'Converts Won’t Be Recognized', Chief Rabbis warn

By Lazar Berman

Times of Israel

October 28, 2014

Israel’s haredi chief rabbis warned Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu today that they would refuse to recognize any conversions to Judaism done outside the conversions courts they control under the new conversion reform bill now making its way through the Knesset voting process.
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel David Lau and his Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Yitzhak Yosef met Netanyahu today to discuss that conversion reform bill and to again urge Netanyahu to do everything in his power to block it.
Netanyahu – who has already taken steps to block the bill or to slow the approval process for it down, told the chief rabbis that could have a Knesset majority and, if it does, it could only be blocked by a government directive that would establish a similar (although more curtailed) system of reforms, the Times of Israel reported based on a report aired on Israel Radio.
The chief rabbis reportedly told Netanyahu that they saw no difference between the bill passing the Knesset or the government issuing conversion reform as a directive.  Both options are bad and would hurt converts, because many rabbis – themselves included – would refuse to recognize those conversions.
The conversion reform bill decentralizes conversion by allowing state-employed chief rabbis of cities, towns and rural regions to set up their own conversion courts, and it allows potential converts to choose any of these local courts to use for the conversion process or choose to use one of the four regional conversion courts that already exist on the control of Lau and Yosef. The local chief rabbis who would be allowed to set up new conversion courts are all Orthodox, but many are moderate Zionist Orthodox, who haredim strongly oppose.
Haredi leaders and right-wing Zionist Orthodox rabbis strongly oppose the conversion reform bill while Moderate Zionist Orthodox and Modern Orthodox rabbis, the vast majority of their followers and almost all secular Jewish Israelis support it.
But that large super-majority of popular support for the conversion reform bill hasn’t stopped Netanyahu from openly trying to block it to appease haredi political leaders he wants to bring into his coalition government.