Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and Member of Knesset Itamar Ben Gabir started at the beginning of the week a move that seems almost coordinated against the Reform conversion and against the High Court's decision made last year to recognize non-Orthodox conversions in matters of the Law of Return.
"There is no such thing that the High Court determines.
There was no such government with 32 religious members of the Knesset, perhaps an opportunity to amend the law of who is a Jew," said Rabbi Yosef in his regular class, and the next morning Ben Gabir issued a statement that he would advance the introduction of the word "Khalachah conversion" into the law book in order to prevent recognition of Reform conversions. , it seems, the beginning of another difficult campaign in the conversion saga that has been going on for decades.
A conversion law has never been enacted in the State of Israel, even though it is an acute issue for the future of the Jewish people.
Regarding the law of return, David Ben-Gurion stated upon the establishment of the state: "Whoever is born to a Jewish mother and is not a member of another religion, or who converts properly" will be considered a Jew.
In 1970 it was determined that the son and grandson of a Jewish person could immigrate to Israel by virtue of the Law of Return.
Over the years, there have been many discussions with the aim of determining who is a Jew, and how to define a person who converts through a non-Orthodox conversion, but to no avail.
Ben Gvir
The designated minister, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
In March 2021, the High Court ruled that those who converted in a Reform or Conservative community would be recognized as Jews for purposes of the Law of Return. This caused outrage among Orthodox Jews, and this is what the ultra-orthodox and religious MKs are now seeking to correct.
Only hundreds of people have been deported since that ruling in private, reform or orthodox courts that are not recognized, and it is not known of people who were recognized by the court in this way, among other things because it is a symbolic act and I declared that its effectiveness in practice does not exist.
"Conversion is a halachic concept," says Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, former rabbi of Ramat Gan and one of the most significant rabbis in the religious-national sector.
"Only those who know the Halacha can convert, and those who do not know the Halacha, their conversion is not a conversion. The world should not interfere in this matter either. Why does the world interfere in something it does not understand? Conversion is a halachic concept to the point," Rabbi Ariel refers to the Reform converts.
He also supports Rabbi Yosef's position and believes that there is no place for the court to deal with conversions.
If it were lawyers who understand the halacha, that's something else, but that's not the case, so they can't interfere in the matter."
A dramatic move.
Chief Rabbi of Israel Yitzhak Yosef, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
"The big question is what is conversion according to Halachah. Is a private court considered conversion according to Halachah? I am not sure that Ben Gvir would agree that certain circles in Orthodoxy would be defined as conversion according to Halachah. In general, in my opinion, we should stay away like fire from a phenomenon where judges decide what is halachic and what is not," he explains Tani Frank, director of the Center for Judaism and the State at the Hartman Institute.
"The direction the ultra-Orthodox are apparently aiming for is a state conversion law, which was blocked in 2017 by Lieberman and Bennett, and which states that all conversions will be state-owned - and will not be reform or conservative conversions. This will infuriate the non-Orthodox movements, but it equally blocks everyone - Both private Orthodox conversions and non-Orthodox conversions."
One thing is quite clear - that the discussion on conversion is particularly explosive when it comes to Diaspora Judaism, and deepens the rift between Israel and the Diaspora, this is because, unlike in Israel, abroad the Reform movement is the dominant movement among the Jews. Andrew Reifeld, president of the Hebrew Union World College, the college for Jewish studies of the Reform movement, says that there is no reason to be angry as long as it is only statements, but that the trend is extremely disturbing. These days, ironically, he is in Israel, inaugurating a new campus of the seminary in Jerusalem and participating in the ordination ceremony of five new Reform rabbis.
"When we talk about support for Israel, we are talking about three basic values - the security of the Jewish people, the flourishing of the Jewish people in a pluralistic way and a government that puts before its eyes the justice and democratic law," he says.
"Proposals like these are the opposite of these principles, a radical approach by Zionism that leaves the Jewish people much less secure and reduces the options on the table. I believe that this is a danger to the Jewish state. Those who delegitimize the actions of thousands of reform communities in Israel and around the world threaten our security and harm in the Jewish people. They take an anti-Zionist position. This is not Zionism as I know it. If they advance these steps, they will tear Israel apart from the Diaspora. We are not going anywhere, but we will have to work better to strengthen the Jewish people."
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