Conversion is a temporary matter
By Amiram Barkat
Fri., October 19, 2004

Chief Rabbi Amar pulled a fast one and published rules that obligate converts to lead an Orthodox lifestyle and permit conversions to be annuled.

Officials from the conversion task force in the Prime Minister's Office made an astonishing discovery last week: New conversion rules were published without their knowledge in Reshumot (the official state gazette) on September 13. This is not the reform that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been striving to promote for close to two years: The rules spell a reactionary move for conversion procedures.

After the government had decided to remove the conversion system from the control of the rabbinic establishment, the new rules grant total control of the system to Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar.

While Sharon and other government officials talk about concessions and easing the conversion process, the rules make the demands converts face tougher.

For example, for the first time in the history of the state, the courts have been given the draconian authority to retroactively annul approved conversions.

The rule governing conversion annulment states as follows:

(1) A person has been converted, and after the conversion reports have reached the court that prompt concerns that the court had erred in deciding to accept that person for conversion, it will summon the convert for further questioning, and in that case the court is authorized to delay the conversion documentation from going into effect until the review is complete.

(2) After the above-mentioned review, the court will ratify the conversion certificate and the court's action, or rule its annulment.

The authority here granted is so extreme that even ultra-Orthodox rabbis claim it is contrary to halakha.

Other rules introduced by Amar:

► Ascertaining a spouse's Jewishness: "A candidate for conversion who immigrated to Israel with a Jewish spouse and they wed each other in a civil ceremony while both were not citizens or residents of Israel, will submit along with the request for conversion authorized confirmation of the spouse's Jewishness."

► Completing conversion studies and appearing in court: "Before setting a court date, a court representative will verify that the candidate has all documents necessary for appearing in court, such as: confirmation that he maintains a Torah-observant lifestyle, contact with an adoptive family, educates the children to a Torah-observant lifestyle... confirmation of Jewishness for a Jewish spouse..."

► Responsibilities and qualifications of the court representative: "A person will not be appointed a court representative unless his qualification for the post has been verified by the president of the rabbinic high court" (in other words, the chief rabbi).

► Composition of the court: "The judicial panel will include only dayanim [religious court judges] approved by the president of the rabbinic high court to serve in the special conversion courts. Every judicial panel will include at least one dayan certified by the Chief Rabbinate"

► Conversion ulpans (language and cultural immersion programs): "A person will not serve as an ulpan director or a teacher in an ulpan run under the auspices of the Education Ministry unless he has received permission from an Education Ministry representative and the president of the rabbinic high court. The curriculum at an ulpan operated by the Education Ministry will be determined by a representative of the Education Ministry and a team of dayanim appointed by the president of the rabbinic high court and will be supervised by a court representative in the region."

► Appointments: "The appointment to senior positions in the special conversion courts, such as head of the conversion establishment and his deputy, director of the special conversion courts and his deputy, court president and dayan, will be made the president of the rabbinic high court."

All that remains now is to find out how it happened that the State of Israel published regulations that contradict government decisions and the prime minister's directives.

How did it happen that rules regulating a matter that was personally handled by Sharon and categorized by him as "a national objective" are published without his knowledge and without the knowledge of the official bodies that deal with conversion in Israel?

Conversion upheaval

State-sanctioned conversion underwent incessant upheavals in recent years, a result of the leadership's frustration at the scant number of converts among some 300,000 non-Jews who moved to Israel. The prime minister, the chairman of the Jewish Agency, the absorption minister and numerous rabbis in Israel and abroad are convinced that one of the primary reasons for this is the difficulties that the special conversion courts impose on converts. These courts are largely manned by people from the Chief Rabbinate and the rabbinic courts. They are overtly suspicious in their treatment of immigrants, knowing that they live in a social environment that is far from religious observance. The rabbinic establishment claims that any other attitude toward converts is not viable from an halakhic standpoint, and that the real reason for the small number of converts is that the immigrants are uninterested in converting in the first place.

In August 2003, the government decided to appoint Rabbi Haim Druckman to head the conversion task force in the Prime Minister's Office. The post was tailor-made for Druckman, a rabbi of prominent status among the Orthodox and nationalist ultra-Orthodox publics who takes a lenient approach to conversion. However, for close to a year Druckman's influence was neutralized because the conversion courts remained under the jurisdiction of the rabbinic courts' administration, headed by Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, a rabbinic establishment man.

