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Joint Progress
Israel's first multi-denominational
conversion course is moving ahead.
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ERIC 'SILVER
Israel Correspondent
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Somerset Collection (248) 637-3060
Jerusalem
oftly, softly, Israel has
launched a joint Orthodox-
Conservative-Reform pro-
gram to solve the tricky
problem of how to treat the quarter of
a million Russian immigrants who are
Jewish according to the Law of Return
(having at least one Jewish grandpar-
ent), but not- according to halacha,
meaning that their mother was not
born Jewish or converted by an
Orthodox rabbi.
Clearly, this program could
serve as a compromise model
for Jews from other countries
faced with the same situation.
As it is today, the Orthodox
rabbinical authorities, who
enjoy a monopoly in such
matters, will not perform mar-
riages for these people, or bury
them in Jewish cemeteries.
The Interior Ministry, con-
trolled by the Sephardi
Religious Party Shas under
former Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu, at times
refused residence to their
dependent relatives.
Rubbing salt into a sensitive
wound, Ovadia Yosef, a former
Sephardi Chief Rabbi, has denounced
these people as "goyim" who want to
flood the country with pork-eating
pimps and prostitutes.
But the immigrants want to be
integrated into Israeli society, and
many recognize that the way in is
through the Jewish religion. Yet, most
refuse to adopt the Orthodox lifestyle
on which the courts insist for conver-
sion, and the more flexible Reform
and Conservative movements, a tiny
minority here, are still fighting for
legitimacy.
So with a deliberate lack of fan-
fare, a joint Institute for Jewish
Studies, sponsored by the Jewish
Agency, opened its doors a couple of
months ago in Karmiel, near Haifa.
The first 30 immigrant candidates,
in their early 20s, have started a part-
time course (three evenings a week),
designed to qualify them for
S
Orthodox conversion after one year.
Two more centers are planned, one in
Ra'anana, near Tel Aviv, and one in
Beersheva in the south.
The compromise institute follows
the lines recommended by former
Finance Minister Ya'acov Ne'eman's
much-touted commission from the
administration of Netanyahu.
Its guidelines include the following:
• The Orthodox are giving a degree
of de facto recognition to the Reform
and Conservative movements
• Those movements are settling for
an Orthodox bet din (Jewish religious
"This is the first
time members of the
three streams are
working together in
a religious area."
Since
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1986
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court of law, which can approve conver-
sions), at the end of the converts' road
• The institute's board combines
representatives of the Reform and
Conservative movements with respect-
ed "non-representatives" of the
Orthodox establishment
• Teachers for the Russian instruc-
tion courses are drawn from
Orthodox, Conservative and Reform;
denominational differences are spelled
out in panel discussions with speakers
from the streams
• Classes are strictly factual in pre-
senting what Judaism says about
Shabbat, the festivals, dietary laws,
and so forth
Parallel to the courses, the Chief
Rabbis agreed to set up special, rela-
tively liberal, conversion courts. They
have not yet named the judges. So the
program has their blessing, if not a
hechsher (kashrut certificate). That
would mean recognizing the non-
Orthodox streams, which the
Orthodox Chief Rabbis refuse to do.