Are Female IDF soldiers who converted while in the army, shiksas

By Ted Belman

So said United Torah Judaism Yitzhak Pindrus, speaking Monday on a panel at a conference organized by the ITIM organization and Kipa website, when discussing  the case of the daughter of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother who converts under the military’s auspices. He later apologized.

The army’s Nativ program, founded in 2001, is the only state-recognized conversion system in the country not controlled by the Chief Rabbinate. Hundreds of soldiers, most of them non-Jewish immigrants or descendants of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, enter the army’s conversion system each year.

Thousands have successfully finished the program and converted to Judaism through the IDF’s rabbinic court, which is Orthodox.

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, in a tweet, said: “Pindrus and United Torah Judaism members, not enlisting in the army and living at the expense of taxpayers — that’s a shiksa.”

“Those who need to sit shiva are those who buried the values of the Jewish people. Any soldier who serves in the IDF and underwent an army conversion is more Jewish than all the Mir Yeshiva students combined,” added Liberman referring to a flagship Haredi institution.

Yamina leader Naftali Bennett, who was formerly a Diaspora affairs minister, called the description “shameful” and vowed that converts through the military would not have their Jewishness questioned.

Pindrus’s comments came on the same day the High Court of Justice ruled that Reform and Conservative conversions to Judaism conducted in Israel would be recognized for citizenship purposes. The decision, which dents the Orthodox monopoly on religion in Israel, was widely condemned by Haredi lawmakers, who vowed to pass a law to overturn it.

Pindrus said Tuesday that the panel conversation had been recorded before the High Court ruling.

In a follow-up interview with Army Radio, Pindrus did not withdraw his remarks. But he said he would reconsider his views if the Chief Rabbinate oversaw the Nativ conversions. Pindrus said that neither he nor the High Court had the authority to decide which conversions were legitimate — an assessment he left to rabbis.

“Fake conversions are a religious issue, not a national or civilian one. The High Court does not have the authority to decide if a Reform convert is Jewish or not,” he said.

March 3, 2021 | 31 Comments »

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31 Comments / 31 Comments

  1. :your comment is awaiting moderation”…. TED- I think your computer has caught some disease from facebook or twitter.

    There is NO reason for “moderation”…it’s already a very “moderate” comment.. !!

  2. @ Sebastien Zorn:
    You just open a new page and write “Jew or not Jew”. or “A Jew or not a Jew.: I did it just now. It’s a site that’s been going on for years. Maybe you have an oddball treife computer.

    Don’t be looking up Chbd etc. It’s semi-humourous site -but accurate- which takes all Jewish connections into account and adds them up . sometimes the verdict is “barely a Jew” or “Sadly not a Jew” “definitely a Jew”.. etc.

  3. @ Sebastien Zorn:
    A reform or conservative Jew in Israel who is loyal to the state and either he or his children serve in the IDF not an issue in my mind. Conflating what some of the lefty Reform Rabbis in the USA say with Jews in Israel is simply not relevant in my mind.

  8. @ Reader:
    I’m sure they eelievd me( I also cursed him in Yiddish-forgot about that.) , he was just showing his “muscle” sitting behind his “protective” desk. . I just didn’t want to go to the trouble of phoning back home and getting the rabonim there involved with testimonials which would tunr out exactly as I told him. . I thought they were taking an unwarranted liberty and, as always , became aggrressive and I attacked. THis guy needed a good shaking up, and he got it.

  10. @ Bear Klein:
    I know. I was being facetious. I looked her up and she doesn’t regard herself as Jewish, anyway. But, who draws the line and where is the question. Not being religious myself, I am concerned with the pro-Palestinian politics non-Orthodox streams of Judaism, especially Reform. If that is where they are coming from, I am not sympathetic to them having a vote.

  12. @ Edgar G.:
    I wasn’t speaking about Chabad (which is the only Hareidi movement who reaches out to other Jews as opposed to alienating them like the Rabbanut) or about the majority of the Orthodox Jews..

    I was speaking about the insanity that is perpetrated in Israel by the Rabbanut.

    Your story supports my comment.
    It shows that their requirements are arbitrary and that they are ready to back down when threatened.
    What would happen if you didn’t resist rather desperately?
    You would be declared a goy by the Rabbanut!
    I am sure that in spite of the fact that they agreed to marry you in a Jewish ceremony, they still didn’t believe you.
    And do you think you are the only one this has happened to?!

    My point was that even though they position themselves as “the saviors and defenders of the true religion”, if they keep doing what they are doing now (and they WILL – you are wrong here), they will become MURDERERS OF JEWS, and they won’t care because to them, the murdered people wouldn’t be Jews.

    Why would they change their minds all of a sudden, after all these years?
    It doesn’t make any sense.

    BTW, quit using invective and swear words when you reply.

