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Jerusalem (JTA) — Israel's
Chief Rabbinate is seeking
to tighten standards for con-
version to Judaism, which
will make the process more
difficult for thousands of re-
cent immigrants from the
former Soviet Union.
Among the measures re-
portedly ordered by Sephar-
dic Chief Rabbi Eliahu
Bakshi-Doron is the closing,
at least temporarily, of a
number of special conversion
courts located throughout
the country.
The clamp down on con-
version signals that Israel's
religious establishment will
continue to move toward the
right under the recently in-
stalled new chief rabbis.
Haredi, or fervently Or-
thodox, circles have long at-
tacked the more moderate
rabbinate for allowing con-
versions seen as insincere by
the critics, since they did not
result in full observance of
biblical commandments and
Jewish law.
At the same time, the rab-
binate has often come under
attack for putting hurdles in
the way of immigrants, par-
ticularly Russians with Jew-
ish spouses, who wish to join
Israel's non- Orthodox Jew-
ish majority.
According to press reports,
Rabbi Bakshi-Doron is in-
sisting that judges on re-
ligious courts require longer
Judaism courses for prospec-
tive converts and seek from
them a firmer commitment
to lead observant lives after
conversion.
He also reportedly wants
converts to send their chil-
dren to the state's religious
school system or to one of the
fervently Orthodox systems,
instead of to the secular
schools.
According to some reports,
Rabbi Bakshi-Doron has also
ordered all conversion cases
to be sent to his own office
for approval.
The move by the recently
installed chief rabbi could
affect the conversion plans of
thousands of recent olim
from the former Soviet
Union.
According to press reports,
Rabbi Bakshi-Doron
specifically cited volunteers
on kibbutzim as requiring
stiffer rabbinic criteria for
conversion. The Israeli col-
lective farms are seen as
bastions of secularism.
Regarding olim, Rabbi
Bakshi-Doron is said to sup-

port the ongoing, low-profile
conversion of thousands of
members of mixed Jewish-
p Gentile families. But he
reportedly looks with less
favor upon the conversion of
immigrants whose family
members are all gentile.
Considerable numbers of
such immigrants have set-
tled in Israel, some with the
aid of forged documents. The
Israeli immigration au-
thorities, whose work begins
at the consulates in the
states of the former Soviet
Union, try to weed out such
applicants but do not always
succeed.
The Ashkenazic chief
rabbi, Israel Meir Lau, is
keeping his distance from
the potentially stormy issue
of conversions. He can do so
on purely formal grounds,
since Rabbi Bakshi-Doron is
president of the Supreme
Rabbinical Court and,
therefore, bears prime
responsibility for issuing in-
structions to the dayanim, or
religious court judges.
Under Israeli law, the two
chief rabbis, who are elected
for 10-year terms, rotate
their two roles: One serves
as chairman of the Chief
Rabbinate Council and the
other as president of the
Supreme Rabbinical Court.
The special conversion
courts closed by Rabbi
Bakshi-Doron were set up in
recent years to contend with
the swelling numbers of
conversion candidates.
Among the conversion
courts Rabbi Bakshi-Doron
has reportedly singled out
for criticism is that of Rabbi
Haim Druckman, a former
Knesset member for the Na-
tional Religious Party.
Rabbi Druckman, a yeshiva
dean, exemplifies the old-
time religious establishment
that has lost ground in re-
cent years to the stricter Or-
thodoxy of the Shas party,
with which Rabbi Bakshi
Doron is associated. ❑

Arrow Missle
Was Not Shared

Washington (JTA) — Israel
is strongly denying sugges-
tions in a congressional
report that it might have
transferred U.S. technology
connected to the Arrow mis-
sile development project to
third parties.

❑

