Oleg and Olga met two years ago and within three months were talking marriage. Born in former Soviet Union countries, they both immigrated to Israel as toddlers in the early 1990s. They understood\u00a0each others\u2019 cultural references, spoke the same languages, and had common upbringings.<\/p>\n
Except Oleg was born to a home recognized by halacha \u2014 Jewish law \u2014 as Jewish, whereas\u00a0Olga, who has Jewish ancestors on her father\u2019s side, was not.<\/p>\n
As the couple grew more serious, Oleg and Olga enrolled in a state-run conversion course. Oleg\u00a0had been raised in a religious household and attended a religious school in his teens. Though he said he\u2019s no longer religious, he still regularly lays tefillin (phylacteries Jewish males wear\u00a0during morning prayer). In an effort to support Olga, he too paid the\u00a0NIS 750 (about $200) registration fee and joined her in attending\u00a0the twice weekly classes.<\/p>\n
Four months into the program, the couple was summoned to\u00a0a rabbinic judge tasked with assessing their Jewish\u00a0knowledge\u00a0and suitability for the course\u2019s next steps. Since starting the studies, the couple had slowly become more observant\u00a0\u2014 lighting Shabbat candles, making kiddush to welcome Shabbat \u2014 but they were far from the Orthodox judge\u2019s definition of religious.<\/p>\n
Oleg told The Times of Israel this week that talking with\u00a0this rabbi, \u201cthe public face of Judaism,\u201d caused the couple to leave the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was very condescending and asked at one point if we\u2019d gone to church that morning. He said, \u2018Won\u2019t Jesus be upset to know you\u2019re here?\u2019 I felt like he was spitting in our faces,\u201d said Oleg.<\/p>\n
It was important for Oleg and his family, however, that Olga go through a halachic conversion so the couple could\u00a0be married according to Jewish law. And Olga too wanted to religiously affirm\u00a0the\u00a0personal Jewish identity she felt she already had. After\u00a0a thorough Internet search, the couple found an organization to help her.<\/p>\n
Olga underwent\u00a0a halachic Orthodox conversion, complete with a beit din<\/em> (religious court) of respected Israeli rabbis, and immersion in a\u00a0mikveh<\/em> (ritual bath). An Orthodox rabbi was then found to marry the couplein a halachic \u2014 but illegal \u2014 ceremony,\u00a0and the couple flew to Cyprus for a civil marriage. (The State of Israel recognizes foreign civil marriages, but not halachic Jewish marriages conducted domestically by officiants other than\u00a0its chief rabbinate.)<\/p>\n Oleg said he and his family view Olga\u2019s conversion and their wedding as halachically binding and that several\u00a0of their friends are in the process of following suit. But he admitted he worries about the official halachic status of their future children.<\/p>\n There are approximately 400,000 immigrants and children of immigrants\u00a0who are not halachically\u00a0Jewish residing in Israel today. They made aliyah under the law of return, which, following the Nazis\u2019 definition of Jewishness, allows the immigration of anyone who has at least one Jewish grandparent. Today, some\u00a080,000-90,000 such citizens, mostly children of immigrants, are under 18 and\u00a0grew up in Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cThis second generation is indistinguishable from the average Israeli Jew. They are fully Jewish sociologically, culturally, nationally, and even in terms of religious beliefs and traditional religious practices,\u201d said Rabbi Chuck Davidson, a scholar and social activist\u00a0volunteering\u00a0with several nonprofit organizations that\u00a0work\u00a0on conversion reform in Israel.<\/p>\n Lawyer Assaf Benmelech, a board member of the National Zionist political activism organization\u00a0Ne\u2019emanei Torah Va\u2019Avodah (Upholders of\u00a0Torah and Service), said there are\u00a0major halachic opinions which support the\u00a0acceptance of what he calls \u201chalf-Jews\u201d as Jews, \u201cthrough a conversion which shall not place upon\u00a0them\u00a0such strict, tough and sometimes humiliating demands.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are half-Jews \u2014 not recognized by the state and the chief rabbinate \u2014 is a tragedy,\u201d said Benmelech. \u201cEighty years ago, such people were slaughtered in the Holocaust, because the world considered them Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n The Israeli chief rabbinate,\u00a0the\u00a0guardian of the gate for entrance into the Jewish people, is increasingly criticized for putting obstacles before potential converts \u2014 many of whom who have lived in Israel their entire\u00a0lives \u2014 and for spreading its jurisdiction abroad by refusing\u00a0to recognize the authority\u00a0of local\u00a0Orthodox\u00a0rabbis. (Reform and Conservative conversions, while recognized by the Interior Ministry for citizenship purposes, are not considered kosher\u00a0in Israel\u00a0for religious life cycle rites.)