T. Belman. It is extremely important to create a path for the children of those Jews who are not halachic Jews who came to israel under the law of return, to be recognized as Jews. Similarly any Jew converted by Reform rabbis in America who makes aliya, should similarly be recognized as Jews. For sure their children should. A solution must be found. This new conversion law is the first step.
Op-ed: A group of great Torah scholars is creating a remedy for the 130,000 boys and girls, young men and women who have felt Jewish all their lives, and for all those who insist on seeing Israel as a Jewish state and not just as a religious state.
The Chief Rabbinate – or its political patrons, to be more precise – has used Judaism to advance narrow sectorial goals and has turned it from Judaism which brings people closer together to Judaism which divides and drives people away.
A chief rabbinate is not a halachic institution. Throughout the generations, conversions were performed by both sages of the House of Shammai and sages of the House of Hillel. Both were accepted by the people of Israel.
Conversion Revolt
Leading rabbis set up alternative conversion system / Kobi Nachshoni
Senior Religious Zionism rabbis team up to establish network of courts which will work to convert non-Jewish immigrants from former Soviet Union, hoping public pressure will lead State to change its policy and recognize these conversions.
Full story
There is no “chief rabbinate” in Jewish Law. It’s a political institution aimed at seeing the State of Israel as “reshit tzmihat geulatenu” (the start of our salvation process), but in practice it put the keys for entering the Jewish people in the hands of a group which also includes people who oppose the State’s actual existence.
In Israel today there about 130,000 boys and girls, young men and women, who feel Jewish before their marriage, serve as Jews and contribute to the State of Israel’s security and prosperity.
Fourteen such babies are born every day, and a rabbinate which estranges itself from them is a rabbinate which estranges itself from us, including the religious ones among us – those who don’t shut themselves off in ghettos, those who you meet in the IDF, in universities and in workplaces, those who see them as part of us, those whose children and grandchildren will want to start a loyal home in Israel with them, those who are trying to help them convert – and are willing to “assimilate” with them, if that’s what the Chief Rabbinate forces them to do.
Is there anything we haven’t done? We initiated a law, created a majority in the Knesset in favor of it, gave it up in order to create a broad agreement within the rabbinical world, and agreed to replace it with a government decision after receiving a promise that it won’t be changed. But on one black night of coalition agreements, which disregard not only the meaning of the law and the government decision, but also disregard the needs of the “people of Israel,” it was erased in order to give each Knesset member NIS 20 million.
I attended the deliberations of the newly established private court on Monday evening and was excited. The great sages of Israel – who were not elected in a dirty political deal, but by the power of being great Torah scholars – presented a remedy for the minors they converted, for their parents, and perhaps more than anything – for all those who insist on seeing Israel as a Jewish state and not just as a religious state.
Those children who the court converted and is slated to convert are rejected by the Rabbinate and its emissaries for different reasons, like studying in a certain school, being too young, or due to their parents or siblings’ conduct.
On Monday, the private court said to them: We will make an effort within the world of Halacha and find solutions which are not walled up inside ghettos. We’ll find solutions as part of the Halacha which knows, as it has throughout the generations, how to deal with the current reality of the Jewish or Israeli society, which knows that if we don’t do so, Israel won’t last as a Jewish state – and if there is no Jewish state, there will be no state at all.
It’s time for the Chief Rabbinate to become committed to the entire Israeli society. It’s time to say: There are rabbis in Israel, not just in Jerusalem.
Major-General (res.) Elazar Stern is a former Knesset member and the initiator of the conversion law.
@ Bear Klein:
I forgot one really minor figure Ben Gurion was a liberal Jew.
A socialist whose failed economic policies inflicted unnecessary poverty upon two generations of Israelis.
You are defending the indefensible, Klein. Liberal Jews desperately wanted to give J & S to the Palis; had they succeeded, missiles would now be flyiing into Tel Aviv. And socialist Ben-Gurion inflicted poverty upon two generations of Israelis with his leftist economic system.
Liberal Jews desperately wanted to give J & S to the Palis; had they succeeded, missiles would now be flyiing into Tel Aviv. And socialist Ben-Gurion inflicted poverty upon two generations of Israelis with his leftist economic system. You are defending the indefensible, Klein.
yamit82 Said:
Do you have a room for me if I make my Alliyah ?
The role of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel is to offer religious and halakhic leadership (pertaining to religious law,) and it is responsible for providing religious services and deciding on halakhic policy regarding these services. On the issues of conversion, marriage and divorce, kashrut and burial, it has the last word, as an institution, and occasionally by dint of law.
In both these roles, the Chief Rabbinate has failed. The secular community has no interest in the rabbinate and it never interested the Haredim, the ultra-Orthodox; they have always had and continue to have their own deciders and leaders. The religious Zionist community, which in the past sanctified the Chief Rabbinate, has abandoned it since the Haredim took over key positions.
Ben-Gurion was a socialist who implemented an economic system that impoverished Israelis until it was supplanted by capitalism. And missiles would be flying into Tel Aviv if liberals had succeeded in giving J & S to the Palis.
Missiles would be flying into Tel Aviv if liberals had succeeded in giving J & S to the Palis. Ben-Gurion was a socialist who implemented an economic system that impoverished Israelis until it was supplanted by capitalism.
@ Bear Klein:
Had liberal Jews prevailed, the Palis would now control J & S and missiles would be flying into Tel Aviv. Ben-Gurion was a socialist who implemented an economic system that impoverished Israelis until it was supplanted by capitalism.
