The independent Orthodox conversion system is facing collapse
due to a lack of funds from the Education Ministry, and the
conversion system of Israel faces the threat of a takeover by
the Joint Conversion Institutes which include representatives
of the Conservative and Reform movements.
Last week Deputy Education Minister Meshulam Nahari announced
during a meeting of the Knesset plenum that the Orthodox
conversion institutes would cease operating programs at the
beginning of the year 2002 due to the lack of NIS 10 million
($2.4 million) that the Finance Ministry has so far failed to
transfer to the Education Ministry. The announcement followed
warnings issued six months ago by the Vaad HaRabbonim
LeInyonei Giyur headed by HaRav Chaim Kreiswirth shlita,
av beis din in Antwerp, that the Orthodox institutes
would soon be forced to cease operations due to budgetary
shortfalls.
Throughout the year the Vaad has been warning about the
government plans to fund the conversion institutes only via
the Jewish Agency, which will fund only the Joint Conversion
Institutes run with the heretics of the Conservative and
Reform movements. NIS 6 million ($1.5 million) has so far
been given to the Jewish Agency for this purpose. Until now
the Orthodox institutes received nominal funding through the
Education Ministry, but even this funding is about to be
discontinued.
Although the Vaad has always issued warnings that even the
Orthodox institutes perform superficial, "assembly line"
conversions and that many of the converts never had any
intention of observing Torah and mitzvos (which automatically
disqualifies any conversion, even bedi'eved), the
prospects of all the conversion institutes being those
managed jointly with heretics, an arrangement that has been
prohibited outright by all gedolei Yisroel, would
still be considered a serious deterioration. The situation is
even more critical, since certain botei din under the
auspices of the Chief Rabbinate perform conversions for
graduates of the Joint Conversion Institutes the same way as
for graduates of the Orthodox institutes. These so-called
geirim receive an official certificate of conversion
stamped by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.
In response to an investigation of its conversion procedures
published several months ago in Yated Ne'eman's Hebrew
edition, the Chief Rabbinate's administrative office informed
Yated Ne'eman that it issued a number of new
directives regarding funding distribution, but an inquiry we
have conducted shows that the new directives are extremely
superficial and have failed to stop the cooperation between
the Rabbinate's conversion botei din and the Joint
Conversion Institutes.
In that investigation it was revealed that Rabbi Eli Ben
Dahan, director-general of the Botei Din of the Chief
Rabbinate, transfers the funding from Ministry of Religions
to the Joint Conversion Institutes. This is surprising in
light of the fact that he works for the Chief Rabbis who have
prohibited having any association with them. Rabbi Ben Dahan
also admitted that his office deals with the Joint Conversion
Institute the same way that it deals with the Orthodox
conversion institutes. Furthermore, the article said, the
conversion beis din of Rabbi Chaim Druckman converts
graduates of the Joint Institutes in defiance of the
guidelines of the Chief Rabbinate.
The spokesman of the Vaad is calling on all those involved in
the issue to place the entire conversion system--from the
preliminary stage through the completion of the conversion
process--in the hands of prominent talmidei chachomim
with yiras Shomayim and to take a firm stand against
the influx of goyim into kerem Beis Yisroel.
