Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

JERUSALEM — A controversial conversion bill will be brought before the Knesset for final action next month if no compromise is reached, Israeli Justice Minister Tzachi Hanegbi said this week.

The bill passed April 1 in the first of three Knesset votes known as readings, and further action was postponed to allow time for a compromise between Orthodox parties and non-Orthodox movements to be negotiated.

Passage of the bill, which would cement in law exclusive Orthodox authority over conversions performed in Israel, was a condition of the religious parties when they joined the government coalition a year ago.

Indeed, they have threatened to leave the coalition if the bill does not become law. Such a move could force new Israeli elections.

Hanegbi's comments, made at a coalition leadership meeting, appeared designed to pressure the Reform and Conservative movements into concessions.

They are outraged over the bill because they believe it would delegitimize their practice of Judaism.

Hanegbi blamed the diaspora Jewish backlash to the bill on its opponents' exaggeration of its implications and on the government's failure to explain it.

The bill, in its present form, would not affect the recognition of conversions performed abroad.

Knesset member Yitzhak Cohen of the ultra-religious Sephardic Shas Party, which has 10 seats in the 120-member parliament, said it would pull out of the coalition if the bill does not pass by the end of June.

This would break Netanyahu's 66-seat majority in the Knesset, and may force new elections.

But support within the coalition for the bill may be wavering. Third Way Knesset member Alexander Lubotzky, who has spearheaded compromise efforts, hinted this week that his faction would consider breaking the coalition agreements and voting against the bill.

"When we signed the coalition agreements, we did not realize the reaction the bill would draw in Israel and in the Jewish community abroad," said Lubotzky. His faction has four seats in the Knesset.

"It seems that in this case, unity of the Jewish people is more important than the coalition agreements," he said.

Industry and Trade Minister Natan Sharansky, who heads the Yisrael Ba'Aliyah Party, was in New York this week to meet with leaders of the U.S. Reform and Conservative movement in an effort to reach a compromise on the bill.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to rouse opposition to the bill, the American Jewish Committee this Friday is placing an ad in Israel's largest circulation Hebrew daily, Yediot Achronot, urging Israelis to actively oppose any "measures and rhetoric that question the legitimacy of the religious life of the overwhelming majority of American Jews."

AJCommittee's Israel director, Yossi Alpher, said the bill could "alienate large segments of the American Jewish community by bringing it to a position where it no longer has an interest in supporting Israel…"