The Jewish Week has a good piece on the RCA-Israel Chief Rabbinate conversion "agreement" that isn't an agreement after all. And it turns out there is real dissent in the RCA over the Basil Herring-led capitulation to the thugs in Jerusalem:
…One leading rabbi willing to speak publicly about why he believed the RCA-drafted agreement was a blunder was Marc Angel, a former president of the RCA and spiritual leader of Congregation Shearith Israel on the Upper West Side. He called the proposed agreement “an entire capitulation to the most extreme haredi view.”
It counters a long tradition of individual rabbis shepherding their candidates along the path to becoming Jewish, said Rabbi Angel, author of the book “Choosing to be Jewish: The Orthodox Road to Conversion” (Ktav 2005). With this agreement, “the rabbinate in Israel with the RCA’s entire approval has deprived Orthodox rabbis from functioning as rabbis in the area of conversion.”
He said he receives “literally hundreds of calls e-mails and letters from potential converts, and the rejection they face in Orthodox batei din [religious courts] is heartbreaking, a crime against the Jewish people.”
“Those rabbis [in Israel] don’t seem to care about the hearts and souls of these people who want to have Jewish families, to have Jewish children. What they’re interested in saying is ‘we have standards, either you make it our way or not at all.’ It’s an ugly face for Orthodoxy, and a shame for Orthodoxy,” said Rabbi Angel.…
Rabbi Amar is a thug. In a sane country, he and wife would now be in prison for kidnapping and assault. Instead, he continues to sit as Sefardic chief rabbi and is Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's designated heir.
If the RCA does not stand up to Amar, it might as well close up shop. You've killed Modern Orthodoxy, gentlemen. Either do CPR now or go join Lakewood.