<\/p>\n But as\u00a0the chief rabbinate\u2019s\u00a0approach becomes more halachically stringent, should it be the only body to determine who is a Jew for a majority non-Orthodox population?\u00a0This emotionally charged question inflames worldwide Jewry \u2014 and just may be the cause of a\u00a0lasting wedge between Diaspora\u00a0and Israeli Jews.<\/p>\n While\u00a0the government\u2019s coalition talks with ultra-Orthodox parties draw to a close and a cabinet decision promoting local conversion courts from\u00a0the previous \u201csecular\u201d government looks\u00a0to\u00a0be overturned, separation of church and state activists worry for contemporary Jewry. In Israel and abroad, many leaders are calling for religious civil disobedience.<\/p>\n In an oped article on Orthodox\u00a0website Kipa this week, Rabbi Haim Amsalem called for the formation of halachic conversion courts\u00a0operating independently of the chief rabbinate.<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps at last, courageous and influential rabbis who until now sat on the sidelines\u00a0will find in themselves the strength of character\u00a0and fortitude to decide upon the foundation of an independent conversion court system that will be run according to halacha, not politics,\u201d wrote the exiled former\u00a0Shas politician-turned-social-reformer.<\/p>\n Amsalem claimed that even without the chief rabbinate\u2019s approval, \u201cthe people of Israel would recognize\u201d\u00a0these Jews-by-choice, and that the independent conversion would eventually be considered kosher for purposes of marriage among the majority of the national religious population.<\/p>\n Amsalem wrote that a kosher halachic conversion is simply one done under the auspices of three learned rabbis, with circumcision\u00a0for men, immersion in the mikveh, and an honest acceptance of the mitzvot. \u201cThis conversion would be binding and there is no force in the world that could revoke it.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Rabbi Seth\u00a0Farber, the head of the Itim organization which helps Israelis navigate the rabbinate\u2019s bureaucracy, there are already four Orthodox rabbinical courts doing halachic conversions that are not recognized by the state.<\/p>\n \u201cThese people want to be Jewish, and want to be married outside of the rabbinate.\u00a0You can\u2019t question these people\u2019s incentive in converting because they don\u2019t derive any benefits from it,\u201d said Farber.<\/p>\n The rabbinical court system, said Farber, is a system operating without checks and balances\u00a0or\u00a0meaningful oversight.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the first time in history that an Orthodox minority rules over a non-Orthodox majority and coerces them and forces them to do what they want. How sustainable is a Jewish democratic society when the Jewish dimensions of society are being sold wholesale to an extreme population group that makes the decisions,\u201d asked Farber.<\/p>\n Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs MK Eli Ben Dahan\u2019s spokesperson declined to comment for this article, as did Jewish Home party head, Diaspora Minister Naftali Bennett.<\/p>\n Director of the Ministry of Religious Services\u2019 Conversion Authority Yaron Catane told The Times of Israel that the conversion courts are guided by the Israeli chief rabbinate, and act only according to the rules of conversion set by the halacha.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is much importance of maintaining uniformity among the Jewish people, especially in the issue of accepting a person as a Jew. Without this uniformity the Jewish people will be divided, as one group will reject the other and people won\u2019t be able to marry with one another,\u201d said Catane. \u201cThis uniformity could be achieved only by the chief rabbinate, the centralized government-affiliated body that assesses the halachic status of Jews in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEstablishing private conversion courts will create different groups and levels of conversion which would not be recognized, thus disintegrating the Jewish people in Israel and undermining the basic principle of the establishment of the Jewish State,\u201d said head of the Conversion Authority Catane.<\/p>\n There have been a slew of recent headline-grabbing cases in the last year which illustrate Farber\u2019s frustration. In one, a rabbinic\u00a0court revoked a convert\u2019s conversion in a case that made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld the revocation.\u00a0These are not isolated cases.