Labor leader: Plan to end grandchild clause ‘will deal fatal blow to Jewish people’

Labor leader Merav Michaeli says the incoming government’s desire to change the Law of Return to eliminate the so-called grandchild clause “will deal a fatal blow to the Jewish people.”

The clause allows anyone with a Jewish grandparent to immigrate to Israel, even without being themselves considered Jewish according to halacha, or Jewish law.

“The Law of Return is the gatekeeper of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. It is the door,” Michaeli said. “Why on earth does someone want to come and lock this door to half of the Jewish people? And along the way to also create a wedge that will be impossible to remove between the State of Israel and the global Jewish community, wherever they are. Why on earth would someone want to do this terrible injustice to both the Jewish people and the State of Israel?”