Earlier this month the Israeli government adopted a major reform expected to ease the path to conversion for hundreds of thousands of Israelis now prohibited from marrying in the Jewish state.
In the most significant response in decades to the estimated 400,000 Israelis who are not considered Jewish by the Chief Rabbinate, the Cabinet expanded authority for conversion beyond a small group of approved haredi Orthodox courts.
It’s progress toward pluralism in the Jewish state that the national Jewish Federation movement and the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City have been supporting for quite some time.
“Our Federation has been and continues to be supportive of efforts to broaden the religious spectrum in Israel for Jews of all movements,” said Todd Stettner, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City.
Since only Orthodox Jewish marriage is permitted in Israel, such Israelis — the majority of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union — must convert if they wished to be married in Israel.
Under the new law, which was passed Nov. 2 and became effective immediately, the conversion process is expected to get significantly easier.
The measure, which allows any city rabbi in Israel to perform conversions, is expected to pave the way for the elimination of some provisions seen as overly stringent, such as the Chief Rabbinate’s requirement that converts send their children to Orthodox schools.
Currently, only four rabbinic courts appointed by the haredi-dominated Rabbinate are authorized to perform conversions.
“Every rabbi in every city will be able to set up his own tribunal according to Jewish law,” said Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, who brought the bill to a Cabinet vote along with Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. “It also gives a choice. People will be able to choose the tribunal they want to go to, and warm, friendly tribunals will be used more than others.”
Conversion policy has dogged Israel since the 1990s, when about 1 million immigrants from the former Soviet Union entered the country. The immigrants qualified for citizenship under the Law of Return, which requires immigrants to have just one Jewish grandparent. But hundreds of thousands did not meet the Chief Rabbinate’s stricter standard for Jewishness — either having a Jewish mother or undergoing an Orthodox conversion — and thus could not marry in Israel.
Kansas City support of pluralism in Israel
Alan Edelman, associate executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, said this issue has been on the local radar since the ‘90s. Back then, the “Who is a Jew” issue also affected Jews from the Diaspora who were converted by Reform and Conservative rabbis and were not able to marry in Israel.
“Needless to say, much of the Diaspora community, 80 percent of whom are Reform or Conservative, was not happy, and we were successful in convincing the government to back down,” said Edelman, explaining that Israel decided to accept any conversion performed outside of Israel regardless of who the rabbis is.
“Fortunately, most politicians and leaders in Israel recognize how important it is to keep the Diaspora relationship strong and this issue was weakening that important relationship. This latest conversion bill is yet another example of their understanding of the importance of the Israel-Diaspora relationship,” he continued.
Edelman credits Rabbi Mark Levin as being instrumental in the Kansas City community “taking a lead in this important work.”
“He convened a meeting of Federation leadership and encouraged them to support organizations that were working for freedom of marriage in Israel. As a champion in the cause to free Soviet Jewry, Rabbi Levin pointed out that we can’t bring all these people into Israel and then tell them they aren’t Jewish.”
Edelman explained that “the Jewish Federation started to fund organizations that support pluralism, inclusion and diversity in Israel.”
“We are one of a handful of communities that actually has a category of excellence related to religious pluralism in our Israel and Overseas funding process,” he said.
The local Federation began to fund Israeli organizations that didn’t receive money from the government such as Birkat Shalom, a Reform congregation; TALI, a program that brings Jewish education into secular schools; the Israeli Religious Action Center of the Reform Movement; and ITIM, a modern Orthodox organization that aids Israelis with personal status issues and was integral in getting the conversion policy changed last week.
Edelman said providing funding to these types of organizations is Kansas City’s way of reminding Israel “that issues of pluralism, inclusion and diversity are important to us.”
Jewish Federations throughout the country are allowed to take 10 percent of what is raised for Israel and overseas and designate it for special projects of the community’s choosing.
“In Kansas City we have approximately half a million dollars that is allocated to special projects that we have developed with our partners in Israel, mostly in Ramla and Gezer, Bulgaria and Romania” Edelman said.
“Since beginning this process, approximately $70,000 of this half a million is allocated annually to organizations that support diversity, pluralism and inclusion,” said Edelman, noting that the local Jewish Federation has taken the lead nationally in designating funds for these purposes. Because of the work in this area Kansas City was awarded recognition by the Jewish Federation system in the early 2000s and has now been invited to join, with a select handful of other Federations, a special national committee to deal with the laws of marriage in Israel.
Jerry Silverman, president and chief executive officer of the Jewish Federations of North America, hopes that this decision will lead to more open and accessible conversions in Israel, giving an opportunity to many of those who wish to formally join the Jewish people to be able do so.
“I am proud of the work that Federations have done, led by our Israel office, to ensure that the rights and achievements of North American Jewry are protected. A big thank you to the Reform and Conservative movements as well as Rabbi Seth Farber’s ITIM organization for their longstanding partnership with us on this issue,” Silverman stated.
More about the new conversion bill
Regarding the new bill, Rabbi Farber, the founder of Itim, said, “The hope is that this bill will enable a much more understanding and friendly set of rabbinical courts to emerge without the Chief Rabbinate imposing their monolithic view on every conversion.”
JTA reports this reform chips away at longstanding haredi Orthodox dominance of conversion policy. Both of Israel’s chief rabbis, who are haredi, oppose the new law. Should the chief rabbis attempt to block the conversions, Rabbi Farber has pledged to petition the Supreme Court.
The passage of the law marks the end of a lengthy legislative process. Though it passed an initial Knesset vote last year, a ministerial committee vote required to move the measure along was postponed continuously until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu removed it from the legislative agenda entirely in late October, reportedly to appease haredi parties.
A group of ministers led by Bennett and Livni responded by pushing the law through the committee anyway, and a modified version passed in the Cabinet.
While the reform doesn’t go as far as recognizing non-Orthodox conversions — a step many non-Orthodox and Diaspora groups would like to have seen — those groups nevertheless heralded its arrival. Rabbi Gilad Kariv, CEO of the Israeli Reform movement, said he supports any reform that eases conversion as long as it doesn’t hurt non-Orthodox streams.
“Now there are no more excuses for [Religious] Zionist rabbis,” he said. “Now is the time for them to deliver.”
Portions of this story were provided by JTA News & Features and written by Ben Sales.