<\/p>\n Susan Weiss was the lawyer for Yonit Erez, a European immigrant\u00a0whose conversion was revoked after\u00a0a decade-long court battle sparked by testimony from her ex-husband that Erez was no longer religiously observant. Weiss\u00a0is the founder and executive director of the Center for Women\u2019s Justice, which takes on such cases, as well as\u00a0those of agunot (women whose husbands will not grant them a religious divorce) and other situations of potential difficulty in the overlap between church and state.<\/p>\n In a conversion with Weiss in her modest Jerusalem office following the Supreme Court decision, she described a situation that is, \u201cliterally, an Inquisition. Persons can inform state courts that they suspect that a convert is not obeying the commandments, and the state rabbinic court will act as investigator, police, prosecutor and judge, all rolled into one, often based on hearsay information.\u201d<\/p>\n If\u00a0Erez is\u00a0indeed no longer religiously observant, she is hardly the only convert in this situation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe vast majority of converts converted through the rabbinate do not come out \u2018religious.\u2019 As a result, the rabbinate has created a game of wink-wink,\u201d said conversion activist Davidson, a Baltimore transplant. \u201cWe are currently teaching converts that the way into Judaism is via dishonesty. I can\u2019t think of a greater desecration of God\u2019s name.\u201d<\/p>\n Also worrisome\u00a0is the potential persecution of converts by those who may have vested interests \u2014 such as Erez\u2019s ex-husband \u2014 and who can activate government bodies\u00a0through a mere rumor.<\/p>\n \u201cSupreme Court judges, instead of protecting the individual and harmonizing the Jewish nature of the state with its democratic nature, the court is compromising on its democratic values, making Israel seem more and more like a theocracy,\u201d said Weiss, clearly passionate about perceived injustice in the recent court decision.<\/p>\n \u201cConverts are being hunted,\u201d said Weiss, in what she said was tantamount to both a culture war and a turf war. The rabbinic courts want to protect the purity of the religious polity and their authority over religious matters in Israel as well as the Diaspora.<\/p>\n However, Weiss is not pushing for a reformation of the rabbinate.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to make it a friendlier rabbinate. We\u2019ve got to take halacha out of the political realm, not force it on anybody\u2026 I don\u2019t want the state legal system to quote the Shulhan Aruch [the widely accepted 16th century code of Jewish law] for anything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cReligion and state need to be separated. The state should not be in the religion business. The state should be, at most, in the accommodation-of-religion business. Religious practice must not be imposed on the individual by the state. Doing mitzvot, or not doing mitzvot, is a matter of personal conscience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n According to\u00a0Bar-Ilan University Prof. Adam Ferziger, who specializes in Jewish religious life and law in modern and contemporary times,\u00a0\u201cConversion is a very strong example of the transformative nature of having a sovereign state versus a Diaspora existence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cModern advances in publication, communication, and travel certainly led to greater halachic conformity than in previous times when local Jewish communities were able to operate more independently. Indeed, the Internet has, so to speak, put this process on \u2018steroids.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cIn parallel, the degree to which the advent of the State of Israel has brought with it efforts towards centralization and homogeneity of halachic practice and standards is unprecedented. It seeks to set the standard for Judaism, everywhere,\u201d said Ferziger.<\/p>\n And the standard is increasingly ultra-Orthodox flavored, he intimated.<\/p>\n An anecdote to illustrate Ferziger\u2019s hypothesis: On a brief visit to Jerusalem, head of New York\u2019s\u00a0liberal Orthodox rabbinical school Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbi Asher Lopatin, sat with The Times of Israel in the King David Hotel lobby and said\u00a0his own conversions are not always recognized by the rabbinate.<\/p>\n \u201cI was on a beit din<\/em> [rabbinic court] in America for an Orthodox convert, who is observant \u2014 and who was not accepted as a Jew by the State of Israel. It\u2019s a big loss to the State of Israel,\u201d he said, adding this individual would have made aliya.<\/p>\n What is surprising is that Lopatin is a member of the Rabbinic Council of America (RCA), virtually the only organization whose conversions are now perfunctorily accepted by the Israeli rabbinate.<\/p>\n Lopatin\u00a0is also, however, the head of YCT, an\u00a0\u201cOpen Orthodox\u201d institution founded by Rabbi Avi Weiss.