  15. @ Reader:

    “It seems”..I’m glad you prefaced your foolish comment by that. You know in your heart that it is not true. Look at the Chassidim, Look at Chabad, and tell me where a single one of the trype you seem to think , ever put any Jew outside in the snow for the wolves to eat.

    They talk a lot…a LOT, but when the chips are down, they are right there with us. Without them there would be no “us”.

    I recall my own experience with them. My wife’s Satmar conversion cert was accepted with barely a glance, but even though my late father had been Parnas of our shool for 40 years, and his father before him ,and we were from a Latvian Shtetl, they were doubtful of me. I was outraged. The Satmar Rebbe told us to make sure to keep the ORIGINAL cert, and give them a copy. Fine, but when I asked for the original back, they refused, and offered us a copy. They “rubbed me up the wrong way” ALL the way.

    I shook my fist under the beardie’s nose and shouted that I’d smash his jaw into pieces. and also then took up the telephone, to pull it from the wall plug, and said I’d throw it out of the window. (in those days it took 8 years to get a phone) ..he caved in right away, gave me back the original cert. and they sent us a nice little 80+ year old Rebbe (about 5′ tall) with a beautiful sparkling silver beard, a chupah, and a chazan. The Rebbe’s name, on the ketuba incidentally, was Reb Yehoshua, Ben Gamaliel Zilberman. (in Hebrew of course).

  16. @ Edgar G.:
    ” their immeseaurable contribution”
    True.
    However, it seems that they would rather that any Jew who is not one of them or one of their own converts would perish in the Diaspora, even if they are Orthodox, and I vehemently disagree.
    A virtue becomes a vice when taken too far.

  17. @ shebapython:
    Don’t be stupid. That was THEN, this is NOW.

    They should be in control of religious affairs. They devote their whole lives to keeping the Light burning. Without them and their suffering, there would be no Judaism today, and you, if you existed, would be sitting down right now to polish off a huge plate of ham and eggs, or pork chops. (maybe you still do, I don’t know …??)

    So regardless of internal quibbling their immeseaurable contribution to keeping our sacred religion alive, MUST be recognised and appreciated. They don’t interfere with secular affairs, and they keep Israel..Israel.

  18. @ keelie:
    Do you mean you don’t keep Shabbat, Light Shabbat Friday night candles, eat kosher, go to shool, nor fast on Yom Kipur…???

    In my home tome, there wre several families, all married out, traif as chazayrim, but always made sure to come to shool on Rosh HaShana and Yom Kipur. I went to school with a few of them and knew all their families.
    We sometimes rousted them out to make ui a manyan, never any question of it, they willingly came.

  19. @ Sebastien Zorn:
    Thant’s only Kabbala, which although a Jewish proacice, does not automatically confer Judaism on a practitioner. She is a shiksa who delves into Kabbala. Just like any goy who eats baigels and smoked slamon, is still a goy..

  21. @ Sebastien Zorn:
    No difference except the Rabbinate wants to maintain control and power plus the money they obtain.

    Tzohar is an orthodox organization in Israel that started doing this a few years ago. They also marry people and in the Rabbinate accepts their work though reluctantly (at least for the marriages not sure about conversions). They just happen to be reasonable people wanting to provide friendly but orthodox compliant religious services. https://www.timesofisrael.com/defying-rabbinate-rabbis-set-up-alternative-jewish-conversion-court/

  23. Purely tribalism, and thus it has nothing whatsoever to do with God.
    Although I consider myself to be a “loyal Jew” I will have nothing to do with our Jewish “religious” practices.

  24. @ Reader:
    A most dreadful shame to Heaven, that Israel should be like that, and very possibly it’s just that. Many years ago, before I ever went to Israel. I had a girlfriend who had lived in Israel for a year. When she came back, she said…”all the filthy dregs of the Jewish World have gathered in Israel, -it’s like the sump pit of the Mediterranean.”. It’s their children and grandchildren who are at each others’ throats’ there, today.

    She said the filth is such that it make even a Jew sick. She said much more and the word “filth” was conspicuous. I always remember it, and in my 14 years there, where I married and had my family, I saw that she was right. Even though I have many influential, even important, family members there, but they had an Israeli attitude…”kol beseder”..No matter what dirt emerged. We had to leave in disgust after the most henious damage done to us. And I absolutely hated to give up and leave….but my wife……

    I also left about $250,000 worth behind, when a dollar was real money. I couls write a book about it…if my stomach held up.

  25. @ Edgar G.:
    A few years ago I was reading Mishpachah magazine (very orthodox) – their English edition.
    One of their columnists (I think the last name was Tanenbaum, or something similar) wrote that people in Israel are divided not into religious and secular but into haters and non-haters.

    He said he wished he could say that the non-religious/religious lines of division coincided withe hater/non-hater lines of division but this isn’t the case.

