Former MK Elazar Stern is outraged over the cabinet decision to dissolve the giyur reforms passed by the previous administration, reforms that were a part of his ongoing effort to liberalize state religious services. In the previous Knesset Stern championed liberal religious services, including giyur and marriage registration.
Stern spoke with the dati leumi Kippa website, expressing his anger over the cabinet decision. “It is a tragedy for the identity of the State of Israel and its existence. It is a tragedy to religious Zionism, which failed in its task time after time. No chief rabbi, no giyur, no kashrus! Everything is in chareidi hands and they use it as a tool to dig in. For them it’s all about money”
“If you cannot make a place for all streams of Yiddishkheit in another 100 years there will no longer be a state. Every time we create a link between Judaism and extremism”.
Stern continues “The loss is all ours. Our children are intermarrying without rabbonim. They are dismissing everything. Friends of my children are intermarrying. The main thing for the religious Zionists is to control the Justice and Education Ministries’ he mocks, adding “They are contributing to the assimilation of the State of Israel”.
He explains that he continues advancing giyur outside of Knesset, including via the High Court of Justice where a number of petitions are pending. He concluded “They ask why the High Court is always involving itself”, responding “The cabinet compels its intervention”.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
Note the” former”, B’H.
No, Mr. Stern the “tragedy” is that the government decided to let in thousands of non-Jews into the State of Israel and now they have to find some way to accommodate their desire to get married.
That is a separate issue from conversion, which is a path to becoming a true Jew, not a path to marriage.
The former law would have created thousands of questionable “converts,” and fracture the integrity of the Jewish people, another even bigger and even more insolvable problem.
That’s right, if the democratically(sort of) elected Knesset can’t do your bidding, then turn to the Supreme “Court”, that good olde boy system can always be counted on to implement decrees that weaken both the State and the People.
Dear Elazar Stern,
You may not realize that Reform and Conservative practices are not Jewish practice and rituals as known by our fathers and mothers and their fathers and mothers…..
These deviant groups call themselves streams or branches of Judaism. They are not streams nor are they branches of Judaism. Unfortunately, many naive Jews have been lead to believe that they are practicing Judaism when in reality they are not!
Instead of promoting these phonies let’s invite these people into our homes for a Shabbos, a Yom Tov or just for a weekday kosher meal. You don’t have to tell them that they are wrong or confused or misinformed just invite them to allow them to see the beauty of a real Shabbos, Yom Tov or let them enjoy a kosher meal. Hashem will open their eyes to the Emes of Torah and Yiras Shomayim.
Why try to undo Emes for their sheker?
All Jews are responsible for each other.
He doesn’t realise the bitter truth: Zionism in any shape or form leads to assimilation and self-destruction of Jewish loyalty and identity. Getting some committee to decide who is Jewish will not save the Jewish people: it will dangerously weaken us.
Would stern consider his friends kids marrying Jews for j as intermarrying? Well the reform definitely don’t! And being that their giyur is also a reform giyur, There is a high probability they are also non-jews. Well Mr, Rabbi, Mk, Reform, Conservative, Jews for j supporter, You are contributing to the assimilitation of jews.
(note: “They are contributing to the assimilation of the State of Israel”. He’s worried about assimilation of the state rather than jews! Then you can negate the standard, as long as they are israelis rather than jews!)
“Friends of my children are intermarrying”, this is happening bec. Zionism is a dead movement, worse than intermarrying is the amount of jewish women RL who “convert” to ISLAM every year IN ISRAEL.