I know Jewish people are granted some special right to visit the state of Israel, and some companies organize free tours for Jewish born or living outside.
But does that apply only for people ethnically Jewish that come from Jewish families? Or also applies to new converts to Judaism?
Like, not literally converting tomorrow and demand a free vacation to Israel, but like, converting and in a few years wait and see if they offer me a free vacation to the country to visit the most iconic places of Judaism?
How does that works?
edit: I’m a hispanic atheist with no Jewish family that I know of, and I’m not interested on joining any religion, this is just a hypothetical case.
Converting to Judaism isn’t as simple as it is to convert to Christianity.
It will take years of study and effort.
That aside, the govt of Israel will not “offer” you a chance for a Birthright trip. You have to apply for it and demonstrate you meet the requirements. I don’t see why you wouldn’t qualify, but the Israeli govt is rather close minded about these things. (EDIT: Someone else in the thread has said Birthright Israel accepts converts explicitly, so you should be good here)
THAT aside, don’t go to Israel, don’t give them any money. What they’re doing right now is absolutely monstrous and it’s morally inexcusable to support them.
Right now and at least the past 40 or more years…
They used to do some fucked up stuff. They still do, but they used to too.
I remember the first time i heard that joke. I lauged so hard i fell of my dinosaur
And to think, it’s still funny all these millions of years later.
If Sienfeld, King of the Hill and Family Guy are accurate about this (sure they’re just TV shows and two are cartoons, but for 3 different things to show the same specific shit there must be some truth), you can’t just convert to Judaism overnight. There are things you have to actually do and they require study. Often years of it. It’s not like Christianity where you can just say “I believe this now” and have them welcome you as one of their own faith.
So even if getting a trip was as easy as becoming Jewish, becoming Jewish isn’t that easy.
You don’t have to be a full Jew, just Jew ish
Birthright Israel offers trips to converts too, as long as you are in the age limits.
The law of return also allows converts to obtain citizenship.
In both cases you would have to be a practicing member of the community and do all of the necessary steps to officially become a member.
People aren’t machines, if your conversion was genuine and you built up relationships in your local community you’d probably get a chance - but if you show up saying “LOL, I’m technically Jewish. Where’s my free vacation” you’ll probably not.
There’s a surprising amount of freeish stuff out there if you’re willing to work for it.
Exactly right. You’re not gonna get a free vacation into one of the highest-security ethnostates in the world off some vague “gotcha” clause
Friendly reminder that Israel
sterilizedadministered birth control shots without informed consent to Ethiopian Jewish women who were trying to invoke the Law of Return and migrate to Israel.This just isnt true. I’m not saying this to defend Israel and their actions in Gaza - its just really important to not get swept up in falsehoods, particularly at a time when legitimate criticism of Israel is being portrayed as antisemitic.
There are allegations that Israel administered a birth control drug - which has to be readministered every three months - to Ethiopian immigrants without informed consent. The investigation into this was flawed, but there is literally no evidence to suggest that anyone was forced or coerced into taking this.
What does seem plausible and even likely based on the facts is that doctors often made little or no effort to overcome language and cultural barriers and make sure that consent was fully informed and patients were completely aware of the effects of the procedure.
This is definitely an issue in and of itself, and is a level of societal racism. But what it is not, is ideoligical forcible sterilization.
Further, when you say ‘Ethiopian Jewish women tried to invoke the Law of Return’ the implication is that Israel was really against Ethiopian immigration. In reality, the Israeli government worked with the US to actively enable this - in 1984 Israeli covert forces worked to evacuate the Beta Israel community from Sudan to Israel during the civil war there (this is known as Operation Moses).
Basically, there is so so much to legitimately criticise the Israeli government for right now. Repeating misinformation like this just straight up doesn’t help.
