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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   2122 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 15, 2026

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My past (albeit limited) research on the topic has indicated that there's probably no country on Earth that lets welfare-dependent schizophrenics immigrate. But (just to double check), if one were to have to flee America (say, come 2029), which countries would be the best shot?

You're probably not going to find one without tracing ancestral roots and learning the relevant language. You're not really looking for someone that wants you, nobody does assuming you aren't working and have no assets. You're looking for someone who can't turn you away.

If you have any Jewish ancestors, you might be able to gin up Aliyah to Israel. In some cases I've heard stories of people pulling it off despite not being halachically Jewish, just having a Jewish grandfather or something like that. I'm not sure you have enough runway to convert convincingly in that time.

In some cases I've heard stories of people pulling it off despite not being halachically Jewish, just having a Jewish grandfather or something like that.

Under current laws, Jewish grandparents are enough if you don't belong to another religion (or shut up about it if you do, they have no real way to check if you're not a church official). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return If you do, you probably still qualify to live in Israel, but getting citizenship would be more complicated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Rufeisen

Proper Orthodox conversion would work too, but a sham one probably won't - they are not born yesterday and all the tricks that can be tried had been already tried.

Proper Orthodox conversion would work too, but a sham one probably won't - they are not born yesterday and all the tricks that can be tried had been already tried.

Maybe I'm overly confident, but I assume any Mottizen would have the verbal skill to appear sincere and comprehend the necessary information, if sufficiently determined. Leaving aside that a lot of us might be so wildly personally unpleasant that we would be rejected on other grounds.

Proper Orthodox conversion involves living a frum life under supervision and getting a Beth Din to certify it. In the UK and the Commonwealth that means living as part of a frum Jewish family for several months, and they send reports on your performance to the Beth Din, as does the Rabbi at the local synagogue and your Torah teacher. The London Beth Din is stricter than average - I don't know if there are any lax Beth Dins whose conversions the Israeli Rabbinate recognises for Law of Return purposes.

So I don't think a talented wordcel could fake an Orthodox Jewish conversion with ordinary effort.

Note that the Israeli authorities do not recognise Conservative and Reform conversions. (They don't really recognise Conservative and Reform Judaism as valid forms of Jewish religious practice at all, and most Conservative or Reform Jews who make aliyah end up living as secular Jews or "Masortim" - i.e. religious-but-not-synagogue-going Jews - in Israel).

So I don't think a talented wordcel could fake an Orthodox Jewish conversion with ordinary effort.

I mean, given that the supposed stakes are facing down genocide, I think "ordinary effort" in that case is actually pretty high, and could be executed if necessary. The major impediment to most of us being personal attractiveness as candidates, rather than ability to mouth the necessary platitudes and complete the necessary behavioral modifications. I don't know that I would be able to do it, primarily because I believe in Jesus and secondarily because of the circumcision, but for most that probably isn't an insurmountable set of barriers, and I could certainly imagine being forced to do so in a fantasy universe to go undercover or something. It's not rocket surgery.

Note that the Israeli authorities do not recognize Conservative and Reform conversions.

I'm not talmudic scholar enough to dig into what exactly that means but this article states that:

Israel’s “Law of Return” gives foreign-born Jews, or anyone with a Jewish parent, grandparent or spouse, the automatic right to claim Israeli citizenship. Those who convert to non-Orthodox Judaism in another country have been able to gain Israeli citizenship for decades.

But it does appear that Orthodox is a better bet to guarantee recognition.

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