Summary
The 1970 case (Israeli Supreme Court, 26 P.D. I 197) in which Jewish-Israeli psychologist George Tamarin petitioned to change his registered nationality from ‘Jewish’ to ‘Israeli’, given in Chapter 5 of Stateless Citizenship (2013) as the founding judicial rejection of an Israeli nation separate from the Jewish nation (PDF p.173-174).
Details
- District Court Judge Yitzhak Shilo agreed nationality ought to be determined by the individual, yet held an Israeli nation distinct from a Jewish nation an impossibility: “a person cannot create a new nationality just by saying it exists, and then say he belongs to it” (Keren 2002, 106-107, as quoted, PDF p.173).
- On appeal, Supreme Court President Simon Agranat ruled that “there is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish nation” and that recognizing a uniform Israeli nationality “would negate the very foundation upon which the State of Israel was formed” (PDF p.174).
- The initiative was renewed in petitions in December 2003 (thirty-eight signatories; Avishai 2008, 54) and in 2008 (headed by Uzi Ornan), the latter rejected by Jerusalem District Court Judge Noam Sohlberg as “not justiciable”; in the 2010 appeal hearing the Supreme Court rejected the non-justiciability argument but indicated it was likely to refuse the appeal (PDF p.175-176).
Related pages
Stateless Citizenship (2013), Simon Agranat, Stateless Citizenship