Israel – The Reading Of Conversion Of ‘Ruth’ ‘Shavuot’, Stirs Up ‘Ger’ Controversy

Israel – A group of prospective Jewish converts stood around a threshing floor at the Neot Kedumim Biblical Landscape Reserve near Jerusalem. In an excited voice, the tour guide told them: “This is where it all began.”

The Absorption Ministry invited some 1,500 converts to the reserve for a conference that would also be a show of “support and solidarity.”

The ministry’s guide went on to explain that the threshing floor was so exciting because that was where Boaz, Kind David’s great grandfather, met Ruth, the biblical figure who is celebrated as a convert who took the Jewish principles to heart.

“So that wedding produced King David, ladies and gentlemen,” the guide said. “And who will come out of King David? The messiah! And that’s what I remind people who speak against converts.”

Such sympathy and encouragement – be they genuine or orchestrated – is not the usual response converts – most of them Russian immigrants – illicit from the public to which they aspire to belong after completing hundreds of hours of coursework over long months, sometimes even years.

Many converts say that in addition to feeling despised by the ultra-Orthodox public, they also feel betrayed by the establishment, following the Supreme Rabbinical Court ruling to annul thousands of conversions that had been performed in Israel since 1999. They complain it has left many converts hanging in the balance and thrown into question the fates of those currently undergoing conversion.

“It’s an empty show,” said one conversion tutor from the north, who would identify herself only as Ahuva. “They had this conference to tell us that they are there for us, but they don’t have an awful lot to back their pretty words with.” She complained the conversions crisis was detrimental for the conversion seminars.

“We’re feeling through the fog of battle. No one really knows where we’re heading,” Ahuva went on to say. “Those who created this crisis never thought about what was going to become of these people, they didn’t stop to think about the consequences of their decisions. Currently, it’s affecting three groups of people – those who are currently in the process of converting, those who have already converted and those who are contemplating converting.”

Things are worse for the graduates, she says. “We’re talking about Jews in every way. They call us all the time, asking what will become of them. People are very worried.”