The UK introduced laws last year that are also on the theme of gender discrimination and righting the consequence of deprivation of rights in previous generations [0]. It was only about 5 years ago that rights afforded by matrilineal descent were brought in line with patrilineal descent.
Israel’s Law of Return stills favor matrilineal descent (because of halakhic law) even though it is partially open to patrilineal descent now. Also you lose the Law of Return even if you have 100% Jewish ancestry but officially convert to a different religion.
It’s to be expected somewhat, but the way Israel mixes religion and policy creates a ton of complexity. Just look up how marriages work.
The Law of Return does not distinguish patrilineal from matrilineal descent. Indeed, most such immigrants are not Jewish by religious law, even if ethnically they have that connection.
My understanding of the Law of Return is that matrilineally you can prove Jewishness by going arbitrarily far back on the female line, but that patrilineally (or otherwise not fully matrilineally) you can only go back as far as your grandparents.
That’s consistent with it probably not affecting most people + still allowing for people who do not meet the traditional religious criteria to exercise the Law of Return, but not the same as the treatments being the same.
According to my understanding, if for example my great grandfather was Jewish, but married to a Catholic, and raised their son (my grandfather) as a Catholic, who then was for all intents and purposes a fully practicing Catholic thus raising my parent the same way, I wouldn’t be eligible for the law of return. But if I could show my mother’s mother’s mother’s … mother was Jewish I would be eligible, even if this is more than 2 generations.
For most people raised Jewish I doubt it matters much but it does change things a lot for people of mixed Jewish ancestry whose parents/grandparents were not practicing. Which is a pretty decent number of people in the US and former Soviet Union
The most famous example is Winston Churchill, whose mother was American, but under the laws of the time US nationality could only be passed on by the father.
[0] https://freemovement.org.uk/claiming-british-citizenship-thr...