Israel: 'Anti-missionary bill undermines freedom of expression'

A legal opinion prepared by the Justice Ministry determines that missionary activity is "legitimate" and that efforts to persuade Jews to abandon their religion "warrant protection in a democratic society as part of freedom of expression."

The legal opinion was drafted for Justice Minister Prof. Daniel Friedman in response to a bill, presented by Shas MK Yaakov Margi at the urging of Yad L'Achim, to bolster existing laws against missionary activity. The bill calls for a prison sentence of six months for anyone who "seeks to convince another, through a direct appeal, to give up his religion." It also calls for a six-month mandatory sentence for "anyone who conducts a ceremony to convert a person from his religion or engages in some other activity that leads someone to convert, when the decision to convert came as a result of brainwashing or persuasion."

The Justice Ministry's legal opinion, written by attorney Ravid Dekel, asserts that, "the more widespread and threatening the phenomenon of missionary activity becomes, the less suitable is criminal law the means to combat it. It appears that education and information campaigns are more worthy and efficient."

In a particularly infuriating statement, Dekel adds: "The attempt to convince a person and even to encourage him to convert out of his religion, as is the attempt to convince him to change other beliefs and outlooks, is legitimate and worthy of being protected in a democratic society as part of freedom of expression."

In response, Yad L'Achim's founding chairman, Harav Shalom Dov Lifschitz, issued a strongly worded letter to the justice minister, saying that the attorney who drafted the opinion erred in his understanding of the problem.

"Just as the Knesset saw fit to draft laws against the enemies of our people in areas related to the well-being, security and future of the Jewish people in the state of Israel, so too lawmakers must draft legislation against the enemies of our people, the missionaries, who want to destroy the remnant and memory of the Jewish people and convert them to Christianity," he wrote.

"There is no doubt that if the security forces came upon people who incited to violence against the state, they would use the law to act against them and not be concerned about impinging on their freedom of expression. In our view, this must be the attitude missionaries who seek the spiritual destruction of Jews and thus to harm the soul of the Jewish nation."

Yad L'Achim officials reacted with scorn to the recommendation that missionary activity can most effectively be combated through education and information campaigns. "It's true that education and information campaigns help, but state schools provide very little education about Judaism and make it very difficult for Yad L'Achim to gain access to schools to explain about the very real threat of missionaries."

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