17 July 2000

Middle East
Catholic poet wings fight to leave Israel

A Jewish-born poet in   Israel who was denied citizenship because of her conversion to Catholicism   has finally been given leave to settle elsewhere, Joshua Brown writes from   Tel Aviv.

Hailed as "an outstanding   and unusual phenomenon" by one critic, Regina Derieva, aged 50, is a prolific   composer of religious poetry who came to Israel in 1991 to escape Soviet censorship.   Mrs. Derieva believed that she qualified for Israeli citizenship under the   country's so-called Law of Return which automatically grants Israeli   citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent. The law, however,   does not apply to Jews who have actively embraced another faith. By   converting to Catholicism in 1990, Regina Derieva had effectively made   herself ineligible.

It was not until they had   arrived in Israel that Mrs. Derieva and her husband became fully aware of the   law's implications. "On the forms, they asked us to put down our religion",   she told The Tablet. "Of course, we wrote Catholic. The clerk handed   us back the forms and suggested that we write in something else, anything but   Christian. We refused. We consider it shameful to hide the faith. It is not a   crime to believe in Jesus Christ."

The Israeli High Court   supported the ministry's position. Meanwhile, with the collapse of the Soviet   Union, the Derievs were effectively rendered stateless. Intervention by the   local papal delegates failed to produce a solution.

Without valid papers, the   family encountered numerous difficulties. On his way to school in Arab East   Jerusalem, Mrs. Derieva's son Denis would pray to the Virgin Mary that nobody   would ask him to identify himself at the military checkpoint along the way.   "It was a miracle", he said. "Everybody else, they asked, but me they always   let go without checking."

Unable to work, the   Derievs were supported by local Catholic clergy. They lived, rent-free, at   Tantur Ecumenical Institute, on a hilltop overlooking Bethlehem.

"I left the Soviet Union   to escape persecution", Regina Derieva complained, ?only to find myself more   persecuted." But "my suffering has made me stronger and my experience has   given me a lot to write about. I would never have been able to produce so   much without it."

The Government of   Israel's change of heart is said to have risen from negative publicity   surrounding the case. The Derievs are hoping to settle in Sweden, where they   are currently guests of the country's Catholic and Lutheran bishops.