The Controversial New Beit Din: On the Conversion Crisis, Ger Katan and the Israeli Chief Rabbinate

New Route to Conversion Challenges Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Establishment

New York Times, 8/11/15

Rabbi David Stav, who is modern Orthodox and two years ago ran unsuccessfully to be one of Israel’s two chief rabbis, said the new conversion court was a necessity after the government’s reversal on the conversion bill. He said 4,500 children are born each year to Israeli families whose Judaism is not recognized, “boys and girls who are going to the university, they are going to the army — if they are not converted, there will be an assimilation crisis in Israel.” Rabbi Stav, who attended the conversion ceremony on Monday, said the children’s parents had been required to sign papers to prove they understood that the rite would not be recognized by the government or by the Chief Rabbinate, even though it had been performed according to Jewish law.“It is recognized by God,” he noted. “Eventually, there will be no other way but to recognize them officially.”

Letter of 8/10/15

“We, the undersigned, wish to strengthen the hands of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, the sole source of halakhic decisions that affect the State of Israel on a national level and the central authority on matters of conversion to Judaism,” wrote the rabbis.

“We are the generation that merited the establishment of a Jewish State. The Chief Rabbinate, established by our mentor Rabbi Avraham HaCohen Kook, zts"l, is the nucleus of this state's Jewish identity.

“Private conversions deal a severe blow to our national unity in this country and shake the very foundations of our definition as a Jewish state. This is a de facto separation of religion and state, in total contradiction to our holy Torah, the sole wellspring of our Religious Zionist ethos.

“And above all, the mass conversion of minors goes against the halakhic opinions of the vast majority of Torah Sages of recent generations, first and foremost Rabbi Kook – it is an act that is not accepted by the halakhic decisors of the People of Israel.

“Therefore, we declare that we will recognize only conversionsthat have been certified by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and those who stand at its head. We call on all rabbis from every sector to stand as one behind the Chief Rabbinate, to strengthen and support it, to raise the level of Judaism in our land and to guard the principles of halacha.

“With the blessings of Torah, signed:

Rabbi Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of Hevron

Rabbi Chaim Shteiner, Merkaz Harav Yeshiva

Rabbi Tzvi Yisrael Tau, Har Hamor Yeshiva

Rabbi Eitan Eisman, Pres. Noam Educational Institutions

Rabbi Eliyahu Zini, Pres. Haifa Hesder Yeshiva

Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, Chief Rabbi of the Shomron

Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira, Rosh Yeshiva (Dean,) Ramat Gan Hesder Yeshiva

Rabbi Michael Hershkowitz, Merkaz Harav Yeshiva

Rav Micha Halevi, Chief Rabbi of Petach Tikva

Rabbi Mordechai Sternberg, Rosh Yeshiva, Har Hamor

Rabbi Amiel Sternberg, Rosh Yeshiva, Har Hamor

Rabbi Shlomo Levi, Kollel Head, Har Etzion Hesder Yeshiva

Rabbi Shimon Cohen, Chairman, Beit Moriah Institutions

Rabbi Baruch Efrati, Head of the Rabbanei Emunah Organization.”

There is no "Conversion Crisis"

Rabbi Elli Fischer, Mida, 5/22/15

... However, closer scrutiny of reality shows that the entire approach is unfounded since there is no “crisis” in the first place. The presence of non-Jews in Israel does not endanger its Jewish character. We may ask why there are not more converts, and it is certainly worthwhile to suggest ways to encourage conversion. No doubt we should be considering alternatives to the present situation, in which the process of conversion, a highly personal process that ought to be individuated and attuned to the convert’s needs, is a soulless encounter with bureaucracy.

Yet we should not mistakenly think that there is an emergency. The problem is already shrinking, and, given a few generations, will solve itself. Moreover, the data are so clear and simple that one would be justified in asking to what extent these organizations simply do not understand basic math and to what extent they are in fact well acquainted with reality but take an alarmist approach in order to advance their religious and/or political agendas.

Let us set out the cold, hard facts. Each year, before Rosh Hashana, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics releases “A Selection of Data from Israel’s Statistical Yearbook.” Each November, the CBS publishes “A Collection of Data for Universal Children’s Day.” In both of these publications, the very first item is a segmentation of the general population of the State of Israel—the entire population in the Rosh Hashana report and the population of children on Universal Children’s Day. The most recent publications report on conditions at the end of 2013. These are the most official and up-to-date data available in Israel.

