Another Bitch-Slap to the Rabbinate

According to Ha'aretz, another challenge to the Chief Rabbinate has popped up. Last month I blogged on the reaction to the scandalous no-heter for shmitta matter(and here); a group called Tzohar had announced that it would simply go around the Rabbinate. Well, they're at it again.
45 rabbis from Tzohar and an unspecified smattering of the Religious Kibbutz Movement in response to the chief rabbinate's policy of making conversion ridiculously difficult have said that they will simply go around it in this as well.

According to Ha'aretz,

That position ignores the plight of the more than 300,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not Jewish according to halakha. If the recommendations of the interministerial committee on conversion to expedite the process are not implemented soon, the rabbis are expected to establish the proposed conversion courts. That would represent another stage in the undermining of religious-Zionist rabbis of the Rabbinate, following struggles over marriage, kashrut and shmita in the past several months.
The latest steps began about six months ago with a conference of the Joint Conversion Institute, which prepares most prospective converts in civilian and military frameworks. After the head of the institute, Prof. Benjamin Ish-Shalom, announced that the requirements of the religious courts kept many graduates from completing their conversion, 45 rabbis agreed to officiate in religious courts that would convert the graduates, even without recognition from the Rabbinate. Most of the rabbis, the majority of whom who prefer not to be identified, are associated with with Religious Kibbutz Movement and the Tzohar rabbis' organization.

Of course, it will be interesting to see how this plays out int he marriage arena, since the Chief Rabbinate is almost certain to refuse to allow these converts to be married in Israel - causing these folks to suffer fromthe same problems that Reform and Conservative/Masorti converts have had to deal with for years.

Converts? Not really...

Thought your overseas conversion would serve to get you into Israel? Hah! Turns out the Interior Ministry is rarin' at the bit to kick yer tushie back to galus. And it doesn't even matter exactly which movement you cotton to... yes, apparently even some Orthodox converts will no longer qualify.

According to the JPost, this past Monday distributed a preliminary draft of new citizenship criteria. The new rules would no longer grant citizenship to converts from abroad, instead,

the convert would be asked to fulfill requirements that include: a minimum of nine months in a preparatory course in Judaism; proof of participation in the activities of a Jewish community abroad for at least nine months after conversion; and residing in the Jewish community that performs the conversion for at least three months prior to conversion.

In addition, converts who converted abroad and apply for Israeli citizenship would face rejection for a number of reasons: The convert applied previously, before conversion, for Israeli citizenship and was rejected; the convert stayed in Israel illegally for a period of at least six months; the convert has relatives in Israel [who he or she wishes to join]; and the convert applied for citizenship immediately after converting and family members, who did not convert, want to come too.

So, if you have Jewish relatives, and you want to join them, your conversion is automatically suspect. Nice. Got relatives who aren't Jewish who want to come? Conversion doesn't count. Sweet!

The Ministry claims this is to "prevent exploitation of the conversion process to obtain Israeli citizenship."

As one rabbi stated, there are some obvious problems with this new set of restrictions, first,

the Interior Ministry has no right to be involved in determining the length of time it is necessary to prepare for a conversion. There is nothing in the law, neither Jewish nor civil, stating a minimum period of time.

"Second, it is unfair to disqualify a convert from citizenship simply because a previous request for citizenship was rejected or because he or she has relatives in Israel.

Then, as the article itself says, this new set of regulations seems to be trying to do an end run around the Supreme Court's ruling that the ministry may not set criteria defining a religious act such as conversion; if this isn't an attempt to do just that, I'll eat my fuzzy purple Borsalino.

This whole thing is disgraceful. Mishpat echad yihiyeh lachem. yeah, right.

*YAwn*

Boy, I'm feeling cranky today. Is it the news, or just the weather?

Yes, indeed, we are all to stand in awe of another Bronfman project to lead the Jewish world into the Future. According to JTA, "three dozen Jewish intellectuals are put in a swank ski resort for 48 hours and let loose on the question 'Why be Jewish?'"

From July 29-31 the Samuel Bronfman Foundation ran a conference hosted by the foundation's managing director, Adam Bronfman, son of philanthropist Edgar Bronfman, that "included French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion President David Ellenson, writer Anita Diamant and other rabbis, professors, artists, philanthropists and communal professionals."

But even JTA itself noticed, "These rarefied, all-expenses-paid gatherings beg the question: 'So what?' What does it matter if a bunch of smart Jews sit around talking? Some in Park City wondered the same thing. 'The take-away is there's no take-away,' said former Under Secretary of Defense Dov Zakheim of Washington. Some participants questioned the top-down premise. 'There's a presumption that we get to answer the question "Why be Jewish" on behalf of the "amcha," ' or Jewish people, said Idit Klein, executive director of Keshet, an advocacy group for gay inclusion."

In other words, even the grand old daddies (well, not Keshet, exactly) of institutional life are beginning to wonder, along with the rest of us, why there are all these conferences in which "important people" chosen by other "important people" sit around yakking about what the rest of us ought to do. I suppose it's news that, at least in this case,

If some participants grumbled about the conference's lack of tangible goals, organizers insisted that was the point.

"We're not looking for 'an answer,' " explained the foundation's executive director, Dana Raucher. "We've gathered a rather eclectic mix of people, each of whom has something to offer. Each of these people has influence somewhere. Each of them will hopefully have been enriched by this and will take the conversation home with them."

In other words, they didn't come out of the conference with another program that doesn't change anything, or more instructions that have nothing to do with actually living a Jewish life that we're all to fall in behind with cash in hand. Perhaps that's an improvement. Although I do have to draw breath at such pronouncements as, "In fact, as more than one conference attendee pointed out, the Talmud, the seminal text of rabbinic Judaism, emerged out of just such open-ended conversations among Jewish leaders." Wow. I think our old friends the Greeks might have referred to this as hubris.

I think, though that the most important comment in the article is this:

Arthur Gross-Schaefer, a professor of business law and ethics at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, said the American Jewish community "needs a new myth" that can appeal to the younger, largely unaffiliated generation. That's something this group, and others like it, can realistically tackle, he said.

It seems to me that this nicely sums up the attitude that hasn't shifted amongst the cohort that is failing to engage those whom they ostensibly wish to engage. In other words, there's you young people out there, not doing what we want you to do; we need to make up a nice story for you (yes, I'm aware of the Gillman idea of myth, eh.), so that you'll fall in line with our priorities. Instead of actually talking to the young, affiliated, engaged people in their teens, twenties, thirties and forties - and even older folks who have helped build these alternative organzations, groups, minyans and institutions- who have built an entirely different way of relating to Judaism, just as vibrant (actually, IMO, more vibrant, and also healthier and more Jewish) as the old Holocaust, peoplehood, anti-semitism emphasis of the last thirty-five years.
There's no shortage of young Jews engaging as "more observant" than their elders, of independant minyanim, trichitzas, potlucks for eating habits across the spectrum, social justice Judaism as an outgrowth of halachah, and organizations that are helping build these new foundations out of what are really, the old bricks that we had forgotten about for oh, so long while we were busy becoming American: how about JFSJ, JUFJ, JFREJ - well, you all know the drill, we talk about them all the time here.

Bronfmans: we're waiting on you.

Crossposted to Jewschool