RCA’s Rabbi Basil Herring and Rabbi Seth Farber, an advocate for those converting, disagree on demanding certification for past conversions.
by Michele Chabin Israel Correspondent
Jerusalem — Now it’s official. Orthodox converts whose conversion rabbi belonged to the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), but who did not request an ishur, or official conversion endorsement, from the Beit Din of America (BDA) may find their conversions scrutinized not only by the Chief Rabbinate in Israel, but by rabbis in the U.S. and around the world, The Jewish Week has learned. The BDA is the rabbinical court that works in conjunction with the RCA. While there have always been such long-distance inquiries between rabbis, say those close to the conversion issue, the Chief Rabbinate’s recent refusal to automatically recognize diaspora conversions performed by RCA rabbis has heightened concerns worldwide over a conversion’s validity. “This isn’t just an issue of Israeli recognition,” Rabbi
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Basil Herring, the RCA’s executive vice president, said in an interview this week. “Someone who is converted in, say, Chicago or Dallas or Miami and moves to Teaneck or Toronto or Queens may find that rabbis there ask, ‘Who converted you?’ “That’s why the new agreement is so important,” Rabbi Herring said of the protocols and procedures signed recently by the RCA and Chief Rabbinate that will put the conversion process in the U.S. solely in the hands of centralized rabbinic courts and approved rabbis. Though the agreement should eliminate doubt for future RCA-affiliated converts because it creates strict uniform standards that will be recognized in both countries and presumably by most rabbinical authorities around the world, those who converted in the past may not be so fortunate. “If some rabbi in Israel, England, Australia calls us and says someone came in with a conversion certificate, the question is, ‘Is there an ishur accompanying the certificate?’” If not, Rabbi Herring said, the convert will need to decide whether to seek the ishur retroactively. Some fear the retroactive process will cause a great deal of anxiety for many of the thousands of Orthodox converts, and their children, who have been living as Jews, sometimes for decades. Still others worry that a thorough re-examination of the conversion — in some cases according to stricter standards than the ones initially applied — could render some conversions null and void. The fact that large numbers of RCA-affiliated rabbis failed to procure an ishur for their conversions isn’t all that surprising. Although the RCA issued a series of conversion guidelines to its member rabbis in the early 1990s, the rabbis “were urged” but not required “to follow these procedures,” Rabbi Herring said. “The RCA is unable to enforce these kinds of things. Many, most rabbis followed these guidelines, but some did not.” Five or six years ago, Rabbi Herring continued, the RCA told its rabbis that in order to receive a conversion ishur, they had to attest, in writing, “that they had followed the RCA guidelines, that the convert was committed to fulfilling Jewish laws, that if the convert was an adopted child, the parents were committed to certain things,” such as providing 12 years of yeshiva education. “Our policy today is that any good conversion that was done in the past continues to be a good conversion,” Rabbi Herring said in a tone meant to reassure. Exactly what constitutes a “good” conversion, and who will decide this, is the crux of the matter. In a Jewish Week Opinion piece (March 7) on the new RCA/Rabbinate agreement, Rabbi Barry Freundel, spiritual leader of Kesher Israel Synagogue in Washington, D.C. and chair of the RCA committee dealing with this issue, wrote that “nothing in this system is designed to change anyone’s previous status as a convert. Those who went through a legitimate process are still Jewish and the regional courts are not charged under this system with reviewing or examining any of these past conversions.” Others see it differently. Demanding certification on past conversions performed by RCA members “opens up a Pandora’s Box,” believes Rabbi Seth Farber, founder of ITIM, an Israeli organization that handles, among other things, numerous cases of converts needing to prove their Jewishness. “Practically speaking, how many generations back will such an investigation need to certify? What happens when all the rabbis are dead and can’t vouch for their conversions?” Rabbi Farber asked. In some cases, he said, families that were fully committed to Orthodoxy at the time of their conversion but who are now less religiously observant “could be written out of the Jewish community.” Validating a decades’ old conversion can be extremely difficult, Rabbi Farber said, and gave an example of a 1970s case where the rabbi has passed away and the other two did not include their last names on the document and have not been found. Rabbi Farber said his group is “having a very difficult time getting the conversion certified.” Rabbi Herring insisted that “if a beit din said, ‘We looked and saw the convert’s serious commitment to Judaism but at some subsequent point fell down [spiritually], that would not invalidate the conversion.” If, however, the convert “was at no time sincere, if the convert went shopping at the mall the Shabbat after her conversion, that would be grounds for invalidating the conversion.” Another key question, Rabbi Herring said, is whether the conversion court judges were “reliable.” “Were they able at the time of the conversion to make what would be considered a reliable decision as to whether a candidate truly wanted to live a Jewish life? Just because I say it’s a good conversion doesn’t guarantee my conversions are to be automatically respected, even if I’m a member of the RCA.” Rabbi Herring said the RCA has no plans to ask converts to request an ishur. “We’re not telling them to do this. We don’t want to raise any unnecessary concerns and fears. We’re not in the business of undermining past conversions.” Ultimately, Rabbi Herring said, “its up to the convert” to decide whether or not to delve into the past. “Some may feel, ‘I’m happy with what I have.’ On the other hand, they may want to cross the T’s and dot the I’s. Being certified kosher “might help them sleep more soundly,” the rabbi said.
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