<\/p>\n In another of those high-profile headline-grabbing cases,\u00a0the rabbinate rejected the testimony of prominent American liberal Orthodox Rabbi Weiss\u00a0in the kosher conversion of former congregants. The case drew widespread support\u00a0from Diaspora Jews, including\u00a0an American congressman. Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked to\u00a0intervene.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the RCA chooses its religious judges in America for conversion courts, they are now held up to the Israeli rabbinate\u2019s standards. These judges will decide about the Jewishness of American Jews. This, then, is essentially not that different than the Israeli rabbinate\u2019s claiming singular authority regarding the Jewishness of Ethiopian Jews,\u201d said Ferziger, who\u00a0teaches in\u00a0Bar-Ilan\u2019s department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry.<\/p>\n Most American Jews are Conservative or Reform in observance. Increasingly, in an effort to stave off intermarriage and assimilation, many rabbis promote conversion as a solution for the continuity of the Jewish people. However, converts from these streams are not at all recognized in Israel for life cycle events\u00a0such as marriage or burial. Neither would many of their\u00a0children, since halachic Judaism only recognizes as Jewish children born from halachically Jewish mothers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t separate the issue of conversion from civil marriage and divorce. It\u2019s a monopoly: the rabbinate has a stranglehold on issues of personal status,\u201d said Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the executive vice president of the Conservative movement\u2019s Rabbinical Assembly.<\/p>\n \u201cConversion is a necessity. Jews-by-choice number among the most active and dedicated congregants. This is one of the most known issues in the larger Jewish community \u2014 everybody has family who has converted\u2026 this touches every Jewish family,\u201d said Schonfeld during\u00a0a quick stop in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n Steven Wernick, the Conservative movement\u2019s United Synagogue executive vice president and CEO, was seated across from Schonfeld in Jerusalem\u2019s David Citadel Hotel.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately it\u2019s a political issue. As long as the rabbinate has the political responsibility for issues of personal status, the issue is not going to be resolved.\u00a0It\u2019s not about who is a Jew, it\u2019s about who\u2019s a rabbi and has the authority to say who is a Jew,\u201d said Wernick.<\/p>\n The pair had just come from a meeting with the Jewish Agency\u2019s\u00a0Committee of the Unity of the Jewish People where this subject\u00a0was broadly discussed.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the Diaspora, this is one of those issues that has the potential to drive a wedge between communities, between the Diaspora and Israel, and within internal communities,\u201d said Wernick.<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael is doing the exact opposite of what it wants: it\u2019s telling world Jewry that they\u2019re not Jews\u2026 The more Israel disenfranchises them, the more they will be disenfranchised,\u201d said Schonfeld.<\/p>\n In addition to the Jewish Agency committee, there are a few\u00a0interdenominational initiatives broaching the separation of religion and state and how it affects relations between Israel and the Diaspora.<\/p>\n Steven Bayme, director of the Contemporary Jewish Life Department of the American Jewish Committee and of the Koppelman Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations, sits on one such coalition called J-REC, supported by the AJC, which met this week.<\/p>\n He said that the chief rabbinate\u2019s increasingly stringent standards are delegitimizing American Jewry.<\/p>\n \u201cThe chief rabbinate is saying, \u2018Your conversions aren\u2019t real, your rabbis aren\u2019t real rabbis, your Jews aren\u2019t Jewish,’\u201d\u00a0said Bayme in a phone conversation following one such meeting.<\/p>\n The\u00a030-odd members of the coalition of\u00a0US and\u00a0Israeli organizations range\u00a0across the denominational spectrum. It advocates for \u201creligious freedom and equality, notably with respect to personal-status issues, as a means of strengthening Israel\u2019s identity as a Jewish and democratic state that enhances its ties with global Jewry.\u201d<\/p>\n Its first mission to Israel is set for November and will focus on meetings with legislators from parties inside and outside the government to secure full religious equality for all religious streams and an end to the monopoly of the chief rabbinate over personal status issues.<\/p>\n \u201cThat task is an uphill one and will take much time, but we need to persevere and keep our long-term goals in play,\u201d said Bayme.