  26. I am totally against the Court’s ruling, although Reform and Conservative conversions are accepted for citizenship, and the court’s “opinion” is on the same level. Still, it increases the numbers of halachically non-Jews in Israel, and surely most live minimal Jewish lives only by the fact that kosher food is always obtainable, although perhaps some also light shabbat candles.

    For almost the first time, I agree with Lieberman, nothing more needs to be said on that. He is RIGHT. The beardies are shameful.

  27. This is also from today’s Arutz Sheva:

    ” Attorney Simcha Rotman: Conversion ruling ‘very grave danger’ to State of Israel

    ‘Court wasn’t demanding legislation on the issue, it was demanding legislation in line with its judges’ view,’ attorney Simcha Rotman says.

    The Supreme Court’s recent ruling that Reform and Conservative conversions must be recognized by the State of Israel poses “a very grave danger” to Israel, attorney Simcha Rotman said.

    In an interview with Arutz Sheva, Rotman, who is also running on the Religious Zionism party list, spoke about the Supreme Court’s interference and its implications, emphasizing that there are solutions to be had.

    “In Israel, of course, we know that the Chief Rabbinate is supposed to be in charge of conversion,” he said, adding that the Supreme Court’s decision is part of a “a series of rulings” which has “step by step basically canceled the monopoly of conversion.”

    What makes this week’s ruling so different, he said, is “saying you can do it now in Israel. If someone is a foreign worker coming and living in Israel for five years and then he wants to stay here, if he wants to do it the regular way it will take him 5, 6, years, now he can just join a congregation – an ad hoc congregation in Israel, Reform, and in a few months get an oleh’s rights in Israel.”

    “That’s a very big danger, a very grave danger, and it’s not my words, it’s the words of one of the judges,” he emphasized. “Judge [David] Mintz says what we are doing here is a grave danger to the State of Israel. That’s what he said. His words. But that’s the issue.”

    When asked if there is a solution to the Supreme Court overreach, Rotman answered in the affirmative.

    “There is a way to deal with the power of the court, there is a way to deal with the conversion issue specifically. You need to have the override mechanism so the court will not tell you for 15 years, ‘Legislate the way I want, or I will cancel the legislation.’ The court will not be able to cancel the legislation.”

    The Override Clause, he stressed, “will give the ability to the majority in Israel to legislate the way the majority thinks that this law should pass.”

    On the issue of conversion specifically, Rotman noted, “we have to legislate the law.”

    “It’s in our platform already to legislate the law that in Israel only a state-recognized conversion can be done,” he concluded.”

  28. Israel Hayom gives a somewhat fuller version of Mr. Pindrus’s offensive remarks and the controvery that they have caused. Notice that the director of the ITIM organization that organized the conference at which Pindros spoke condemned his remarks:

    Speaking at a conference sponsored by the religious news website Kipa and ITIM – The Jewish Life Advocacy Center, Pindrus said, ‘I’m not willing to compromise on even a single ‘shiksa’ or goy becoming part of Israel because I want to be pluralistic and nice. That won’t happen.”

    After MK Tehila Friedman (Blue and White) made an outraged response to these comments, Pindrus upped the ante and said, “She [the soldier] is a shiksa, a goy. If she converted through the IDF, she isn’t Jewish according to Jewish law. If someone marries her. His father should sit shiva for him, rend his clothing, and say Kaddish.”

    Pindrus’ remarks drew fire from politicians. Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid said that “MK Pindrus’ remarks are primitive and sad. What female IDF soldier is he talking about? The women combat soldiers in the Caracal Battalion? The female Border Police at the checkpoints? The lookouts on the Gaza border?

    “These wonderful young women you call ‘shiksas’ are saving your life,” Lapid said.

    MK Yair Golan (Meretz) also condemned Pindrus’ comments, saying “MK Pindrus is under pressure because they are taking away his monopoly on Judaism, so he is humiliating kosher Jews who don’t espouse his failed approach.”

    Rabbi Seth (Shaul) Farber, chairman of ITIM, said in response to the wave of controversy that “We cannot ignore attacks on righteous converts who serve in the IDF and work on behalf of the people of Israel. MK Pindrus’ works prove that the Haredi parties aren’t afraid of non-Orthodox conversion, but rather of losing their control over the religious establishment and the conversion process.”

  30. For thousands of years the Jewish people had no “Chief Rabbinate” and had no problem knowing who was and was not a Jew. If they fancy themselves the new Sanhedrin they need to study more and examine themselves.
    One Orthodox conversion ought to be as good as the next.

  31. I agree with Bennett of Yamina that Pindrus small minded comment about new Jewish women serving in the Israeli Defense Forces is “shameful” and vowed that converts through the military would not have their Jewishness questioned. An Orthodox Conversion by someone living in Israel voluntarily and voluntarily joining the army.

    Pindrus and his draft dodging UTJ buddies are the parasites that live because of the defense that these new Jewish converts provide. Pindrus should is a disgrace of a Jew and Israel would be better if he resigned from the Knesset.