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LIBERAL COMMUNITIES LAUD SUPEREME COURT ON CONVERSION
by Daphna Berman
Ha'aretz, June 4, 2004
Anglo activists in the non-Orthodox communities in Israel are celebrating this week's Supreme Court ruling, calling it a positive and long overdue step towards recognizing the majority of Jews worldwide and strengthening ties with Diaspora Jewry.
The Supreme court ruled Tuesday that the Law of Return applies to any non-Jew who comes to Israel and undergoes a conversion process - be it inside or outside of Israel.
"For years, it was a ridiculous anomaly that [for the purposes of the Law of Return] a rabbi sitting in London had the authority to oversee a conversion, but a rabbi sitting in Jerusalem did not," Nicole Maor, the Australian-born director of the Israel Religious Action Center's legal aid for new immigrants division said.
"There are no longer any excuses to limit Conservative and Reform conversions in Israel, and if the Ministry of Interior tries to do so, they won't have any legal ground, only political ground."
The Supreme Court, she added, "put another nail in the coffin of the Ministry's efforts to stop non-Orthodox conversions."
The decision, which comes after several years of deliberation, is a "definite, but not complete" victory, Maor also told Anglo File. "A complete victory would have been if the Supreme Court ordered the Ministry to grant the petitioners new immigrant status."
Reform and Conservative community leaders throughout the country, however, are nonetheless calling the decision a breakthrough, in what they see as a long overdue recognition of non-Orthodox Judaism.
"The majority of Jews in the world are affiliated with liberal movements like Reform or Conservative, and when you recognize their Judaism, you recognize the majority of Jews worldwide," Rabbi Kinneret Shiryon, Israel's first female rabbi said. "I've been waiting for this for a long time and this is a crucial step and an important step."
The ruling, the former New Yorker added, will also have a positive effect on aliyah by sending out a clear and positive message that Israel wants world Jewry "to be a part of the renaissance of the Jewish people in their homeland."
In another significant development this week, former chief Sephardi rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron advocated the dismantling of the Orthodox rabbinate's monopoly over marriage - the first time a leading rabbinic figure affiliated with the religious establishment in Israel publicly encouraged such an act.
The announcement came as a welcome surprise to many liberal Anglo community leaders, who were also quick to warn that though significant, the statement will not likely effect the current status quo.
"There is constant resistance to innovation and so I was surprised when Bakshi-Doron expressed what he saw as the reality of life in Israel," Rabbi James Lebeau, director of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in Israel told Anglo File. "But the fact that he made the comment, does not mean that things will change."
Lebeau added, however, that the remark is one step closer in "convincing Diaspora Jews that Israel is, indeed, their homeland."
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