I am starting at the same event that Fr. Elias Friedman began his meditation, “Jewish Identity”. Brother Daniel, born Oswald Rufeisen, was a Polish Jew and WWII resistance war hero. During the war he converted to the Catholic faith and after became a Carmelite monk. When he received his wished for assignment at the Carmelite order in Palestine in 1962 he presented himself as a Jew seeking the right of return. Long-story short he was rejected for Israeli citizenship because of his conversion.
As a recent Jewish convert to Catholicism myself, while I was aware I was nullifying my rights of “return” to Israel, it was of course not nearly as important to me as being able to receive the Blessed Sacrament. Now on the other side, as a vested Hebrew Catholic, the injustice of this ruling has become very bothersome to me. If my life situation were different I can imagine a scenario where I would use my own life to relitigate the scenario Brother Daniel found himself on the losing side of. My difference with Brother Daniel is that I believe he simply wished to be with the Carmelites in Palestine and his Jewish ancestry seemed the logical route to enter Israel at the time. In my imagined immigration I would be immigrating to be counted as an Israelite Israeli. I would be making Aliyah.
It is an absurdity in our day that an atheist could migrate to Israel yet a Hebrew Catholic, many who know and keep Jewish traditions better than the majority of Jews, cannot. I don’t see how the situation could hold if such a case was presented again. I can somewhat understand the excuse to deny an assimilated Jewish convert return. But now, we are a new class. I believe the Hebrew Catholic has the most to offer to Israeli society.
I must caveat that I have never been to Israel. The Land factors large in my imagination. Previously, I never had much of a desire to visit Israel. It is only now as a Hebrew Catholic that I’ve become aware that my birthright, promised to our father Jacob, is being denied me precisely because I believe and have publically declared God incarnated as a man, the Messiah, within His elected people.
With some trepedation I put forward this idea. The implications of Israel once again rejecting one of their own because of creed are quite serious. If the Rabbinic Jews ran the government according to Halacha it’s quite possible they would accept me. Yet my wife and children, who by marriage of the one flesh and birth are Hebrew Catholics, would still be denied and that’s no good.
It is through the secular authorities I would wish to appeal my case. They count spouses and persons with one Jewish grandparent as eligible for return to be counted as Jewish Israelis, regardless of Halachic status. And yet these secular authorities illogically invoked religion as a nullification of ones’ fitness to become part of the Jewish Israeli community.
The Hebrew Catholic movement is only a handful of decades old. The reasons why Israelite identity struggled to take root within Catholicism for nearly 2000 years are well documented in “Jewish Identity.” From my perspective, there are now very few obstacles in the Church to living openly as a Hebrew. I believe it will still be quite difficult to maintain Hebrew Catholic identity through generations, particularly in a diaspora.
In an open Israeli Hebrew Catholic community, the problem of holding fast to Israelite traditions would be inverted. There would be a good pressure to inculturate into Israeli society such as learning Hebrew and eating Kosher. Receiving sacraments and keeping Catholic obligations, which is paramount, would be more difficult in Israel. I believe this is the correct order and place to ensure Hebrew Catholic identity becomes multi-generational, viceral and cultural.
This is the beginning of thoughts I will attempt to capture regarding the many facets of what I will call Hebrew Catholic Aliyah.
