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Israel's controversial conversion legislation will not pass, five Knesset members tried to reassure an Oakland audience last week.

In a 120-member parliament, "there are more than 70 members against it," Labor Party MK Hagai Meirom told a group of East Bay Jewish leaders assembled at Beth Jacob Congregation.

But that doesn't mean opponents of the legislation are out of the woods.

"It's not the first time such legislation was raised in the Knesset," Meirom said. "It is an endless attempt by the ultra-Orthodox to force the other sects to act according to the Torah.

"In the short term, we can overcome," he said, "but it doesn't mean we shall not have the threat in the next term of the Knesset."

The S.F.-based and East Bay Jewish federations brought the five MKs to the Bay Area as part of a national effort to expose Israeli lawmakers to American Jewish life. Visiting with students, rabbis and scholars on both sides of the bay, the delegation quickly learned religious pluralism is the issue of the day for many local Reform and Conservative Jews.

"I didn't know how deep your concern in this issue is," MK David Magen told about 60 people of all movements attending the Oakland forum.

For his part, Meirom said he accepted the invitation to visit the Bay Area in order to make a statement on the prickly issue. "I want to show the ultra-Orthodox in Israel that we are fully committed to American Jewry and we are not going to participate in the campaign to drive them from the Jewish nation.

"What we are trying to do first by coming here is create something new: Members of the Knesset are becoming in a way your delegates in Israel."

At the Oakland forum Thursday night, the delegation was well received. In particular, they drew loud applause following a revelation that all five members oppose the conversion legislation on principle.

MK Emanuel Zisman, a member of the Likud bloc's Third Way Party, made it clear he would vote "no" even if it meant contradicting the ruling government's policy.

"I'm not Conservative. I'm not Reform. I'm not Orthodox. I'm not atheist," Zisman said during an impassioned riff. "We live together 50 years — all kinds of Jews from 187 states."

But even while stressing his opposition to the conversion law, Zisman — who was born in Bulgaria and immigrated to Israel in 1949 — attempted to highlight those arenas in Israel in which pluralism thrives.

"You must know the Reform movement can do everything in Israel," he said. "It can build schools, cultural centers. There are problems only with so-called personal issues," such as marriage and divorce.

Magen, a member of the Likud Bloc's Gesher Party, also tried to highlight the positive, touching on his country's 50th anniversary and the celebrations surrounding it.

Audience members, however, seemed more eager to utilize their time with the Knesset members to explore their own concerns. Jerry Isaak-Shapiro, director of the Northern California Hillel Council, asked if the Knesset had addressed ways to minimize what appears to be a deepening schism between Israel and American Jews.

"Let's stop the fiction," he said. "It's not am echad [one people]. It's a group over here and a group over there."

MK Ran Cohen, of the Meretz Party, said that division is not a problem the Knesset will tackle.

Nonetheless, he acknowledged times have changed. Gone is the expectation by Israelis that American Jews should prove their commitment to the Jewish state by making their home there.

What is needed, Cohen believes, is a heightened appreciation of the distinct cultural circumstances that influence Jewish identity outside Israel. After numerous trips to the American Jewish community, Cohen said he has "succeeded in recognizing my people."

"Without the dignity of each other," he said, "we will not achieve the unification of the Jewish people, the future of the Jewish people."