Charedim: ‘Conversion Reforms Target Very Soul Of The Jewish People’

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MK's Meir Porush and Uri Maklev seen during a plenary session at the assembly of the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem, July 14, 2021. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

JERUSALEM (JNS) – Lawmakers from Israel’s ultra-Orthodox parties harshly criticized Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana on Tuesday over his planned conversion reform.

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“The destruction and devastation of the Chief Rabbinate and Jewish religion that ‘Religious Destruction Minister’ Matan Kahana leads is unprecedented. The conversion system is the very soul of the Jewish people and harming it would lead to vast assimilation,” said Shas Knesset member Yoav Ben-Tzur.

Yakov Margi, also from Shas, concurred.

“They’ve learned nothing from the Reform movement and how it destroyed a large part of the Jewish people. Due to mass assimilation, since the terrible Holocaust we have not grown numerically,” said Margi. “We have lost no fewer Jews to assimilation than to the Holocaust.”

United Torah Judaism Knesset member Uri Maklev called Kahana’s bill “a gift to the gentiles” and a show of disrespect “to the Jewish nation.”

“They despise and uproot everything,” said Maklev in a statement.

As part of the proposed legislation, municipal rabbis will be able to establish conversion courts to allow them to act to convert tens of thousands of Israelis who are of Jewish descent but are not Jewish according to halacha (Jewish law).

The bill, which Kahana plans to bring to a vote in the coming weeks, was reached in close coordination with prominent rabbinical elders from the religious Zionist community.

Labor MK Gilad Kariv, who is also a Reform rabbi, welcomed “the end of the conversion monopoly in Israel.”

He stressed that “the condition for any further legislation in this matter is that it would not harm the recognized status of non-Orthodox converts. The proposed outline deals with conversion procedures that take place within the framework of the Orthodox rabbinical establishment alone. Given the Chief Rabbinate’s strict policy on this matter in recent decades, it is doubtful whether its continued control over the conversion institutions will allow for a real breakthrough.”


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13 Comments
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Withdraw
Withdraw
2 years ago

The religious need to to establish their own knesset.

Bobby
Bobby
2 years ago

According to Pew Research, 42% of married US Jews are married to non-Jews (61% of Jews married after 2010). Israeli Jews want to do what US and European Jews have now done for about two centuries (and which the UN Declaration of Human Rights protects) and that is marry and live with someone halacha forbids.

The same Pew survey shows that the majority of US Jews are agnostic and do not believe in Torah min Hashamayim. For many, their Jewishness has little meaning You cannot force halacha on such people. Nowadays they make up the social elite. Whilst the situation in Israel is not as bad as in the US or Europe, Israeli Rabbonim are powerless in the face of current secular culture norms.

In such circumstances Israel has no choice but to institute civil marriage or loosen geirus requirements.

Archy's Brother
Archy's Brother
2 years ago

With no uniform standard the acceptance of the legitimacy of some conversions will be questioned. Not good for the Jewish people as we already have such problems in America

Shmuel
Shmuel
2 years ago

Because of anti-Jewish “reforms” like this one, we will come to a point, if we are not there already, that we will have to doubt and even stop recognizing any conversions. We will not be able to marry converts. We won’t even be able to eat at the same table with them.

triumphinwhitehouse
triumphinwhitehouse
2 years ago

this Bennett fellow and Kahana fellow and even more so “rabbi”kariv all of whom wear yamakas should have a yemach shmom next to their name.

elyeh
Noble Member
elyeh
2 years ago

These Charadei political parties oppose the changes because it takes power from them and their allies in the centralized Rabbanit bureaucracy and gives it to “municipal (Orthodox/Frum!) rabbis, (who) will be able to establish conversion courts to allow them to act to convert.” It is all about power, nothing to do with changing religious requirements!

Many have written about the political and financial corruption of the centralized Rabbanit so I will not write further about that.

Educated Archy
Educated Archy
2 years ago

Bigger rashim than Ben Gurion

Hashomer
Hashomer
2 years ago

If they are so interested in numbers, then more conversions INCREASE the numbers. Restricting conversions and people running to go OTD shrinks the numbers and their power.