According to Tzohar, over 700,000 Jews living in Israel have been banned from marrying by the haredi-controlled Chief Rabbinate because their Jewish ancestry cannot be clearly verified due to records destroyed during WW1 and WW2 and by the communist regimes that ruled Eastern Europe in WW2’s aftermath. Another 300,000 people living in Israel are descended from Jews but are not halakhicly Jewish. It is untenable to allow these people to suffer and to be excluded from full participation in Israeli society because of extreme and strict interpretations of Jewish law adopted and pushed by haredi and “haredi-lite” rabbis.
Israel: 1 Million People Prohibited From Marrying ‘Pure’ Jews By Haredim, Moderate Rabbis Say
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
The moderate Zionist Orthodox Tzohar Rabbinical Organization has reportedly issued a statement praising the Knesset Law Committee, which on Monday passed the conversion reform bill that would decentralize conversions to Judaism. That allows the bill to have its second and third Knesset readings. If it passes those, the bill will become law.
Haredi and right-wing Zionist Orthodox “haredi-lite” rabbais strongly oppose the bill, because it would allow moderate Zionist Orthodox and Modern Orthodox state-employed chief rabbis of cites, towns and rural areas to form their own conversion courts and do their own conversions. Haredi rabbinic leadeers, the country’s haredi-controlled Chief Rabbinate and the haredi chief rabbis, and several leading right-wing Zionist Orthodox “haredi-lite” rabbis have already said that they will refuse to recognize any conversions done under the new law if it passes.
Tzohar’s Founder and President Rabbi David Stav, disagrees with those conservative fundamentalist rabbinic leaders.
“This important decision [to pass the conversion reform bill out of committee] will hopefully lead to a dramatic change in how Israel relates to Jewish conversions and in so doing help reverse the trend of assimilation that represents a painful scar within Israeli society today,” Stav said, adding that Prime Minister Netanyahu – who tried to kill the bill in order to appease the haredi political parties he would almost certainly need to form his next coalition – should “act in the nation’s interest and lead the Government in finding an effective solution to the growing assimilation existent within our society” rather than appease the most radical influences within it.
According to Tzohar, over 700,000 Jews living in Israel have been banned from marrying by the haredi-controlled Chief Rabbinate because their Jewish ancestry cannot be clearly verified due to records destroyed during WW1 and WW2 and by the communist regimes that ruled Eastern Europe in WW2’s aftermath. Another 300,000 people living in Israel are descended from Jews but are not halakhicly Jewish. It is untenable to allow these people to suffer and to be excluded from full participation in Israeli society because of extreme and strict interpretations of Jewish law adopted and pushed by haredi and “haredi-lite” rabbis who completely control the state's official rabbinate – which in turn under law controls the marriages, divorces, burials and other lifecycle events of all Jewish Israelis.
“Without a comprehensive reform of the conversion process that will effectively determine these people’s halakhic-Jewish status, the country will face a major threat to its Jewish identity represented by growing assimilation and marriage outside of the confines of Jewish law,” Nachman Rosenberg, Tzohar’s executive VP, noted.