Prominent Israeli rabbis connected to the religious Zionist movement have established a new network of conversion courts.
The formation of the private court comes a month after the Israeli government canceled landmark conversion reform passed by the previous government.
Six minors born to immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union were converted Aug. 10 in a private ceremony, several Israeli news outlets reported. The conversion was conducted by Rabbi Nahum Rabinowitz, the head of a West Bank yeshiva. Among other rabbis involved in the conversion court are Shlomo Riskin, the chief rabbi of Efrat, and David Stav, chairman of the Tzohar rabbinical organization.
Currently there are just four conversion courts empowered to perform conversions throughout Israel. The reform enacted by government order in November would have allowed some 30 Orthodox city rabbis to perform state-recognized conversions in Israel. The law aimed to create more flexible standards within Orthodox parameters, mainly to deal with several hundred thousand immigrants from the former Soviet Union whose Jewish status is in limbo because they are not considered Jewish under Jewish law.
Repealing conversion reform reportedly was part of the coalition deal struck between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and the haredi Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, which did not sit in the last government. — jta