January 23, 2013

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A dual American-Israeli citizen who was elected to the Knesset will have to give up his American citizenship when he takes office.

Rabbi Dov Lipman, elected Jan. 22 to the Knesset from the Yesh Atid party, is the third U.S. citizen to serve in the Knesset and the first to voluntarily give up his citizenship, Haaretz reported. 

Lipman is No. 17 on the list of the party headed by former television personality Yair Lapid; the party garnered the second highest vote total.

Lipman, of Beit Shemesh, immigrated to Israel from Silver Spring, Md., eight years ago.

Rabbi Meir Kahane was stripped of his U.S. citizenship in 1984 after being sworn in to the Knesset. His attempts to regain his U.S. citizenship failed.

Other Israeli Americans who gave up their citizenship to serve the Israeli government include Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel, and Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador in Washington. 

Israel’s Basic Law requires that a Knesset member with a second citizenship do “everything required on his part to be released from such citizenship.”
 

Help us tell the Jewish story with reporting from around the world. Please donate to JTA.

Click to write a letter to the editor.

This article was made possible by the support of readers like you. Donate to JTA now.