Jerusalem – The High Court of Justice ruled on Thursday that a rabbinical court was within it’s rights to retroactively annul a conversion because the convert in question had deceived the court when she said she undertook to observe Jewish law.
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The ruling could re-open the wounds of the conversion crisis in 2008 when the Supreme Rabbinical Court upheld a decision of a lower court that invalidated a woman’s conversion because it said she never intended to observe Jewish law when she converted. The ruling endangered the 40,000 conversions conducted under the state-conversion system.
On Thursday, Deputy President of the Supreme Court Justice Miriam Naor along with Justices Esther Hayut and Neal Hendel ruled on a case concerning a woman born in Romania to a Christian family who converted in Israel in the state conversion system. Two years later the the rabbinical court annulled her conversion because, according to the High Court, doubts had been raised as to the sincerity of the convert when she converted.
She petitioned the High Court saying that the rabbinical court did not have the authority to retroactively invalidate her conversion and that its decision infracted the principles of natural justice.
The state attorney argued to the contrary saying the rabbinical court did indeed have the authority to annul the conversion and was justified in doing so.
In its ruling on Thursday the court said that the woman had in fact “changed her lifestyle dramatically a very short while after completing her conversion, so that practically speaking nothing at all was left of her observance of Jewish law that the petitioner accepted upon herself.
The justices said that when the rabbinical court reached its factual conclusion that its original decision to approve the conversion was made on a fraudulent basis, there was no place for the High Court to revoke the authority of the rabbinical court to annul its own decision.
The Hiddush religious freedom lobbying group criticized the decision saying that it opened up “a Pandora’s box,” the results of which could be calamitous.
Naor emphasized however that “our ruling is only regarding a conversion that was obtained deceitfully. One cannot take from our ruling that the rabbinical court for conversion has the authority annul conversions in other cases.”
Hiddush director and Reform rabbi Uri Regev said that it would require “extreme detachment from reality not to know that the majority of converts from the immigrant community from the former Soviet Union do this [convert] without true intent to accept Torah and commandments upon themselves and are forced to promise false promises that they will observe the religious commandments.”
Regev said that following rabbis serving on the conversion courts “who are working under heavy pressure from the haredim will be able to retroactively annul conversions with the blessing of the High Court of Justice.”
Director of the ITIM religious services advisory body said the ruling was a setback but that it would not affect many people.
“The decision associates the conversion courts with the civil courts, a comparison that is specious at best,” Farber said.
“The major flaw in the decision is that it says that someones behavior following a conversion is grounds for determining ones sincerity, but it does not give a timeline for evaluating behavior. In theory, a court could undermine a conversion years later. This is against normative practice in Jewish law and Jewish tradition. Itim will work in the coming Knesset to make sure that converts rights are fully protected.”
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
Perhaps I’m naive or simply missing the point. Isn’t the rabbinic court actually helping these false converts? If the conversion is annulled, then the person need only observe the Noahide Laws. Not 613 Mitzvos.
My real question is what is the benefit for these people to obtain conversions in the first place? And isn’t the onus on the beis din to make the process as much of a deterrent as possible??? I guess I’m just confused by the whole thing. Can someone help explain?
Should be done in America too.
Even the secular Supreme Court realizes it. And even Reform (although Regev thinks they should still be considered Jewish, but he realizes that sometime they’re just being phony).
More potential for abuse. Not only will corrupt rabbis be able to coerce women who are potential converts during the conversion process, as we’ve seen with Freundel and Tropper, they’ll be able to continue doing so in perpetuity.
As they have done for the past 25 years, the political and religous leaders are going to punt again.
#6 is right that the bulk of the problem is those from the FSU who don’t even have a drop of Jewish blood. The Rabbein can and must find a way to bring them in so that they can live and die in Israel if they want.
The other part is regular people who come in with good intentions and wish to convert. The Rabbanut needs to be open and fair with their conversions… it’s not right for them to twist people around to be converted let alone the corruption that is in the system,
In life people who convert sometimes still go off the Derech later on…we can’t go in thinking that that is what they’ll do. There needs to be balance. If this Romanion woman made it through the process only to stop later on whose fault is that?
Great- now a whole bunch of people- who are in our Shuls, learning in Kollel, might be teaching our kids, whose kids are in our yeshivos and beis yaakovs- will now live in fear that their conversion might be overturned. Even if practicing as a yid but if they say or do one thing “outside the fence” of that Rav/ beis din (even if muttar according to the Torah or according to other rabbanim) they might find out they, and/or their spouse and/or their kids may not be Jewish. A whole segment of the population living in fear.