Understanding the Latest Conversion Crisis

Over the last two weeks a parliamentary drama has been playing out in Israel. MK David Rotem tried to push a law through the Knesset reshaping the way Israel handles conversion to Judaism. Israel Beitenu, his secular, right-wing party, draws support largely from immigrants from the FSU, and, naturally, seeks to further their interests. Among FSU immigrants there are an estimated 300,000 who are not Jewish according to traditional Halakhah, generally because their fathers, but not their mothers, were Jewish. Among these are some 90,000 young people born in Israel. When they seek conversion, they often face ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) rabbis who dominate the state rabbinical courts. In line with the Haredi concept of conversion, few candidates meet the requirements. Moreover, in recent years the Haredi rabbinate has increasingly utilized the questionable practice of retroactively cancelling conversions.

Enter MK Rotem. His bill was originally aimed at opening the current conversion logjam. In that sense, it is the latest in a number of proposals that include Professor Benny Ish-Shalom’s proposal of an independent conversion authority; Shas MK Chaim Amsalem’s plan to ease the conversion of descendents of Jews; and IDF initiatives aimed at soldiers serving in the Israeli army.

Rotem’s innovation is to transfer authority to a new rabbinical conversion court system under the direct supervision of the Chief Rabbinate. This would entail the appointment of new rabbis with more lenient approaches.

But very quickly, Haredi influence combined with substantial ignorance about Diaspora Jewry to create another of those missteps whereby the Israeli political system thoughtlessly undermines trust and mutual understanding with the Diaspora.

As Rotem negotiated in the Knesset, he tightened the bill to make it more palatable to the Haredi MKs. In so doing, he rode roughshod over the sensibilities of many Israeli Jews and the 80-90% of Diaspora Jewry who are not Orthodox.

Key problems with the proposal:

• Shas, a Haredi Party, fears mass conversions of migrant workers seeking to remain in Israel. While there is little evidence that this concern is realistic, a section was added to the Rotem proposal declaring that persons not eligible for Israeli citizenship through the Law of Return and who converted in Israel would remain ineligible. For the first time in Jewish history, this would create two different statuses of Jews, one of them denied the right to Israeli citizenship.
• The Chief Rabbinate is established as the only authority in Israel on matters of conversion. Two objections apply here.
  • The current Chief Rabbinate is dominated by the Haredi community. Each Chief Rabbi acknowledges submission to a more authoritative Haredi rabbi. This section, then, would effectively give the Haredi rabbinate total control of the new conversion courts, rendering the reform moot.
  • This section also explicitly grants the Chief Rabbinate the power to review the validity in Israel of conversions conducted anywhere in the world by any Jewish community. Rotem insists that for the purposes of the secular “Law of Return” an overseas non-Orthodox conversion will still suffice, but the law is clear that for any other purpose related to personal status in Israel the non-Orthodox denominations would be disempowered. To that extent, it seems fair to speak of them being delegitimized by an official law of the State of Israel, with effect on their standing even in their home countries.
• The authority to cancel a conversion would be limited to a special panel of the conversion court appointed by the Chief Rabbinate. At first glance this looks like a step forward, but on further examination it anchors in law the reprehensible practice of retroactively cancelling conversion. The problem is real and could ultimately be widespread. Recently, Haredi rabbinical court rabbis narrowly failed to retroactively cancel some 15,000 Israeli conversions carried out by another rabbi to whom they objected.

Rotem exacerbated the negative impact of his proposal when he sought to pass it by a surprise move, before opposition could organize. This combination of the bill’s content with bullying tactics generated heated anger in Diaspora communities and also in Israel. 

In discussions late into the night on Monday, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (who heads Yisrael Beitenu) are understood to have agreed to withdraw the bill for this session, delaying it by at least two months until the Knesset reconvenes. This may be a face-saving way to kill the proposal permanently, but only time will tell.

Justifiably angered Diaspora Jews should bear in mind that while this bill represents misguided tendencies in Israel, it was Israelis who ultimately brought about its defeat. The Jewish Agency, under Natan Sharansky, led the fight in Israel to stop the bill, and Israeli MKs assured its withdrawal. 

This controversy is the latest in a series of incidents highlighting a profound misunderstanding of Diaspora concerns and red lines by some in the Israeli establishment. AJC has sought over the years to close this gap – through education, exchange programs, and a range of public and private communications. The Rotem bill demonstrates more clearly than ever that more needs to be done.

first published at http://bit.ly/1mnxhBs