06/30/2003 Archived Entry: "Religion in Israel"

As Israel is about the Jewish people rather than religious purity, it's a very good thing that Israeli Interior Minister Avraham Poraz favors granting citizenship to people who convert to Judaism with the Reform and Conservative movements:

Interior Minister Avraham Poraz called on Monday for Reform and Conservative, as well as Orthodox, conversions to be recognized for citizenship purposes for applicants living in Israel.

Currently Israel recognizes any conversions performed abroad, but only Orthodox conversions are recognized of those performed inside the country.

Poraz told the Knesset Immigration Committee he has found no evidence of any "legal ruling that gives the Chief Rabbinate a monopoly here on conversion."

He said there is nothing preventing the High Court of Justice from ruling in favor of a petition filed by the Movement for Progressive Judaism (the Israeli arm of the Reform movement) on behalf of 13 local converts.

Poraz said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has decided to uphold the practice of granting citizenship to Orthodox converts, but has not ruled out Conservative and Reform conversions.

He said restrictions against Reform and Conservative rabbis, who represent 85 percent of American Jewry will lead to Israel's isolation from those communities.

"What the Orthodox are doing here, monopolizing our Jewish life, is ultimately endangering the future of Israel," Lapid said.

MK Michael Melchior (Labor-Meimad) expressed support for Poraz's position on recognizing Reform and Conservative conversions for citizenship.

"It is only a citizenship issue and not a Halachic issue," he said.

Sharon also said something good on this topic, in an interview that appeared in International Jpost 2220 (May 23, 2003/21 Iyar 5763):

Regarding immigration, since I see aliya as a central objective, perhaps the most important one today, we must in my mind make it easier in this area. I am not speaking as a rabbi certainly not. But I think we must make it easier to speed up the process, not draw out the bureaucratic chains that are meant to make it [immigration] more difficult. I say that [a Jew is] whoever comes, sees himself as part of the Jewish people, serves in the army, and fights.