Subscribe to Print Edition | Sun., May 31, 2009 Sivan 8, 5769 | | Israel Time: 02:34 (EST+7)
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Jerusalem & Babylon / Conversion is not a political football
By Anshel Pfeffer
Tags: israel news

The Book of Ruth that will be read in synagogues tomorrow morning, like everything else in the Tanakh, can be interpreted in various, often contradicting, ways. But in my eyes the prevailing message will always be one of human compassion, told through the story of an unbreakable bond between two widows and the acceptance of an alien woman into a tribal community.

It would be pointless to pontificate the yawning chasm between the tolerance Ruth encountered upon joining the Jewish people and the walls of antipathy the religious establishment has erected in the face of those who would join us today. Any such comparison disregards the fact that not only are we separated from Ruth by some three thousand years, but also rabbinical Judaism today, for better or worse, is a religion totally different from whatever they were practicing all those years ago in the fields of Bethlehem. Today's rabbis would never admit it, but nothing Judge Boaz might have done back then could ever have any relevance regarding their rulings.

The issue of giyur (conversion) is upon us once again, and not because it's Shavuot. The two recent Supreme Court rulings, one ordering the government to explain in ninety days why a beth din (rabbinical court) revoked thousands of conversions performed by a special conversion court headed by Rabbi Haim Druckman, and the other mandating that the private Reform and Conservative giyur academies receive the same level of government funding as the Orthodox ones, elicited the expected reactions. The chief rabbis, along with the ultra-Orthodox parties, criticized yet another Supreme Court intervention in religious affairs and called for all giyur activity to be concentrated within the Chief Rabbinate, which for years has been under the sway of the strictest leaders of ultra-Orthodox stream.
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The Reform and Conservative movements naturally rejoiced over their victory, but it is a hollow one. Even if their private academies receive government funding - and with United Torah Judaism's Moshe Gafni at the helm of the Knesset Finance Committee, it's doubtful - this will not help even one of their graduates to be recognized as a Jew by the relevant authorities. They still have the option of reviving their old petition to the Supreme Court, demanding that the Interior Minister register Reform and Conservative gerim (those seeking to convert) as Jews. If successful, this would be a landmark decision, and lead to a major crisis between state and religion.

But in the end, little of significance will change. As long as only the Rabbinate has the authority to marry Jewish couples, they will remain the sole arbiters of who can become part of the Jewish people - and they will never recognize Reform and Conservative gerim. The political landscape doesn't leave us with any illusion that this stranglehold will end in the foreseeable future. Any feasible coalition is reliant on the ultra-Orthodox parties as well as Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu, which purports to represent the 300,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not Jewish by rabbinical law.

Yisrael Beiteinu is proposing two amendments. The first is to allow municipal chief rabbis to perform conversions for their local residents. But this will not lead to any liberalization of the tortuous process, as nearly all the rabbis serving in cities with large communities of Russian immigrants are beholden to the ultra-Orthodox establishment for their appointments. The second initiative is a very limited form of civil marriage which will allow couples in which both partners are not Jewish according to halacha, to marry. This is meaningless; it will only help a very small number of couples and anyway, proving that you are not really Jewish is almost as difficult as proving that you are.

In 2008, giyur was down by 25 percent; the process is just too difficult. Emboldened, some rabbinical courts have even started revoking conversions retroactively, after receiving information that the new Jews weren't observing a strictly religious lifestyle.

So is there hope for any middle ground? This week, Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman addressed a gathering of national-religious organizations trying to liberalize giyur. He had a radical proposal: "We will take dozens of rabbis who served in the IDF and appoint them to special conversion courts where they will serve voluntarily." This is a variation on an idea that's been floating around for the last couple of years, whereby Orthodox rabbis would set up a new, more user-friendly giyur framework - one which would challenge the Chief Rabbinate's control. Many ultra-Orthodox rabbis of course will regard the gerim of these courts as no better than Reform, but it would be enough for even one local rabbi to recognize them and agree to officiate their weddings, thereby shattering the ultra-Orthodox monopoly.

To many this is an attractive idea and it might even work. Just one note of warning. In his address, Neeman said the giyur crisis is "the number one national problem facing Israel, greater than the Iranian threat, to ensure that we stay a Jewish and democratic state" and stressed that conversions are the key "to ensuring the Jewish majority." Whether this line of reasoning makes any political or moral sense is a matter for another column, but if that is Neeman's true objective, he has lost sight of the genuine meaning of giyur.

Converting to Judaism is an intimate and personal transformation, not a political football. If Neeman and others see converts merely as more numbers in the demographics game, they will ultimately fail. A real change in attitude toward those seeking to be accepted into the Jewish people can only happen when we begin treating them as individuals with aspirations of their own. The story of Ruth, Naomi and Boaz teaches us no less
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