Israel Chief Rabbi Shlomo Moshe Amar made a surprise move by
starting to implement new regulations on registering
individuals who underwent conversions outside of Israel. The
Vaad HaRabbonim Haolami LeInyonei Giyur founded by HaRav
Chaim Kreiswirth expressed its strong support for the new
directive.
The Vaad has recently come under attack for trying to promote
its policy that all conversions be performed only by botei
din kevu'im vechashuvim and to require that all
conversions meet universally accepted standards, especially
with regard to a complete and sincere acceptance of all
mitzvos. In recent months the Vaad has made special efforts
along these lines in America with the cooperation of the
Eternal Jewish Family (EJF) organization.
Even before Chief Rabbi Amar took office, the Rabbinate had
begun to prepare lists of Orthodox rabbonim from chutz
la'aretz who are authorized to perform conversions, as a
result of finding numerous defects in conversions that were
so serious that the conversions were considered invalid even
bedi'eved. The new directives are not defined along
political lines in any way, and have been applied with force
and fairness to all conversions from whatever Orthodox
rabbinical source — including members of all major
rabbinical organizations in America.
The list was begun by R' Yitzchak Ochana while he worked for
the Chief Rabbinate in charge of registering geirus
from outside Israel, but was never completed. There are over
3,000 Orthodox rabbis in North America alone, so keeping
track of them is a big job. In the current circumstances, any
one of these could perform a conversion, but there is no
supervision over them and there is no way to know whether or
not their actions were valid.
Two months ago Chief Rabbi Amar appeared at a rabbinical
conference in Miami organized by EJF, which is headed by
HaRav Leib Tropper and chaired by Tom Kaplan. HaRav Reuven
Feinstein supervises all EJF activities. During the
conference Chief Rabbi Amar announced that new regulations
had taken effect, requiring every rabbi from outside of
Israel to receive permission from the Israel Chief Rabbinate
before his conversions would be recognized by the Israeli
Chief Rabbinate as valid. Chief Rabbi Amar also proposed
setting up a central database to register marriages in the
US.
During the conference proposals were also raised regarding
the need to set up permanent, reputable regional botei
din in the US to handle the issues of conversion and
assimilation. The EJF has already set up such botei
din in Monsey (Ezer Mishpot), Lakewood (Meishorim),
Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago (Mercaz HaRabbonim) and Los
Angeles (RCC), and another three are slated to open soon. The
costs for the conversion process are kept as low as
possible.
These botei din are comprised of dayonim talmidei
chachomim who remain strictly within the confines of
halochoh and maintain regular contact with gedolei
haposkim. According to the new directives of the Israeli
Chief Rabbinate, only established, reputable botei din
would be recognized by the Chief Rabbinate.
The US media reported extensively on the new regulations,
noting that now conversions performed by the members of the
Rabbinical Association of America are subject to the new
regulations, even with a certification from the
organization.
After a media report claimed that several conversions
performed by Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) members were
rejected in Israel even when they were endorsed by its
affiliated Beis Din of America, the RCA released an unusual
statement denying any knowledge of such rejections.
