Aaron HowardJewish Harold Voice
Jewish community newspaper serving the Houston and Texas Gulf Coast area since 1908

A bill before the Israeli Knesset that would give full authority for conversions to the Chief Rabbinate is causing a huge controversy in Israel and in the United States.The Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved 5-4, on first reading to plenum on July 12, a bill that would give the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate a monopoly on conversions to Judaism. The bill must go before second and third readings before being brought to a vote in the Knesset and can be revised during the process.

Under current practice, Israel recognizes only conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis inside Israel. But, under the Law of Return, people converted by non-Orthodox rabbis outside the country are automatically eligible for Israeli citizenship like other Jews. The proposed legislation would give Israel’s chief rabbinate the legal power to decide whether any conversion outside Israel is legitimate.

The groups most likely to be affected would be about a half-million immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union and those who converted to Judaism abroad and could now be denied Israeli citizenship.

The bill, supported by various religious and right-wing parties, essentially would give the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate the power to decide who is Jewish and who is not. At the same time, it would delegitimize non-Orthodox rabbis outside Israel. Opponents of the bill say that passage of the bill would defeat efforts to promote a more flexible and Halakhic conversion process and would marginalize the non-Orthodox Jewish movements.

The bill has set off a storm in and outside Israel.

“I understand the concern of the Conservative and Reform movement,” said Rabbi Barry Gelman. “From the perspective of Israel, it is already a fact that the rabbinate controls conversions in Israel. They also have retroactively nullified conversions. They have already been notoriously well-known for deciding which conversions are good and which are not good – that is, not acceptable according to Halakha.

”Rabbi Gelman is senior rabbi of United Orthodox Synagogues and president of the International Rabbinic Fellowship, a worldwide organization of rabbis founded to promote Modern Orthodoxy and serious study of Torah and Halakha and to advocate policies and implement actions on behalf of World Jewry and humankind.

“The key here, which is why I’m not so concerned yet, is what this bill does is turn into law what, in fact, is already being done,” said Rabbi Gelman. “So, how much is really being lost in that part of the negotiations? That remains to be seen, which is why I’m not ready to stand squarely behind the bill.

“On the plus side, the bill would allow city rabbis in Israel to perform conversions without the need to work with the Chief Rabbinate’s rabbinical courts. That could help in two ways. One, which is significant, is it could help liberalize the conversion standards so that the close to half-million Russian immigrants who are of Jewish stock – if not Halakhicly Jewish – can convert. The new bill is taking an approach to conversion that would not necessarily require complete mitzvah observance.

“Second, the bill will generally offer a more realistic and, in many cases, a user-friendly process for everybody.

So, there is a lot of plus side.

“The American movements are looking at the bill from the American perspective. There are very few Reform or Conservative conversions done in Israel. This bill could be the answer to the problem that many people in Israel have been complaining about. But, because it may call into question some conversions done in Israel, it has caused an uproar.

”Because of the possible upsides to the legislation, Rabbi Gelman explained that he was not ready to condemn the bill. He was hopeful that Conservative and Reform movement leaders, who have arrived in Israel on Sunday to lobby the bill’s chief sponsor, Israeli Beiteinu MK David Rotem, will find a way to alter the language in a way that is more acceptable to American critics.

One important question raised by Religious Zionists: Does the Chief Rabbinate understand their responsibility toward making conversion a realistic possibility for these half-million Russian Jews?

And, a second question raised by the Conservative and Reform movements in the United States: Does this bill disenfranchise the majority of American Jews?Rabbi Gelman argues there are well-established Halakhic ways to make the conversion process doable for these Russian Jews.

“These are not necessarily methods we would use for individual converts,” he cautioned. “But because the issue of these Russian Jews and the future of their children as well as the future of the state is affected, the rabbinate should be exercising nationalist or Religious Zionist Halakhic thinking. They should realize their decision would affect the entire country.

“We have handed the keys to the kingdom to anti-Zionists.

“But, there are city rabbis who are Zionist. There are city rabbis who understand what needs to be done in regards to converting these Russian Jews. So, that’s why I think the bill has an upside for the state. I understand it has a downside for Reform and Conservative Jews.

”Danny Horwitz, rabbi of the Greenfield Chapel at Beth Yeshurun, has been a Conservative pulpit rabbi for 30 years. He views the conversion bill as a move fraught with political peril.

“Sometimes, power politics takes precedence over what’s best for the citizens – in this case, members of the Jewish people,” said Rabbi Horwitz. “The bill is designed to place total control over the definition of Jewish identity in the hands of the Chief Rabbinate, probably the most extreme ultra-Orthodox element in Israel with any power. Not only will this be a problem in terms of recognizing conversions, but in its current form, it could affect the status of people who want to make aliyah. The rabbinate has the desire to maintain control over conversions. But, they have also retroactively annulled conversions.

“The bill maintains a certain amount of power and employment within the ultra-Orthodox community. But, as we know, the current situation of the ultra-Orthodox community is not sustainable. A majority from the ultra-Orthodox community does not work. So, where does their money come from? It must come from the government. They currently have a certain amount of votes in the Knesset. But, I also foresee a situation in 10 to 20 years where you may reach a point where 50 percent of the people who are 18 years old won’t serve in the army.

”For Conservative and Reform Jews throughout the world, the bill makes no sense, argues Rabbi Horwitz.

