A bill on conversions to Judaism in Israel, which sparked an intense controversy in Israel-Diaspora relations, has been put on at least temporary hold.
Israel’s Knesset (Parliament) ended its summer session on July 21 without taking the first of the three necessary votes upon the measure before it can become law.
The Knesset is scheduled to reconvene on Oct. 11. In that session, the bill’s sponsor, David Rotem of the Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) party, is expected to reintroduce it.
The Knesset’s Law, Constitution and Justice Committee approved the measure on July 12 by a vote of 5-4. Jews in Israel and especially in the United States denounced the measure.
The measure would put more power over conversion into the hands of Israel’s Orthodox-dominated rabbinate by giving local rabbis the ability to perform conversions and giving the Chief Rabbinate oversight and control over the process.
Rotem reportedly intended the law to ease the conversion process within Israel and make it easier for non-Jewish Israelis from the former Soviet Union to obtain conversions and marry within Israel.
Opponents warned that the bill would consolidate control over conversions in the office of the Chief Rabbinate and drive a wedge between Israel and the Diaspora by carrying the risk that non-Orthodox conversions performed in the Diaspora could be discounted in Israel.
In addition, they said the bill would affect the eligibility of converts for the Law of Return, which grants the right to Israeli citizenship to anyone who is Jewish or at least has one Jewish grandparent.
Broken promise?
The opponents urged Rotem to revise the proposal. They believed they had a deal with Rotem to hold off on the bill pending more discussion after Rotem came to the United States in April to discuss the bill with them, and after meetings between Natan Sharansky, chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Several top Israeli officials, including the justice minister and minister for Diaspora affairs, had agreed to work with Sharansky on altering the bill.
But Rotem surprised Sharansky and the Diaspora leaders by bringing the bill to a committee vote. Sharansky was given only a day’s warning. The move set off a barrage of criticism from the Diaspora.
The CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, Jerry Silverman, called Rotem’s action a “betrayal.”
In a protest letter from the president of the Union for Reform Judaism that was signed by 14 other organizations, including various arms of the Conservative movement, Rabbi Eric Yoffie wrote, “Rotem’s actions are contrary to the assurances we received in meetings with him and with others over the last several months.”
In an interview with JTA, Rotem was unapologetic. “I never promised anything,” Rotem said. “I told them all the time in the meetings that if I will see there is a majority, I will bring it a vote.”
In discussions with Rotem, Diaspora leaders expressed concern about an item in the bill that would have taken away the right to automatic citizenship for anyone who comes to Israel as a refugee but then converts to Judaism. Rotem removed that item before pushing the bill through the law committee.
Now, he said, the bill has no effect on American or Diaspora Jews. “It is only an Israeli matter,” he said.
Non-Orthodox Diaspora Jewish movements and leaders of the Jewish Federations of North America and Jewish Agency for Israel all have warned that non-Orthodox converts would be put at risk of being disqualified as Jews by the Orthodox-dominated Chief Rabbinate.
Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, wrote an open letter to Netanyahu explaining why the bill will divide the Jewish community.
“The way to really ‘solve this problem’ is to have options for multiple streams and for the indigenous Israeli expressions that will only flower in a non-coercive system,” she wrote.
In Israel, Netanyahu said he opposed the bill in its current form. The bill “could tear apart the Jewish people,” Netanyahu told his Cabinet on July 18.
He said he would try to remove the bill by consensus, but if that fails he will ask members of his Likud Party and other coalition members to oppose it in the Knesset.
However, the measure has supporters within and outside of Israel.
Shas Party Chairman Eli Yishai, a member of Netanyahu’s coalition government, said he supported the bill.
“The absence of a conversion law is the greatest spiritual danger for the people of Israel at this time,” he told the Israeli newspaper Ydiot Achranot.
In the United States, the Rabbinical Council of America, an Orthodox organization, issued a statement saying, “While the legislation in question may not be perfect, we who live in North America must recognize that it does contain much to commend it.”
The RCA called on Diaspora Jews not to interfere with the internal Israeli legislation.
This quarrel is the latest in a series of “Who is a Jew?” controversies deriving from Israel’s Law of Return of 1950. The law gives any Jewish person in the world the automatic right to become a citizen of Israel.
The law’s primary purposes included to make sure that persecuted Jews would have a guaranteed refuge, which they lacked during the Holocaust era; and to make sure Israel would be “a state for all Jews,” as Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, said (see “History of Israel” by Howard M. Sachar).
But the law didn’t define the term Jew. That triggered a struggle between Israel’s Orthodox community, who insists on defining the term in accordance with Orthodox interpretations of biblical and Talmudic law, and more liberal Jewish religious movements and secular Jews in and outside Israel, who want children of intermarriage and non-Orthodox converts to be included under the Law of Return.
JTA writers Sarah Freishtat in Washington and Jacob Berkman in New York contributed to this report.
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