Rishon L’Tzion Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef Shlita remains opposed to converting children under bar/bas mitzvah. He spoke out against the new Giyur K’halacha, an independent beis din headed by Rabbi Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch Shlita, warning such conversions negate halacha.
At the end of his motzei Shabbos shiur, Rav Yosef spoke out regarding the new giyur bein din which permits converts to bypass the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. Rabbi Yosef spoke of one case in point pertaining to a convert, a minor, whose parents are not Jewish. The rav explained that even if the child is sent to a state religious school, the situation is absurd as he returns home to his parents who attend church every Sunday. “Rabosai, this represents the majority today. There are a few in which the mother is a goy and the father a non-religious Jew. In most cases both [parents] are goyim and they are uninterested in converting but they persuade him to permit the child to convert and they claim this is to prevent assimilation”.
The rav stated that if a minor child converts her returns home to parents that feed him non-kosher, questioning how one can convert such a child. “How will the son be frum” asks Rav Yosef, who adds that the situation will be worse chas v’sholom if there are mass conversions. “There are tens of thousands like this in Israel and chas v’sholom is these children are converted, woe to us, it is contrary to halacha and the Torah. Do you know what the punishment is for this?”
There are a growing number of prominent rabbonim in the dati leumi tzibur opposed to the beis, which is also opposed by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and chareidi rabbonim.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
With a child, the intent of the parent serves in lieu of the intent of the child (since minors by definition are incapable of legally intending anything), so how can an infant conversion be valid if the parents are not intending to raise the child as orthodox, which be definition requires that the parents be orthodox.