Like it or not, converts live in a world heavily shaped by craven bitter men like Schachter and Elyashiv and by those men's apologists, like Shmuel Goldin. And in this misshapen, off-kilter world, protection from the mafioso who run it can seem much more attractive than having truth or even the God you believe in on your side. And in that way and that way only, the RCA's GPS can be said to be a "success."
Above: Rabbi Shmuel Goldin
Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, a former president of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), writes about the awful deal on conversions to Judaism made by the RCA with Israel’s haredi-controlled Chief Rabbinate almost a decade ago.
That deal gave the RCA near-exclusive centralized control over Orthodox conversions in North America – meaning it kept the RCA’s more liberal Orthodox rabbis out of the process and blocked Israeli recognition of their conversions.
The RCA’s point man for writing its new conversion standards and structuring this centralized control was none other than mikvah voyeur Rabbi Barry Freundel.
Judaism never mandated centralized control over conversion to Judaism and in fact does not even require the beit din (religious court) performing the conversion be made up of rabbis – according to halakha, any three Torah-observant laymen suffices.
But haredim add to everything, making simple halakhas complex and non-demanding halakhas as demanding as a US Army Ranger’s obstacle course. One of these haredi additions is centralized conversion to Judaism that abides by haredi strictures – but not by the leniencies used by many rabbis (even by haredi rabbis) over the centuries.
So now converts must study for one or even two or three years and jump through many other hoops before these centralized, power-hungry rabbis will sign off on their conversions – study and hoop-jumping (like being forced to move to an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood long before a conversion is finalized) that costs converts money and causes them lots of aggravation while at the same time giving abusive rabbis like Barry Freundel even more power over potential converts than they had before.
Goldin, of course, doesn’t bother to mention these pesky details in a new op-ed for the JTA.
Instead, Goldin praises the haredi innovations without ever calling them that and has the gall to use the pain of converts exploited by Freundel to try to prove his point:
…A few days after hearing the shocking news that this “respected rabbi” had been arrested for clandestinely filming conversion candidates in the mikvah ritual bath, I traveled to Washington [DC] together with top RCA officials for an emergency meeting with over 60 [of Freundel's] converts.
Understandably, the meeting was tense. A palpable sense of betrayal pervaded the room. “How could this travesty have occurred?” the converts asked. But the most pressing question was about the status of their conversions: “How will the discrediting of the supervising rabbi of our conversions affect our halachic identity as Jews?”
To my surprise, we were able to assuage their concerns because of GPS [the haredi-demanded conversion protocol]. We had a formal conversion network and relationships with halachic authorities throughout the world that prevented the inevitable questioning of these conversions.
Within days of the meeting, at the urging of the RCA, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate released an official statement affirming the validity of all conversions that took place under Freundel’s auspices.
I shudder to think of the consequences had GPS not existed. Had these conversions rested solely on the reputation of one person, a public battle over their validity would have inexorably erupted, adding deep insult to injury for those who had already endured so much.
The value of GPS was driven home to me further when, in the midst of difficult questioning concerning the RCA’s oversight of the network, a convert at that Washington meeting expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the RCA for establishing and maintaining a centralized system of conversion courts. To the general assent of many present, he noted the precious peace of mind the system grants. GPS assures them that once finalized, their conversions will not be questioned.
It was at that moment that I realized how deeply, in this contentious world, converts need such reassurance. The Jewish community owes these extraordinary individuals a guarantee that having completed the arduous journey of conversion, their status as Jews will be unassailable.
GPS was established to provide that guarantee.…
First of all, GPS was established only because haredi rabbis demanded it. They did not demand it to protect converts, though. They demanded it to prevent liberal Orthodox rabbis from doing conversions.
Since a significant number of RCA rabbis were essentially in that category, the haredim pushed for mandatory conversion standards that were more strict. Rabbi Hershel Schachter, who sadly followed Joseph Ber Soloveitchik as the top rabbi at Yeshiva University's rabbinical school, is much more conservative on these issues than Soloveitchik was.
Schachter, who has the emotional intelligence of a small child, has made a career of reinterpreting Soloveitchik's thought in more right-wing ways than Soloveitchik clearly intended, and has used his power to try to crush all opponents – like, for example Marc Angel and Avi Weiss, two more liberal Orthodox rabbis Schachter's followers essentially pushed out of the RCA.
Weiss had started Yeshivat Covevei Torah to provide a liberal Orthodox counterpoint to the Schachter-controlled YU RIETSrabbinical school. The RCA moved to crush it, refusing to accept Weiss' new rabbis as rabbis and working to force synagogues not to hire them.
Angel co-founded a liberal Orthodox counterpoint to the RCA as a result, and also drew intense RCA and YU wrath – even though Angel was a top and respected RCA member when Soloveitchik was alive.
Schachter and his RCA henchmen wanted to block Weiss, Angel and their new rabbis from gaining power in the Jewish community. One of the best ways to do that was to make sure their conversions would not be recognized. And Israel's haredi chief rabbis were all to happy to accommodate Schachter in that plan.
That – not "concern" for converts – is what the RCA's GPS is all about.
So what about Goldin's claim that "[h]ad these conversions rested solely on the reputation of one person, a public battle over their validity would have inexorably erupted, adding deep insult to injury for those who had already endured so much"?
The halakha Goldin professes to uphold codified the answer that question as far back as the Middle Ages and even before that at the time of the Mishna 1800 years ago.
Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon (Maimonides; the Rambam) notes in his legal code that once a convert has converted, he or she is a Jew like any other – even if he immediately sins. In other words, once the conversion is complete, the convert is Jewish.
That was the undisputed halakha for at least 800-plus years – until haredi rabbis began to attempt to void Zionist Orthodox conversions less than a decade ago. They did this under the direction of then haredi leader Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyahshiv as a way to politically hurt Zionist Orthodoxy. Schachter and his henchmen willingly tossed Weiss, Angel and the other liberal Orthodox rabbis overboard to appease Elyashiv, in large part because Schachter wanted to hurt Weiss and because Elyashiv offered Schachter quasi "gadol" status (a place on the haredi near-pantheon of important rabbis) in return.
Anyone who would have questioned Freundel's converts was violating halakhas, not just the halakha of how conversion works but the halakhas that forbid harassing or mistreating converts.
Like it or not, converts live in a world heavily shaped by craven bitter men like Schachter and Elyashiv and by those men's apologists, like Shmuel Goldin. And in this misshapen, off-kilter world, protection from the mafioso who run it can seem much more attractive than having truth or even the God you believe in on your side. And in that way and that way only, the RCA's GPS can be said to be a "success."