Bribery and Conversion

Israel's antimissionary law

Beginning in April, under the terms of a new law passed by the Israeli Knesset last month, anyone who offers any "material inducement" to an Israeli to change his religion will be liable to a $3,200 fine and five years in prison. And anyone convicted of converting to another faith for nonspiritual benefit may spend three years behind bars. Explaining his country's first antimissionary law, Orthodox Knesset Member Meir Abramowicz, the bill's sponsor, says: "We are the remnant of millions of Jews from the past. We merely want to protect our children." But Israel's 80,000 Christians--not to mention many of Abramowicz's own countrymen who are concerned about civil rights, American good will and religious harmony--think the new bill is repressive, badly written, ill-timed and illadvised.

The worst problem lies in the loose construction of the bill's text. Christians point out that they could conceivably be convicted of offering material inducement if a recently converted Jew made use of Christian-run schools or hospital services. One spokesman adds that the bill's suggestion that well-heeled Christian missions engage in bribery for souls is "calumny, slander and libel, as well as an incitement to hatred." By official record, only 17 Israeli Jews converted to Christianity from 1974 to 1976, though Christians claim that considerably more have secretly done so.

The controversial bill slipped through the Knesset two days after Christmas, when attention was focused on Middle East diplomacy. And diplomacy may in part explain its passage. Because of pressure from liberal Jews in the U.S., Premier Menachem Begin promised the two Orthodox parties in his parliamentary coalition a long-sought bill on a different issue, which refused to recognize conversions to Judaism in Israel except under Orthodox auspices. By permitting the antimissionary bill, he may have hoped to shore up Orthodox support during a time when compromise may be necessary in the delicate negotiations about the future of Israeli-occupied land on the West Bank of the Jordan.

In contrast, Begin's negotiating partner, Anwar Sadat of Egypt, last year faced pressures from religious militants for a law making apostasy a capital crime for Muslims. Egyptian Christians raised such an outcry that Sadat made sure that the bill was buried.

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