@ yamit82:
Hello there, Yamit. Haven’t seen you around these parts for a while.
I’m with you 100 per cent on this particular issue. As far as I’m concerned, I consider Katya an infinitely better Jew than I ever have been, because she chose to help build the Jewish nation on the soil of Eretz-Yisrael, while all my wife and I did was to come to Israel to study about 18 months, then leave when our grants ran out. About the only thing of Jewish consequence with which I got involved was to learn about authentic hard-core Zionism in the beautiful Rechavia apartment of the great Dr Yisrael Eldad of Lechi fame who helped get rid of the British imperialists a quarter-century earlier.
Do I work at formal Judaism? I guess so, in some relatively small way. My wife, our eldest son, and I make as real a Shabat as we can, every Friday evening, unless we are out of town. By that I refer to the blessings over the twin candles, by Stefi, the Shabat blessing, by me, ntilat yadaiim, by our son Israel Harris, and hamotzi lechem, by me, followed by one of Stefi’s good dinners. I also try to make the time to study a chapter from my old copy of the Soncino Chumash. But Stefi and I don’t hang around with any other Jews, because most of them are liberal traitors to everything we love and respect. But beyond that, is my realization that I probably will kick off without ever seeing Israel again. And in all fairness, I can’t whine about any of that, because it would be less than honest.
In any case, I strongly feel that any Jew and anyone who really wants to be a Jew and wants to live, work, raise children, in Israel, and thus help fulfill the destiny of the Jewish nation, should be recognized as a Jew by the Jewish state. And with no hidden marks of bastardy or whatever else recorded in his or her public records.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Babuska their are certainly many stupid Jews liberal and otherwise. However their are many liberal Jews in Israel who have done more for Israel than your bad mouthing of a whole group of people.
If you want just one famous example Neftali Bennett’s parents were liberal Jews from San Francisco who moved to Haifa (that is northern Israel).
Now their son has gone on to great achievements in Israel.
Anyway I am sure you are not open minded enough to see that their are liberal Jews who have helped Israel a great deal.
I forgot one really minor figure Ben Gurion was a liberal Jew.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
babushka Said:
How documented ?? Your reply is anecdotal !!!
Liberal Jews supported Obama en masse, and did so knowing that all of his closest associates are virulently anti-Israel. They voted to reelect him after he spent four years aggressing against Israel. That is documented reality, and reality transcends your anecdotal examples.
@ babushka:
I have friends in Israel who made aliyah who are pretty liberal but love Israel. They have gone to the army and their kids are in the army. These people are true Zionists. There are many of them. Since you have never lived in Israel you would not know any of them.
“Any convert even a reform convert coming on Aliyah is 1000 % more Jewish than the shit claiming to be Jewish clinging to the exile.”
Your preference for Israel-hating leftists over Zionists is unsurprising given your losing battle with senility. My prayers that the Lord provide you with good mental health have obviously gone unanswered.
@ yamit82:
I never take NO for an answer.
@ honeybee:
NO! 😛
yamit82 Said:
Isn’t that a tad harsh ???
@ babushka:
Any convert even a reform convert coming on Aliyah is 1000 % more Jewish than the shit claiming to be Jewish clinging to the exile. Btw the Torah and Halacha support my position. babuska 😛
Freaking hypocrites
In actuality of fact Jews converted by reformed Rabbis (and I believe also Conservative Rabbis) in the USA have been accepted as Jews for purpose of Aliyah for as long as I can remember.
Some Orthodox Rabbis in the USA who preform conversions have not always had their converts accepted to Israel as Jews.
Israeli religious politics are nauseating.
A huge part of converting is becoming part of the Jewish People (Am HaYisrael). Living in Israel and doing IDF service sure goes a long way. It meets two of three basic pillars of Judaism: Love of Am Yisrael, Love of the Land and Torah.
The American rabbinate became a refuge for 1960s radicals seeking the camouflage of the clergy with which to promote their leftist agenda. Many of Israel’s most implacable enemies are “rabbis”. It would be imprudent to assume that “any Jew converted by Reform rabbis in America who makes aliya” is actually Jewish. A better standard is required.
Unlike other religions, Judaism does not pride itself on its number of adherents, and the “quality transcends quantity” approach has served Jews well. Importing subversive leftists who cynically claim to be Jewish would be counterproductive. Peter Beinart is a classic example. Has Israel benefited from the presence of this Quisling whose “Judaism” is a pretext for supporting jihad? We Americans appreciate you taking this bum off our hands, but doing so has hardly strengthened Israel.
I want a State of all Jews – not just Ultra-Orthodox Jews as some are trying to create. This changing standards of recognizing who is a Jew and what conversions are recognized every new government or every 20 years is pure politics. No wonder we are such a small people between the pogroms, holocaust and internal politics disguised as “Halacha” how can we grow our people. Oh yeah I forgot assimilation. I understand some of my very “frum” (dati or religious) friends will not all agree with my viewpoint.
Israel is dividing itself and help creating a rift with the diaspora.
While I am at it I totally am against holding a gay pride parade in Jerusalem. Let them parade all they want in Tel Aviv.
I don’t expect all religious Jews to agree with me but I think religious Zionists do. And if not, I still want a path to be found to bring them into the fold. The vast majority of Jews are not dati. These children should be given a hechsher so that they are considered as non religious Jews.