath of the violence. Druze religious leaders
were quick to denounce the riots, and representatives
of the Christian community criticized the Government
for not responding more quickly to the violence. In
June 2005, the Government announced the allocation of
$2 million (NIS 10 million) in state funds to compensate
residents for damaged property incurred during the riots.
Numerous NGOs in the country are dedicated
to promoting Jewish-Arab coexistence and interfaith
understanding. Their programs include events to increase
productive contact between religious groups and to promote
Jewish-Arab dialogue and cooperation. These groups and
their events have had varying degrees of success. Interfaith
dialogue often is linked to the peace process between
the country and its Arab neighbors. Among efforts in
this area are those of participants in the Alexandria
Interfaith Peace Process, initiated at a 2002 interfaith
conference in Cairo. Canon Andrew White, the Archbishop
of Canterbury's special representative to the Alexandria
Process, convened meetings in December 2004 and in January
2005 in Jerusalem with Israeli and Palestinian religious
leaders to discuss advancing the Alexandria Process.
The group discussed ways to advance an agenda of peace
among religious leaders in their respective communities.
In January, as part of the Alexandria Process, Israeli
rabbis and Israeli and Palestinian imams joined a group
of more than 100 imams and rabbis from all over the
world in a Brussels conference aimed at enhancing interfaith
understanding and combating violence.
Animosity between secular and religious
Jews continued during the period covered by this report.
Non-Orthodox Jews have complained of discrimination
and intolerance by members of ultra-Orthodox Jewish
groups. Persons who consider themselves Jewish but who
are not considered Jewish under Orthodox law particularly
complained of discrimination. As in past years, ultra-Orthodox
Jews in Jerusalem threw rocks at passing motorists driving
on the Sabbath.
A variety of NGOs exists that seek
to build understanding and create dialogue between religious
groups and between religious and secular Jewish communities.
Several examples are the Gesher Foundation (Hebrew for
"bridge"); Meitarim, which operates a pluralistic
Jewish-oriented school system; and the Interreligious
Coordinating Council in Israel, which promotes interfaith
dialogue among Jewish, Muslim, and Christian institutions.
Throughout society, attitudes toward
missionary activities and conversion generally are negative.
Many Jews are opposed to missionary activity directed
at Jews, and some are hostile toward Jewish converts
to Christianity. Media sources reported that the Messianic
Jewish community accused Yad L'achim, a Jewish religious
organization opposed to missionary activity, of harassing
its members. Christian and Muslim Israeli-Arab religious
leaders complain that missionary activity that leads
to conversions frequently disrupts family coherence
in their communities.
A March 2005 dispute over the sale
of property in Jerusalem's Old City owned by the Greek
Orthodox Church to Jewish investors ended with senior
Orthodox leaders calling for the removal of the Patriarch
of Jerusalem, Irineos I. At the end of the reporting
period, Patriarch Irineos had not resigned, but many
Greek Christians in the country reject his authority.
Politicians, media outlets, and many
ordinary citizens criticized the Government's practice
of granting military draft exemptions and living allowances
to full-time yeshiva students. In February 2004, due
to political and societal pressures, the Government
appointed a parliamentary committee to investigate ways
to broaden military service to include yeshiva students.
At the end of the reporting period, the committee had
not issued its recommendations.
Section IV. U.S. Government Policy
The U.S. Government discusses religious
freedom issues with the Government as part of its overall
policy to promote human rights. The U.S. Embassy consistently
raised issues of religious freedom with the Foreign
Ministry, the police, the Prime Minister's office, and
other government agencies.
Embassy representatives, including
the Ambassador, routinely meet with religious officials.
These contacts include meetings with Jewish, Christian,
Muslim, and Druze leaders at a variety of levels. In
April 2005, the Embassy invited two Knesset members
from the secular Shinui party and two from the ultra-Orthodox
Shas party to participate together in an International
Visitors Program on the U.S. legislative, judicial,
and executive branches of government. The program received
positive media coverage for enhancing understanding
and ties between these two rival parties.
In October 2004, a representative
from the Office of International Religious Freedom visited
Israel and met with Government officials, Jewish religious
leaders, civil rights NGO representatives, Israeli-Arab
human rights advocates, and Christian clergy and religious
workers—particularly those negatively impacted
by construction of the separation barrier.
In November 2004, the Embassy hosted,
as it has in recent years, an Iftar to commemorate the
Muslim holiday of Ramadan, inviting more than 80 Israeli
Muslim representatives from the political, economic,
legal, religious, and business communities, as well
as representatives of interfaith organizations. The
dinner promoted understanding and cooperation between
Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and enhanced U.S. understanding
of issues affecting these religious communities.
The Embassy provided grants to local
organizations promoting interfaith dialogue and coexistence
and to organizations examining the role of religion
in resolving conflict. For example, a grant facilitated
the Alexandria Process, an interfaith dialogue between
Christian, Muslim and Jewish spiritual leaders on furthering
tolerance and nonviolence in their respective communities.
Part of the grant funds publications and curriculum
development for religious tolerance and coexistence
in the Israeli school system.
The Embassy provided a grant to support
a program for a dozen Palestinian youths and 20 Israeli-Jewish
and Israeli-Arab youths to hold an October dialogue/retreat
on "Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Youth Leadership."
Embassy officials maintain a dialogue
with NGOs that follow human and civil rights issues,
including religious freedom. Embassy representatives
also attended and spoke at meetings of such organizations,
including the Arab Association for Human Rights, the
Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel,
the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Israel
Religious Action Center, and Adalah.
Sources: U.S. State Department - Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor |