The issue of conversion to Judaism is one of the most entrenched dilemmas on religion and state in Israel and has significant bearing on world Jewry. A committee appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to study the topic is now recommending a new conversion law that is rather unlikely to please all streams of Judaism.
In 2016, the High Court recognized conversions conducted by private conversion institutes in Israel for the purpose of the Law of Return (offering all Jews the right to become Israeli citizens). The Chief Rabbinate, which is interested in keeping its monopoly on conversion, was not happy with this ruling. In light of this legal precedent, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party hastened to advance a stringent new law proposal on conversion, which would grant exclusive authority over conversion to the Chief Rabbinate. In July 2017, the bill was passed in the ministerial committee on legislation, despite the objection of Yisrael Beitenu. It caused a crisis with American Jewry, as the Chief Rabbinate rejects in principle conversions by progressive Judaism institutes. At the same time, the Israeli Reform and Conservative movements petitioned the High Court.
Jewish billionaire Charles Bronfman, one of the main donors to the Birthright project, which offers Jewish youths free visits to Israel, then wrote a sharp letter to Netanyahu. He warned that the government’s decisions on the conversion law and the Western Wall (freezing plans for dedicating a section of the wall to egalitarian prayer services) could hurt registration to the project among the young American generation that participates in it. “We who love Israel and the Jewish People are left to ponder our relationship with Israel — and particularly with the coalition you lead. … These two new issues will ensure that our youth will be more and more estranged from the great Nation that we adore,” Bronfman wrote.
In light of the political crisis in Israel and US pressure, Netanyahu reached a compromise with the ultra-Orthodox parties and the petitioners to the High Court to postpone the debate on the conversion law for six months and to freeze the petitions. In August 2017, Netanyahu appointed Moshe Nissim, the former minister of justice from the Likud, to head a committee that would formulate recommendations on the issue of conversion.
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