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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 26, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Why don't Palestinians just convert to Judaism? Most of their ancestors used to be Jews and it would gain them the right to return to Israel, where they could live much better lives. If the answer is that they are devout Muslims and Christians, then do we need to save them from their own irrationality by either somehow getting them to convert anyway or by forcing Israel to give in to their demands so that they don't suffer the consequences of their bad choices?

If this happened at a mass scale, would Israel not allow it? I suppose they would doubt their sincerity and make it more difficult to just convert so that you can move to Israel.

Is this just hard to coordinate on a mass scale? Invidual Palestinians may not want to convert and immigrate and leave their communities. But that still leaves open the question of how bad things must really be if they don't do it anyway. Israel may be an ethno-state, but I think it's the only country in the world that anyone can immigrate to if they're sufficiently motivated to convert to a belief system.

Conversions by Palestinians are generally not accepted as sufficient for Aliyah by Israel.

This is primarily because of the compromise between the Israeli government and diasporic Jewry to allow reform (and other non-orthodox) converts to move to Israel even though the rabbinate doesn’t consider them halakhicly Jewish.

That, in turn, leaves open the door that some progressive Jewish organization might deliberately convert large numbers of Palestinians to Judaism on paper or through some expedited process, and then bulk apply for them to settle in Israel (whereupon they would presumably just join the local Arab Muslim community). For this reason, Palestinian converts are generally denied Aliyah rights.