After a number of rabbonim headed by Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch Shlita announced they have formed a beis din for giyur for those wishing to bypass the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, Rabbi Tzion Boaron Shlita, a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council, decided to level his attack against the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.
Rav Boaron spoke with Kikar Shabbos News, explaining that today, Reform rabbis and female rabbis convert people who are already accepted by the Ministry of the Interior, registered as Jews, and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel remains silent. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel is not fighting this. It is not doing enough.
Rabbi Boaron calls on the Chief Rabbis of Israel to sit with the Chief Rabbinate Council to discuss the matter of giyur, warning the moment giyur conducted by a Reform-affiliated rabbi is recognized by the state, with the Interior Ministry recording such as person as being Jewish, it is very serious but “no one cares”.
Rabbi Boaron also blames the chareidi parties in Knesset for not raising this matter during the coalition negotiations. “No one cares. They are responsible for all of it. They don’t care and they did not mention it in coalition talks” concluded Rabbi Boaron.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
Yes sir, Rav Baron.
What is impt to s party is what they negotiate & discuss at coalition meetings. This new or future Reform Giyur ruling has to concern religious parties.
I suspect that this is a rumor.
Part of the coalition agreement was to throw out the conversion law that was agreed upon in the previous Knesset, which set up new committees of Tzohar rabbis. Recognizing Reform conversions is an even more serious matter.
This is probably just another media blitz on their part to undermine and slander the Chief Rabbinate.
G-d forbid that they could talk with the Rabbinate about their differences, much more effective to go to the media.
The Supreme Court has famously ruled on the subject. What would harav Boaron have the Rabbinate do? And really – lemai nafka mina? The ruling of the Supreme Court did not go to the halachik status of Reform and Conservative giyurim. The Rabbanut was not obligated to recognize such giyurim – and it does not. The ruling of the Supreme Court was limited to ‘seif haleom’ in the Israeli teudat zehut, which is merely an administrative document, regarding which the Supreme Court ruled that people who underwent Reform and Conservative giyurim who wish their teudat zehut to read ‘Jewish’ in the seif haleom may choose to do so, and that this will not in any way serve as proof that they are halachikally Jewish.