According to these data, the number of “Others” (that is, citizens who are not “Jewish” and not “Arab”; the vast majority of this segment of the population are non-Jewish immigrants from the FSU and their descendants) is decreasing significantly as a proportion of the Jewish population and, it goes without saying, as a proportion of the overall population. This can be illustrated with the following chart:

Stated simply, whereas 6% of adults in Israeli-Jewish society are not halakhically Jewish, only 4% of children in the same society are not halakhically Jewish.

There are several reasons for this phenomenon. Firstly, the emigration rate is higher among immigrants from the FSU. Secondly, the birth rate among this segment of the population is lower than that of other segments.

The most important reason, however, is conversion itself. According to the IDI abstract, about 1,800 immigrants from the FSU convert annually in Israel. That is not a lot. But the important question is not “How many convert?” rather “Who are the converts?” The various organizations raise the alarm by relating only to the first question, while ignoring the second, more important question.

Who, then, are the converts? The overwhelming majority of them are women between the ages of 18 and 30. As is well known, according to halacha the mother determines the status of the child. A Jew is someone born to a Jewish mother.

It stands to reason that a similar scenario plays out in many Jewish homes in Israel. When a daughter comes home with her beau and he turns out to be a non-Jew, perhaps the family is not pleased, and they may even encourage him to convert. They may even become frustrated when some rabbi insists that the groom must accept Orthodox observance in order to convert, even if he already identifies as a Jew, speaks Hebrew, served in the IDF, etc. Ultimately, though, the family knows that the grandchildren will be Jewish. Therefore, if the couple must fly to Cyprus or the Czech Republic in order to wed civilly, or if they opt for a common law marriage, it is not so terrible. The grandchildren will be Jewish.

However, if a son comes home with a non-Jewish woman, and suddenly there is concern that the grandchildren will not be Jewish, the parents will be adamant that the woman convert. They want Jewish grandchildren, of course. Moreover, once the conversion process begins, they may discover that the rabbis on the conversion court also want this couple to have Jewish children, and many of the obstacles faced by other potential converts will not be faced by women of child-bearing age—because the next generation is of paramount importance.

This is how we end up with a situation in which the number of non-Jewish, non-Arab “Others” in Israel slowly shrinks. In essence, this is a natural process of assimilation: in a country with a Jewish majority, the “others” assimilate into the Jewish population, and not the other way around. It turns out that fear of assimilation is a habit inherited from the Diaspora, the remnant of a mentality that we developed as a minority. Today, in the State of Israel, there is nothing to fear.

It seems that the natural response of many Israeli families contains a great deal of wisdom, and there is no need for experiments in social engineering to treat a nonexistent problem. As the Jewish sages said: “Leave the Jews alone; if they are not prophets, they are the children of prophets.”

Rabbi Chaim Jachter, Kol Torah 12/13/08

Rav Yosef Adler and Rav Haskel Lookstein (as well as many others) report that Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik also considered it a Zechut if the non-observant parents commit to providing the child with a Yeshiva education. Rav Yisrael Rozen (Techumin 20:249-250) suggests this compromise as well, but insists that Jewish education does not suffice when the child will be raised by a non-Jewish parent.

Rabbinical Council of America and Beit Din of America Guidelines

Where a Jewish Couple wishes to Convert an Adopted non-Jewish Child

i. The premise on which conversion for a child is based is that it is a zechut (benefit) for that child to convert. While some have argued that simply becoming Jewish is a zechut, others believe that only in circumstances where observance of mitzvot is likely to be part of the child’s life as an adult is it really a zechut to convert an underage person. ii. Therefore, a Jewish couple that has adopted a child to be converted must:

• belong to an Orthodox synagogue within walking distance of their home, and

• commit to 12 years of Orthodox day school education for that child.

The Bet Din should set criteria for what it considers to be schools in which the child will receive a serious Orthodox day school education, and

• In addition, full observance of elements such as Shabbat, Kashrut, holidays, etc., should be part of the adoptive family’s lifestyle. To that end, the sponsoring rabbi and the converting Bet Din should use the opportunity to encourage the family to accept a complete standard of observance.

However, where this can not be accomplished, then at the very minimum, if there is

• significant observance of Shabbat

• complete observance of Kashrut

• a positive attitude towards full mitzvah observance and commitment to Halacha within the basic family unit,

after consultation with the RCA/BDA and after writing an explanatory memo that will be included in the conversion file explaining the circumstances, giyyur katan (conversion of the child) may be allowed.