According to an exclusive report filed by the dati leumi Kippa website, a day after the Knesset advanced a new giyur bill by passing its first reading in the Knesset plenum, Kiryat Arba Chief Rabbi Dov Lior Shlita sent a letter of support for the Chief Rabbis of Israel, expressing strong opposition to the bill.
According to the chief rabbis and many other rabbonim, the bill intending to facilitate the giyur process will lead to many halachic issues down the road.
The bill seeks to amend the current giyur bill to permit and civil service chief rabbi of a city who is a certified dayan to perform giyur. The Chief Rabbinate fears they will lose control of giyur and too many rabbonim may opt to be lenient in the matter. Rishon L’Tzion Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef Shlita spoke out harshly upon hearing the bill passed a first reading in Knesset.
Kippa reports Rav Lior wrote in his letter that the “Giyur Law passed its first reading in Knesset represents a serious breach in Kodshei Yisrael for generations.
Rav Lior insists that all giyur must be processed exclusively by the Chief Rabbinate, the supreme religious authority in Israel, lending his total and unquestionable support for the Chief Rabbinate.
Rav Lior calls for “Doing everything possible to cooperate with the chief rabbis and prevent this breach”.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
Those who are frum (and I include “modern orthodox” and “dati leumi” as frum, even if their politics are messed up) will always be dubious about the legitimacy of a conversion if the convert in question is not frum (i.e. Shomer Shabbos, Shomer kasrus, etc.) regardless of the rabbinate involved. And those who aren’t frum couldn’t care less.
The problem is when this Convert will become a Bali tashuvah and then you see that they’re shomer shabass etc but they don’t know that they’r still not jewish.
“Rav Lior insists that all giyur must be processed exclusively by the Chief Rabbinate, the supreme religious authority in Israel, lending his total and unquestionable support for the Chief Rabbinate.”
Four years ago Rav Lior joined with Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and another rabbi to form an *ad hoc* beit din to convert the victim of Tropper’s harassment, bypassing the usual channels which had failed the prospective convert. Rav Lior is to be praised for righting the injustice and accepting a woman who wanted to be a frum Jew. (She still is, and now works for a counter-missionary organization!) But the conversion was done outside of the central conversion authority that had been set up with the support of most of the charedi gedolim. The fact is that the Jewish people have never had a central conversion authority.