Vaad HaRabbonim LeInyonei Giyur, founded by the late
Gavad of Antwerp, HaRav Chaim Kreiswirth, has issued a
statement clearly warning the public not to rely on any
mainstream media reports related to the conversion issue.
The statement follows misleading reports that have been
widely disseminated, making their way into the mainstream
media outside of Israel and even into the Wall Street
Journal.
In recent months a debate on conversion has been raging in
the mainstream media. The Joint Conversion Institute, a
Reform- and Conservative backed organization in Israel that
received a government franchise to prepare so-called
conversion candidates based on the recommendations of the
Ne'eman Committee, claims that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's
special conversion courts are too stringent with the
candidates appearing before them. Officials at the Conversion
Authority, which oversees the courts, claim that all of their
practices are in accordance with halacha.
Vaad HaRabbonim maintains the media is not the proper place
to hold a debate on the issue, which should remain
exclusively in the hands of prominent, fixed botei din
and each conversion case should be considered on an
individual basis. A Vaad spokesman said that he cannot fathom
how the conversion botei din under the auspices of the
Chief Rabbinate could cooperate at all with the Joint
Conversion Institute, which was banned outright by all
gedolei Yisroel in 5758 (1998) and also by the Chief
Rabbinate Council.
"Unfortunately the special conversion courts operate
according to a conveyor-belt system, approving conversions
without thoroughly inquiring into the ger's
intentions, whether he is genuinely prepared to accept the
yoke of Torah and mitzvas in its entirety," said a Vaad
HaRabbonim spokesman, adding that the Vaad has corroborated
figures indicating that over 90 percent of the converts at
the conversion courts do not intend to keep Torah and mitzvas
properly, which invalidates the giyur even
bedi'eved. These "converts" are nonetheless officially
recognized by the Chief Rabbinate.
The Vaad also relates that at present there is no approved
bench made up of dayonim talmidei chachomim veyirei
Shomayim, despite the Wall Street Journal's claim
that many of the conversion dayanim are ultra-Orthodox. Rabbi
Yisrael Rozen, one of the conversion dayonim, also
recently claimed, "Almost all rabbis in Israel recognize
[their] conversions and allow them to marry [as Jews]."
However, according to longstanding instructions by Maran
HaRav Eliashiv shlita, conversions performed by the
special conversion courts should not be recognized.
The Vaad HaRabbonim is calling on all parties to stop
exploiting the media in Israel and abroad as a means of
applying pressure to increase the number of false
conversions, and is calling on the Chief Rabbinate to put a
stop to the failures of the conversion system, instead
setting up a botei din system comprised of talmidei
chachomim yirei Shomayim who would convert a very small
number of solid candidates. At present none of the botei
din handling conversion with Chief Rabbinate approval is
accepted by the chareidi public.
The Vaad is also calling on all rabbonim, dayonim and
institution heads to conduct inquiries into the kashrus of
any convert who appears before them, not recognizing converts
— and certainly not permitting them to marry —
until they are thoroughly convinced that the converts
genuinely intend to keep Torah and mitzvas in full.