On July 11, 2004, the conversion issue came up again for discussion in the cabinet. This time the ministers, at Sharon's initiative, decided to take the system of conversion courts out of the hands of the rabbinic courts' administration and move it to the Prime Minister's Office under Rabbi Druckman's jurisdiction. The main opponent to this maneuver, the president of the rabbins courts, Rabbi Shlomo Amar, removed his objection after Sharon promised him that any change in the conversion system would be coordinated with him.

Since then, discussion have been ongoing between Rabbis Amar and Rabbi Druckman regarding the new conversion rules. Rabbi Druckman has numerous comments on the draft regulations, formulated by the legal counsel to the rabbinic courts.

On September 6, the "conversion forum" gathered for a discussion in the prime minister's chambers. Sharon presided over the meeting, which was attended by representatives of all the state and military bodies that deal with conversion. At the meeting's conclusion it was decided that Rabbi Amar and Rabbi Druckman would jointly carry out a comprehensive review of the new conversion regulations. Most of the meeting's participants did not know, and Rabbi Amar did not tell them, that a month earlier, on August 10, he had already signed off on the new regulations and sent them for publication.

Druckman hobbled

An even bigger surprise came a week later. On September 13, two days before Rosh Hashanah, the Justice Ministry published in the official state record the conversion rules Rabbi Amar had signed. Nobody in the Prime Minister's Office and the conversion task force knew anything about the publication.

"It was met with astonishment; these regulations unfairly constrain Rabbi Druckman and hobble him," an official in the Prime Minister's Office who is familiar with the subject said on Sunday. Cabinet Secretary Israel Maimon has ordered an examination into how the regulations were published without the knowledge of Rabbi Druckman and his staff.

Another matter under review is the question of the regulations' validity. If they are binding, then Rabbi Druckman has been stripped of his authority. The curriculum at the ulpans, the appointment of teachers and ulpan directors, the appointment of dayanim and court representatives and the appointment of the head of the conversion task force - Rabbi Druckman himself - have all been made the exclusive preserve of Rabbi Amar.

Rabbi Druckman declined to comment for this article. Rabbi Amar is currently out of the country and was unavailable for comment. A source in his office stated that the drafting of the regulations by Rabbi Amar was fully coordinated with Rabbi Druckman.

The director of the rabbinic courts, Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, said that conversion matters have been the province of the chief rabbi since the days of the British Mandate. "If Rabbi Druckman thinks that Rabbi Amar cheated him, he should talk to him," Ben-Dahan added.

According to Justice Ministry officials, the content of the regulations does not necessitate approval by the minister in charge of those courts, since at issue are rules that were introduced by force of religious law, to regulate the conduct of the conversion courts, which have been operating by those rules in practice for several years. There was no obligation to publish the regulations, the Justice Ministry officials explained, but they were nonetheless published because of Rabbi Amar's wish "to create normative uniformity that would be known and clear to the public."

At the beginning of this week, the Israel Religious Action Center sent an urgent letter on this matter to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz. The letter from the legal advocacy arm of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism asserted that the regulations were introduced illegally, and it quotes High Court of Justice rulings that placed limitations on the chief rabbi's authority to recognize conversions solely for the purpose of marriage and divorce. The letter from Rabbi Gilad Kariv, a lawyer for IRAC, calls the publication of the rules "another link in the chain of attempts by senior officials in the rabbinic establishment to sabotage conversion efforts."

"In view of the prime minister's personal involvement in the matter, the publication of the rules should be viewed as a blatant snatch, aimed specifically against the prime minister's efforts to ease the immigrants' plight. The publication of the rules is in direct contradiction to High Court of Justice rulings on conversion in the past decade, so dismay is warranted at those government officials who approved the publication," the letter charges.

In response to these charges, the Justice Ministry stated: "Regarding the question of the chief rabbi's authority to introduce the rules, every judicial or administrative body has an inherent authority to introduce procedures and rules for its operation. The final version of the rules was formulated after consultations the chief rabbi held with the Chief Rabbinate, dayanim at the rabbinic high court, dayanim at the special conversion courts and the head of the conversion task force, and after receiving the comments of the then attorney general."

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