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Federation head attacks plans to change Israeli conversion system
Move would encourage lower Orthodox conversion standards worldwide, Rabbi Zimmerman warns
January 28, 2022 11:10
Move would encourage lower Orthodox conversion standards worldwide, Rabbi Zimmerman warns
January 28, 2022 11:10The religious head of the Federation of Synagogues has condemned changes to conversion policy planned by the Israeli government, calling it a “travesty” that will create division in the Jewish world.
In a statement, Rabbi Shraga Feivel Zimmerman attacked the proposed move to allow conversions to be approved by local town rabbis in Israel rather than remain solely under the authority of the country’s Chief Rabbinate.
The change is widely seen as a way to introduce greater flexibility into the Orthodox conversion system.
But Rabbi Zimmerman said if it were introduced, “the halachic validity of many conversions will no longer be assured”, causing “unnecessary pain and distress” to many conversion candidates.
The Chief Rabbinate, he said, had been largely responsible for maintaining “the eternal and uniform halachic standard” for conversion and had meant that they have “acted as guardians of halachic standards for diaspora Jewry”.
The proposed changes “dilute the Chief Rabbinate’s oversight and will encourage lower standards of geirus [conversion] worldwide, creating great division and difficulty in confirming Jewish status for future generations”.
He added, “This is a travesty that will have ramifications that will be regretted for eternity and must be forcefully opposed”.
The leaders of the Strictly Orthodox Agudath Israel in the USA also criticised the proposal this week, saying it would result in “invalid conversions where the convert does not properly accept upon himself the obligations of Torah and mitzvos”.
Conversion has been a vexed issue for decades in Israel with critics of the status quo saying that the standards of the Chief Rabbinate are unrealistically high.
Up to half a million Russians in Israel are thought to remain in an identity limbo because although they may live a secular Jewish lifestyle, they are not considered halachically Jewish by the rabbinate – meaning, for example, they could not have an officially recognised Jewish marriage in Israel.
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