Jerusalem – The Chief Rabbinate has issued a decision which states that public mikvaot should not be used for the immersion of converts from any denomination, so as to prevent converts from the Reform and Conservative Movements using them.
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Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled that the non-Orthodox denominations must be allowed to make use of public mikvaot, or ritual baths, for the final immersion ceremony required of converts.
Until the ruling, the local religious councils which operate the public mikvaot within their regional jurisdictions would not allow non-Orthodox converts to use them.
The Chief Rabbinate’s decision was made Thursday during its council’s monthly meeting. The decision states that the mikvaot should only be used for the ritual immersion that religious women perform once a month, and not for the converts of any denomination, including the Orthodox conversions conducted by the state conversion system, in order to avoid legal challenges to the decision on the basis of discrimination.
A representative of the Chief Rabbinate said it was working on a solution for Orthodox converts to immerse.
The religious establishment was outraged at the Supreme Court’s ruling, with United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni introducing legislation to prevent the Reform and Conservative movements from using public mikvaot.
According to attorney Aviad Hacohen, dean of the Sha’arei Mishpat Academic Center, the Chief Rabbinate’s decision is not legal and will not be enforceable.
Hacohen pointed out that the Chief Rabbinate does not have administrative authority over public mikvaot which are run by local religious councils and are therefore under the authority of the Religious Services Ministry.
Reform Movement in Israel head Rabbi Gilad Kariv said the Chief Rabbinate’s decision was a “desecration of God’s name” and illustrated how the Orthodox monopoly over religious affairs is crumbling.
“The idea that the Chief Rabbinate and the Religious Services Ministry are willing to prevent Orthodox converts completing their conversion just in order to block non-Orthodox converts is a massive sin, bearing in mind the Torah’s injunction to love converts,” Kariv told The Jerusalem Post. “These people have lost their minds and their hearts. This is a symbol of the deep moral and theological crisis of the Orthodox establishment in Israel. We don’t need any more proof than this decision to see that days of the Chief Rabbinate and the Orthodox monopoly are over.”
Kariv said the Reform Movement would be writing to the attorney-general tomorrow to request that he instruct the Chief Rabbinate to abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling.
A spokesperson for the Chief Rabbinate said it would ask the state conversion authority to use private mikvaot for its converts instead, in order to allow Orthodox conversions in Israel to continue.
Wow!! Laughable…
1) “They ruin their own conversions just to mess up the Reform conversions”…
Let them build their own Mikvas or change the law so that a shower is enough. They never use it again anyway. Neither men nor women.
2) “A massive sin… A chillul Hashem… “
What’s a sin? Who’s Hashem? If they don’t believe in an All Knowing Omnipresent G-d, then what is a sin and agains Whom is it a chillul?!
3) “Torah’s command to love the convert “…
They don’t even listen to the basic Torah commandments, how can they admonish the Rabbinate who’s whole mandate is to uphold Torah?! “Convert”?!! We are talking about policy, not about individuals or the love of these people as G-ds creatures. Perhaps we should allow someone to convert his dog to Judaism, after all, he loves his dog…!
The headline is a mistake. They are not converts. The reform and conservative movements deny Jewish halacha. Reform denies that the Torah is Divine and its commandments everlasting. People who have undergone reform and conservative “conversions” should sue those movements for fraud.
the reform/conservative made a churban in USA(their schools ,temples are closing /empty and now want to transport this disaster to our Holy Land
These mikvaot are funded from government money. If the orthodox rabbinate does not want non-orthodox to use them, then they should build and fund their own.
The government certainly doesn’t want to use public money to commit fraud. In this case, having people believe they are Jewish without accepting Hashem’s Torah and its commandments.
Let them build their own…
“A representative of the Chief Rabbinate said it was working on a solution for Orthodox converts to immerse.”
One can immerse in the Mediterranean Sea. (So can the heterodox converts.)