Israel’s High Court of Justice issued a groundbreaking ruling
on Monday that will mean formal recognition by the state to
non-Orthodox Jewish communities in the country — and likely spark a
dramatic uptick in the country’s religious culture wars and, quite
possibly, a move in the Knesset to clip the wings of the court.
But first, what the decision doesn’t do: it does not require the
Haredi-controlled state rabbinate to recognize Reform and Conservative
conversions. Only the Interior Ministry must do so.
And even there, the decision only slightly expands the scope of the
Interior Ministry’s existing recognition for those conversions. After
all, the Interior Ministry has for two decades formally accepted Reform
and Conservative conversions conducted overseas as conferring the right
to citizenship under the Law of Return.
Monday’s ruling is, in a sense, very narrow. It instructs the
Interior Ministry (but not the rabbinate) to recognize as Jewish for the
purposes of immigration (but for no other purposes, such as marriage or
burial) only those few Reform and Conservative conversions conducted
each year inside Israel. That’s the change.
As of Monday, a non-Jewish non-Israeli living in Israel who
converts to Judaism in the Conservative or Reform religious streams and
then asks to become a citizen based on the Law of Return will have their
conversion recognized by non-religious state bodies as conferring on
them that right.
An Israeli rabbinical court reviews a conversion case.
Why, then, all the fuss? Why are Haredi parties warning of dire
consequences and vowing to legislate to weaken the court’s powers in
response?
Two reasons. First, in recognizing for the first time conversions
done inside Israel, the State of Israel will necessarily be recognizing
in a formal way the Reform and Conservative movements themselves, the
institutions that are doing or have done the converting. Second, coming
just 22 days before the election, the ruling promises to become a
rallying cry for religious conservatives and liberals alike.
Recognition
Exceedingly few people are likely to be affected by the ruling.
In 2005, the High Court recognized what are known as “giyurei
kfitzah,” literally “hop conversions,” as granting immigration rights
under the law of return. “Hop conversions” are carried out by converts
who live and study for their conversion in Israel, then “hop” overseas
to conduct the official conversion ceremony in a Diaspora community in
order to get Israeli state recognition.
In the most prosaic and practical terms, the new ruling merely spares the prospective convert/immigrant a short trip abroad.
Reform female and male rabbis pray
together at Robinson’s Arch, the Western Wall site slated for future
egalitarian services, on February 25, 2016.
But the decision nevertheless does something profound for the Reform and Conservative movements.
For two decades, the state has recognized overseas conversions as
conferring immigration rights according to a test established by the
High Court, often called the “recognized community” test. That is,
Interior Ministry officials are asked to ascertain if the convert
received their conversion in a Jewish community that is recognized as
such by the rest of the Jewish communities in their country or region.
(It’s a bit more complex than that, with several agencies and
organizations doing the recognizing, but the details aren’t relevant
here.)
The key point: That “recognized community” test has now been expanded to Israel.
The Jewish state has long refused to recognize the institutions of
the Reform and Conservative movements in the country, a shunning rooted
in the political power of the ultra-Orthodox and religious-Zionist
political parties.
That wall of rejection has seen cracks over the years. In founding
the Ne’eman Committee in 1997, a first-term Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu for the first time appointed a Reform and a Conservative
representative, rabbis Uri Regev and Reuven Hammer, respectively, to an
official state committee.
Rabbi Dr. Amy Wallk Katz (left) leads as
Rabbi Steven Wernick (far right), CEO of the United Synagogue of
Conservative Judaism, prays at the Western Wall plaza, in Jerusalem’s
Old City, on July 7, 2016.
Since then, Reform and Conservative representatives played key roles
in the development of the Western Wall compromise that would have
established a permanent egalitarian section at the holy site, with joint
oversight including non-Orthodox representatives. The plan won cabinet
approval in January 2016 but was canceled by Netanyahu in June 2017,
after his Haredi coalition partners protested the plan’s official
recognition of the liberal religious streams. (The prayer pavilion
itself was opened in 2013, and is in constant use.)
Now, for the first time in a formal and specific way, the Jewish
state that has refused to recognize the institutions of the Reform and
Conservative movements will officially acknowledge those institutions as
a “recognized community” able to confer immigration rights on their
converts.
For the first time, Israel will officially see and engage with the liberal streams inside the country.
‘Freedom of religion for Jews’
The ruling also comes three weeks before an election already shaped by the religious culture wars.
Secular-Haredi tensions have risen over the past year, exacerbated by
the flouting of social-distancing restrictions in some Haredi
communities.
Screen shot of Yisrael Beytenu chief
Avigdor Liberman at a live-streamed party event, February 2, 2020. The
slogan behind him reads, ‘An end to ultra-Orthodox rule.’
The Yisrael Beytenu party, for example, adopted “End Haredi rule” as its campaign slogan.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid of secularist Yesh Atid party welcomed
Monday’s decision with a call for Israel to institute “complete equality
of rights for all streams of Judaism – Orthodox, Reform or
Conservative,” and promised a government led by him would “put an end to
the ridiculous situation whereby Israel is the only democracy in the
world without freedom of religion for Jews.”
And what of the religious right?
“The High Court’s decision to recognize Reform and Conservative
conversions is mistaken, very unfortunate, and will cause deep division
and dissension in the country,” lamented Shas party leader Aryeh Deri,
who is also the interior minister, and so must now implement the court’s
decision.
Never fear, Deri said in a statement, “I promise to amend the law so
that only conversion according to Jewish law is recognized by the State
of Israel.”
Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, right, and Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, left, on September 19, 2016
The ruling Likud party also issued a statement, though it was so
vague that it was hard to know what was being promised or threatened.
The statement, in a tweet several hours after the ruling, read: “The
High Court issued a ruling that endangers the Law of Return, which is a
foundational pillar of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic
state. Only a vote for Likud will ensure a stable right-wing government
that will restore sovereignty to the people and the Knesset.”
Prominent right-leaning pundit Amit Segal translated the vague
promises for the uninitiated: “After the elections, prepare for the
return of the ‘supersession clause,'” a bill long favored by the right
that would grant the Knesset the power to overturn High Court rulings.
Very little is likely to change in the life of Reform and
Conservative converts because of Monday’s ruling. But Israel itself will
change.
If the ruling stands, it will mark a watershed in state recognition
for Jewish religious options long rejected by Orthodox political parties
and the state rabbinic apparatus.
If a religious-right government is spurred by the decision to
legislate a “supersession clause,” that too would mark a watershed in
the balance of power between the Knesset and the High Court.
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