RCA Raps New Conversion Ruling

Leading Orthodox rabbinic group says decision that could undo thousands of conversions is ‘beyond the pale.’

Rabbi Seth Farber, an advocate for converts in Israel, says the possible invalidation of thousands of conversions is causing a panic among people whose status is questioned.

by Michele Chabin
Israel Correspondent

Jerusalem — In an unusually bold move, the New York-based Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), the leading Orthodox rabbinical group in the U.S., blasted the High Rabbinical Court of Israel on Tuesday for threatening to invalidate all conversions performed by the country’s Conversion Authority, which is under the leadership of Rabbi Haim Druckman.
Last week judges in the High Rabbinical Court ruled that a conversion performed by Rabbi Druckman’s institute 15 years ago was not kosher because the convert reportedly never led an observant Jewish life.
The judges then decided to call into question every one of the thousands of conversions performed by the Conversion Authority, which was established by the Prime Minister’s Office nine years ago to expedite the conversion process. Rabbi Druckman is

a former Knesset member and head of a Religious Zionist yeshiva in Israel.
The ruling has sent many converts into a panic, according to Rabbi Seth Farber, director of ITIM, an organization in Israel that helps potential converts and others deal with Israeli bureaucracy.
“Our phone is ringing off the hook. People are very concerned about their status,” Rabbi Farber told The Jewish Week.
The judges made their ruling without consulting Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar, who is also the president of the High Rabbinical Court. Rabbi Amar, who has demanded that diaspora conversions adhere to a higher, more uniform standard (and recently brokered a deal with the RCA to establish more stringent criteria and conversion courts) was nonetheless outraged by the ruling and said he considered it invalid, according to news reports.
In a May 6 statement, the RCA said the ruling, its language and tone “are entirely beyond the pale of acceptable halachic practice, violate numerous Torah laws regarding converts and their families, create a massive desecration of God’s name, insult outstanding rabbinic leaders and halachic scholars in Israel, and are a reprehensible cause of widespread conflict and animosity within the Jewish people in Israel and abroad.
“The RCA is appalled that such a ruling has been issued by that court.”
According to the statement, Rabbi Amar assured the RCA that the judges acted without his approval.
Rabbi Amar “has confirmed that the ruling has no legal standing at this time.”
It is unclear, though, whether Rabbi Amar has the authority to invalidate the ruling.
Roughly 300,000 Israeli immigrants from the former Soviet Union and elsewhere are not Jewish according to Jewish law, and the government fears that if they are not converted, they will become a demographic time bomb. The state established the Authority because the Rabbinate often forced potential converts to wait years for their conversions, and many were not approved.
Last week’s ruling is considered so dire that Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann is drawing up a bill that would allow the Rabbinic Court of Appeals to “rehear important cases with an expanded panel of judges,” according to Haaretz. If passed, the law would apply retroactively to the High Rabbinical Court’s recent ruling. A special meeting on the matter was also held Tuesday at the Knesset.
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, one of the judges who rendered the ruling said, “We have to wait and see how the rabbinic community reacts to the decision. It could be that tomorrow, marriage registrars will stop registering converts who went through Rabbi Druckman’s courts. Some might even refrain from recognizing all conversions done by the Authority.”
All matters related to Jewish marriage and divorce in Israel are in the hands of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. It remains to be seen whether Rabbinate employees will heed Rabbi Amar’s directives or follow the judges’ ruling.
“Rabbi Amar’s office has assured me the matter will be resolved,” Rabbi Farber said. It appears to be a power play,” he said, between the haredi world, which is highly suspicious of converts, and religious Zionists, who consider the conversion of non-Jewish immigrants an important national goal.
“They seem to want to get an ultra-Orthodox person in to run the Authority,” Rabbi Farber said of haredi leaders.
Farber said his group, ITIM, is working with the Knesset Law Committee to advance legislation “that will guarantee the status of converts over the long term.”

See Opinion piece on High Rabbinical Court ruling and the recent RCA-Chief Rabbinate deal on conversions on page 26.

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