An initiative by the Jewish Agency to set up its own independent conversion court could challenge the Israeli rabbinate’s global monopoly on giyur.
Israel’s rabbinical courts are currently the sole authority that can decide on the Jewishness of converts who seek Israeli citizenship. This has enabled them to force a more stringent level of conversion on liberal-minded rabbinical courts in diaspora communities.
However, the Jewish Agency’s plan for an independent conversion system, which was overwhelmingly endorsed by its board of governors last week, has the potential to streamline conversion and make life easier for converts who wish to move to Israel and have had trouble convincing the Israeli rabbinical courts of their Jewishness.
Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky has said that it is a response to the frustration of Jewish communities around the world over the dismissive attitude of the strictly-Orthodox bathei din towards potential converts. Under the new framework, modern-Orthodox Israeli rabbis will travel to those communities and partner the local rabbis in performing conversions.
The Israeli Chief Rabbinate, however, does not plan to give up its monopoly and has threatened not to recognise these conversions, a decision that could prevent the converts from getting married in Israel, even if they receive citizenship.
Another blow to the Rabbinate came on Sunday when the cabinet’s legislative committee rejected a proposal by Shas to amend the Kashrut Fraud Law. The amendment would close a loophole which allows restaurants supervised by groups other than the Rabbinate to present themselves as kosher.
The Rabbinate has issued fines to these businesses, which subsequently appealed to the High Court. Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein wrote in his opinion to the court that as long as the private supervision certificates made it clear they were not issued on behalf of the Rabbinate, they were legitimate.
