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FOR REFORM, MASORTI, PORAZ IS BEST HOPE
by Michele Chabin, Jewish Week, Nov. 26, 2004
In a strange twist, Interior minister comes out in favor of recognizing non-Orthodox
conversions despite government opposition. Avraham Poraz: Israel should not accept
Orthodox “monopoly” over religious conversion.
It’s not over ’til it’s over. So say leaders of the Reform and Masorti/Conservative
movements in Israel, whose long quest for recognition suffered a blow last week
when the state Attorney’s Office officially expressed its opposition to non-Orthodox
conversions performed in Israel.
 While
the prosecutor’s stand is discouraging, the leaders conceded, it isn’t necessarily
a death blow because Avraham Poraz, the man who heads the all-important Ministry
of the Interior, has come out in favor of Israel-based non-Orthodox conversions,
provided the converts can prove that they are not converting for financial or
other suspect reasons.
The standoff between the State Attorney Office, which represents the official
position of the government, and Poraz, a government minister in the anti-Orthodox
Shinui Party, is the latest — and perhaps final — chapter of a long court case
with more twists and turns than the Taconic Parkway.
Five years ago the Reform movement in Israel petitioned the High Court of Justice
to recognize 17 of its Israel-based converts when the Ministry of the Interior,
then headed by the Orthodox Shas Party, refused to grant them citizenship.
Though residents of Israel, the converts went abroad to finalize their conversions
after the High Court ruled that people who undergo non-Orthodox conversions outside
Israel are eligible for Israeli citizenship. The government has never recognized
non-Orthodox conversions performed in Israel.
After years of hearings, the case seemed close to being resolved when, in July,
Poraz said he was prepared to recognize 16 of the 17 converts for the purposes
of citizenship (the status of the 17th, an Arab from Gaza who was once married
to a Jew, is still pending).
In a court-ordered letter to the Attorney General’s Office, Poraz stated that
“we cannot accept the monopoly held by the Orthodox [establishment], which cannot
provide an answer for tens of thousands of immigrants [who moved to Israel] under
the Law of Return.” Poraz, whose party was embraced by Russian immigrants, at
least a quarter of whom are not halachically Jewish, argued that Orthodox conversions
are too stringent and require the convert to maintain a level of Jewish observance
not required of people born Jewish.
To be an Orthodox convert in Israel, one must promise to eat strictly kosher food,
keep the Sabbath and all holidays, and to send one’s children to Orthodox schools.
Often, a rabbinical court will not convert a person unless his or her non-Orthodox
Jewish spouse agrees to maintain an Orthodox lifestyle and live in an Orthodox
community.
After reviewing responses submitted by both sides — and combining pending citizenship
petitions from various parties — the High Court ruled in July that the Law of
Return does indeed apply to non-Jews who move to Israel and then undergo a conversion
in either Israel or abroad.
This ruling forced the Interior Ministry, which had refused to recognize Orthodox
converts over non-Orthodox ones, to grant citizenship to Orthodox converts who
had converted in Israel. Unfortunately for non-Orthodox converts, the court once
again refused to comment on what, if any, status Reform and Conservative converts
have under the July ruling. In the absence of clear guidelines, the government
said, only Orthodox conversions should be recognized.
The Reform movement responded with yet another petition to the High Court, this
time asking it to order the State Attorney to state why it will not recognize
non-Orthodox conversions. The State Attorney officially expressed its opposition
in mid-November.
Poraz, whose ministry has only recently begun to grudgingly register Orthodox
converts, as the Jewish Week revealed last week, said through a spokesman that
he is committed to fighting for recognition for the non-Orthodox streams.
Tibi Rabinowitz, Poraz’s adviser, said the interior minister “is in favor of recognizing
the Reform and Conservative converts. The battle is not over.”
It remains unclear, however, whether his efforts will win out over the State Attorney’s
Office, which reportedly reflects the views of Prime Minister Sharon. While Sharon,
who is secular, may have no personal objection to non-Orthodox recognition, he
cannot risk upsetting the Orthodox parties for political reasons, according to
Ehud Bandel, the head of the Masorti/Conservative movement in Israel.
“Currently, Sharon is heading a very shaky coalition which is in fact a minority
government,” Bandel told The Jewish Week. “He cannot afford alienating the Orthodox
haredi parties. We’re the ones who are again paying the price because in addition
to the haredim’s financial demands, they also want to maintain the so-called status
quo: their monopoly on all aspects of Jewish life in Israel.” In that regard,
Bandel said, “Sharon is no different from any of his predecessors since the state’s
founding in 1948.”
Despite these political considerations, Bandel said he had “no doubt whatsoever”
that the High Court “will reject the State Attorney’s reply and put an end to
this never-ending saga of Who is a Jew. This is the last epilogue of the saga.”
Bandel sincerely believes that the court has no choice but to rule in the movements’
favor “because it was clear from previous rulings that there is no legal basis
for discriminating against conversions, regardless of the location or the religious
affiliation.”
Anat Hoffman, director of the Israel Religious Action Center, the Reform movement’s
legal wing that petitioned the High Court, agreed that the court will recognize
non-Orthodox conversions because “there is more than one way to be Jewish and
[Israel] must embrace all these ways. That’s why halacha [Jewish law] is
called halacha, Hoffman said.
“It comes from the root lalechet, which means to move. Otherwise Jewish
law would have derived from the root ‘amada,’ which means ‘to stand.’” Had that
been the case, Hoffman said, “Judaism wouldn’t have survived 3,000 years.”
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