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of Zionism\u2019s greatest victories is it\u2019s the state of the entire Jewish people. But individual Jews from the Diaspora are being told by an institution of the Jewish state that their conversion is not acceptable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe attachment between American Jewry and Israel is in danger of weakening,\u201d said Bayme.<\/p>\n Like an increasing number of Diaspora activists, Lopatin pushed for grassroots civil disobedience around personal status issues such as marriage.<\/p>\n \u201cI would hope people would ignore the rabbinate and marry in other ways. We should get 100 rabbis to do 100 weddings in Israel publicly outside the rabbinate. I would be happy to be part of that effort,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Union for Reform Judaism head Rabbi Rick Jacobs told The Times of Israel in a phone call that he has already seen\u00a0change on the grassroots level\u00a0with respect to conversion classes in Tel Aviv\u2019s\u00a0Reform center Beit Daniel. There, as in all Reform centers worldwide, Jews by choice who want to study and learn are welcomed.<\/p>\n Jacobs was present at a Friday night service where six people \u201cformally affirmed their place in the tradition\u201d and converted through the Reform movement, even though the Israeli chief rabbinate will not accept their conversions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is seen as a Diaspora issue, but it is very much an Israeli issue, an Israeli challenge,\u201d said Jacobs.<\/p>\n \u201cMany families in Israel are from former Soviet Union countries, serve in IDF. Israel is their home, and Judaism is their religion,\u201d said Jacobs.\u00a0\u201cThey\u2019re changing a reality on the ground with a simple affirmation. This is not going to be decided only by government legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n And as the coalition talks wrap up, it is becoming more clear that the government is not ready to legislate on reforming\u00a0conversion.<\/p>\n Israeli Rabbi David Stav sat with The Times of Israel for\u00a0an interview at its\u00a0Jerusalem office last week. He had come in a last-ditch media tour\u00a0to lobby for the cabinet decision allowing for local conversion courts.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to make it clear that the vast majority of Israelis don\u2019t really care about conversion\u2026 but politicians care about it a lot. It\u2019s a game of power, or control,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Stav is the head of the national Zionist Tzohar rabbinical organization that attempts to fill\u00a0the void between the rabbinate\u00a0and the non-Orthodox Israeli population. His rabbis are considered more lenient and are used by marrying couples who wish, for example, to exchange rings under the chuppa istead of the halachic practice of only the man \u201cpurchasing\u201d his wife with a ring.<\/p>\n Stav is on the forefront of legislation aimed at creating a competitive market for religious rites, such as the marriage registration law called the Tzohar Bill which essentially allows a couple to choose where they do the paperwork for their marriage, and, by default, how stringent the process of proving themselves Jewish will be.<\/p>\n Stav recently joined\u00a0Efrat-based Rabbi Shlomo Riskin in running the Ohr Torah Stone institutions, which includes high schools, colleges, graduate programs, seminaries and rabbinical schools. He is Riskin\u2019s presumed successor.<\/p>\n Stav acknowledged that what\u00a0concerns American Jews is the fact that Conservative and Reform conversions are not recognized \u2014 \u201cthe one issue nobody talks about here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat counts are votes,\u201d said Stav, \u201cand since the American Jew does not vote, we cannot expect\u00a0an Israeli politician to count the votes of American Jewry.\u201d\u00a0That may change to some degree:\u00a0reports circulated this week<\/a> that Netanyahu is backing a bill granting voting rights to Israeli expats living abroad and citizens of other countries who hold dual citizenship.<\/p>\n Stav\u00a0cautioned, however, that even though it does not apply to Liberal Judaism\u2019s conversions, the government\u2019s\u00a0overturning\u00a0of last session\u2019s cabinet decision \u201cwill be a very bad sign for the Jews in the Diaspora. It means nobody in the government cares about the converts and by extension, American Jewry and problems of converts in US.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf the decision is\u00a0canceled, it means that American Jewry is in trouble,\u201d he summarized.<\/p>\n Written by\u00a0Amanda Borsche-Dan<\/p>\nTime for independent conversion courts?<\/h4>\n
When\u00a0an Orthodox minority rules over a non-Orthodox majority<\/h4>\n
Who decides about the Judaism of American Jews?<\/h4>\n
The widening \u2018who is a Jew\u2019\u00a0gap\u00a0between Israel and the Diaspora<\/h4>\n
Good old-fashioned civil disobedience<\/h4>\n
Looming black cloud over Israeli-Diaspora relations<\/h4>\n