How Jewish is Jewish? The battle over Israel’s conversion system - The Jewish Chronicle

It’s been more than five years since Matan Kahana commanded an air-force squadron. But the minister for religious services still executes his plans with the kind of precision needed to get a plane to a target with split-second timing. His office is full of charts showing every stage of policy implementation, the factors necessary for success, and the various types of opposition which could be predicted and overcome.

That’s how, in the eight months of the new government’s existence, he has already passed the legislation reforming the kashrut business by allowing private organisations to provide supervision, despite the spirited fight put up by the Chief Rabbinate and the strictly-Orthodox establishment.

On Sunday, he embarked on his next campaign. The cabinet’s legislative committee approved his proposal for a reform of the giyur (conversion) court system.

It will now be brought to the Knesset for its first reading, though the coalition’s smallest of majorities, and the fact that the strictly-Orthodox parties have accused him of “damaging the Jewish people with all his strength”, means that this stage will have to be timed with great care.

Just the kind of operation Kahana relishes. The opposition will muster every vote it can to foil him. “I’ve got a whole battle-plan,” he said this week, in a conversation with the JC.

The religious services ministry is hardly the most glamorous of briefs, but Kahana has been working hard to imbue the reform – to allow local rabbis and councils to set up their own batei din to perform conversions – with historic importance.

He insists: “This is something which can save entire families from being torn apart.”

Israel’s Jewish non-Jews

Around 400,000 Israeli citizens, immigrants from the former Soviet Union, or their children, are not recognised by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate as being Jewish according to halacha, though their Jewish roots make them eligible for citizenship under the Law of Return.

While most of them have become rooted in Israeli society, they cannot get married in Israel where only religious marriage, under the Orthodox rabbinate, exists by law.

As part of his campaign to promote the new law, Mr Kahana has launched an online campaign focusing on the story of Daria, a soldier who served in his own squadron.

“She was one of the best soldiers I knew, the kind of person the IDF can’t do without,” he says in a video. Now Daria is studying dentistry.

“I’m sure she’ll be a wonderful dentist. She’s someone I wish my son would marry. Only, she’s not Jewish.”

The minister is trying to make Israelis treat the issue of citizens “without religion” as a true, national crisis.

He claims that authorising conversions by more rabbis, especially local ones – who ostensibly have a much better connection with residents – will encourage those who are currently reluctant to convert through the existing conversion courts of the Rabbinate, which are seen as being too stringent and unfriendly towards prospective converts.

The strictly-Orthodox parties and the Chief Rabbinate, which is largely controlled by them, are up in arms.

Just as with his previous reform of kashrut supervision, they see it as a ploy by Kahana to erode their power and accuse him of trying to introduce a watered-down version of Jewish law, opening the door to the Reform and Conservative rabbis they abominate.

The number of Israelis converting to Judaism is in decline. In 2019, 3,090 converted. In 2020, it was down to 2,355. About half of these are from families who emigrated from the former Soviet Union.

But are the conversion reforms going to have a significant impact on the situation?

Some Israelis are indeed extremely upset by the thought of their sons marrying women who are not Jewish according to halacha and having “non-Jewish” children as a result. But many other Israelis, wherever they come from, no longer seem to care about the halachic status of their fellow citizens.

As far as they’re concerned, if the son or daughter of immigrants is born and bred in Israel, speaks Hebrew and serves in the army, they’re Jewish and Israeli just the same as them.
The requirement to suddenly undergo a lengthy Orthodox conversion process, even if it is carried out in “user-friendly” conditions, seems to them superfluous.

“I agree that the numbers at first won’t be massive,” says Kahana. “But even if we add at first just a thousand new converts, that will be a great thing for them and the families that are being torn apart when the issue of marriage comes up.

“[It will allay] the fear that Israelis have of their children not being Jewish.”

Progress of sorts

This isn’t the first time the government has tried to offer more streamlined ways of converting.

For example, the IDF has the “Nativ” programme, which has enabled soldiers to undertake most of their conversion studies during their national service.

“Many of our soldiers, when offered the chance, don’t really see the point,” says one IDF officer who recently was involved in the programme.

“They see themselves as being fully Jewish already. And many of those who go to Nativ don’t complete the course and therefore aren’t converted.”

According to IDF figures, the number of soldiers converting through Nativ was down by 24 per cent in 2020.

Kahana’s plan, while opening up more options for conversion, is still based solely on Orthodox rabbis, who require a commitment to live an Orthodox observant life. He is adamant that it won’t include progressive rabbis.

“I don’t believe that a Reform or Conservative giyur is valid,” he says. “This isn’t about opening the door to non-Orthodox conversions.”

Nevertheless, Labour Knesset Member Gilad Kariv, who is also a Reform rabbi, has committed to pushing the law through the Knesset Justice Committee which he chairs.

Professor Aviad Hacohen, a constitutional law expert who was part of a group that helped draft the plan said: “It won’t solve all the many problems we have with personal status, recognition of Jewishness and marriage. But opening up the conversion process, by releasing it from the monopoly of the Chief Rabbinate, is an important step forward.”

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