“Given Israel’s need to deal with much more existential problems, it doesn’t make sense that Israel would create this kind of slap in the face to the communities of Jews who have stood behind Israel. That’s part of the reason why [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu came out on Sunday against the bill.

“However, I don’t take it for granted just because he came out against the bill that it may fail.

”Rabbi Horwitz also views the conversion bill as harmful to Modern Orthodox interests. “In general, modern Orthodox have allowed the status quo in Israel to continue,” he said. “They have hoped they would remain legitimized – that their conversions would remain legitimized by the Chief Rabbinate. Now, many of them are having their conversions rejected by the Israeli rabbinate. In my judgment, if they don’t stand up for the rights of those who are being undermined, they will also be squeezed out of the business of conversions.

”What should American Jews do? Rabbi Horwitz suggests that U.S. Jews must make a separation between those existential issues and the conversion bill.

“We have to stand with Israel,” he said. “But, we also have to be willing to say to Israel: This is not the kind of Israel we want to see. You can’t expect young American Jews to support a people whose thinking is the same ilk as the folks in Tehran. When you have women attacked for carrying a sefer Torah at the Western Wall, that’s not going to warm the hearts of American Jews. It’s not realistic for Israel to expect that every Jew will give them a pass for this behavior and allow Judaism to be defined by its most extreme elements.

“Ben-Gurion said in 1939, when the British created the White Paper: ‘We will fight the Nazis as if there was no White Paper and fight the White Paper as if there were no Nazis.’

“I think we ought to fight the enemies of Israel as if we didn’t have this internal problem in Israel. And, we ought to deal with the internal problem of freedom of religion in Israel as if she did not have external enemies.”

What should have been the happiest time of Sagit’s life turned into a nightmare. According to their documents, her mother and grandmother are Jewish and her parents were married by a Chabad rabbi, but even so, she’s being asked to convert in order to marry. The new regulations provide that this can happen to you too!

Rivkah Lubitch
Ynet News

Sagit (not her real name) and her fiancé are getting married in September. At least that’s what they thought till now. But there’s a small detail standing between them and the hoped-for wedding: confirmation that Sagit, whose parents married as Jews in Israel years ago, is Jewish. Until Sagit manages to prove she’s Jewish to an investigator of the rabbinic court she won’t be able to get married in the State of Israel. This case is an example of the implications of the new guidelines that the Office of the Chief Rabbi of Israel published last week, regarding the possibility of holding inquiries into the Jewishness of any person. In the wake of my article about the new guidelines, Sagit called and told me her story. She came on aliyah with her parents when she was 9 and has been living in Israel for 19 years. Even though her family wasn’t observant in Russia, everyone in Mogilov, Belarus, knew they were a Jewish family. When she registered to get married, she was sent to a rabbinic court investigator. The investigator, who apparently was particularly unfriendly, asked to see documentation. Sagit and her mother presented the birth certificates of Sagit’s mother and her grandmother in both of which it was written that they were Jews. This should have been enough. It’s true that the documents were replicas and not originals, as is the case with most of the documents of immigrants from Russia, but the mother’s document was a replica from 1958, when she was 12 years old (at that time, who would have considered forging a document in order to add that she was Jewish?) Regarding the replica of the grandmother’s document, testimony was brought before the court in Mogilov that the grandmother was known to be Jewish and that her parents had been killed in the ghetto. But the rabbinic court in Israel isn’t prepared to accept the ruling of the court in Mogilov. After checking with the archives of the offices in Mogilov, it turned out that they don’t retain original documents from before 1962.

‘Convert? Why should I convert, I’m Jewish!’

The rabbinic court investigator sent Sagit to the project “Shoreshim” run by the organization “Tzohar.” They also didn’t receive her kindly there. According to her, the investigator said something like “I really hope that you are telling the whole truth” or “think very, very carefully about what you’re saying.” At the end of the day Tzohar’s investigator told her “I could have helped you more if you had come to me first.”

Sagit’s questions are excellent. I don’t have any answers. Another interesting part of the story is that Sagit’s parents were married according to religious law by Rabbi Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi, the rabbi of Kfar Chabad, after their aliyah to Israel. In Russia there weren’t Jewish weddings, and her parents were happy about the idea of holding a religious wedding ceremony after they came to Israel. No one forced them to do it. They did it because they are Jewish. The rabbi of Kfar Chabad would not have officiated at their wedding if he hadn’t looked into the matter, with the help of Russian speakers, and ascertained that they were indeed Jewish. When they told the investigator this, he said: “That’s not evidence. They didn’t know how to investigate then, and they couldn’t have known if your parents were Jewish or not.”

The investigator suggested that she convert. “Convert? Why should I convert, I’m Jewish!,” Sagit says. Even from the purely religious perspective this is an outrage. Who knows how many Jews will “turn into” non-Jews because of some investigator who thinks that a particular document is insufficient to prove that they’re Jews. I wonder: Could the investigator prove that he’s Jewish? Can the dayanim - who are now questioning whether tens of thousands of people are Jewish – prove that they’re Jews? Is this something that can even be proven? Let the Jew who can prove that he’s Jewish step forward. In fact, other than someone who has a certificate of conversion, there is no Jew in the world who can prove he’s Jewish. Rivka Lubitch is a rabbinic pleader who works at the Center for Women’s Justice , tel. 02-5664390.