Interior
Minister Avraham Poraz has called for recognition of Reform and
Conservative conversions to Judaism carried out in
Israel, telling the Knesset's Immigrant Absorption
Committee on Monday that Reform and Conservative
converts should be granted Israeli citizenship and that
it was time for the monopoly of the Chief Rabbinate over
conversions to come to an end.
"There is a ridiculous situation here where Reform
and Conservative conversions done abroad are recognized in Israel but the same
conversions done in Israel are not recognized,"
he said.
This would be his response to a petition
before the High Court of Justice, lodged by the Progressive (Reform)Movement in Israel on behalf of
13 women who underwent conversions here, he said.
Poraz said he would propose that Reform and
Conservative rabbis could convert people in Israel,
with two provisions. Firstly, they would not be allowed
to arrange conversions for tourists or foreign workers
but only for people who have the right to live here
under the Law of Return. Secondly, a recognized
authority would have to supervise the conversions by the
two streams and individual rabbis would not be
allowed to conduct conversions according to their
own guidelines.
Poraz also announced that persons who were
prevented from marrying under religious law would
be allowed to hold civil marriages in Israel within one
year. He said an agreement to this effect was reached
with the National Religious Party. Today, most of these
people are forced to marry in Cyprus, he pointed out.
Committee chair Colette Avital (Labor) said the
non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union
were forced to undergo a complicated and intimidating
process of conversion. "They share our fate, serve
in the Israel Defense Forces, are victims of terror
attacks and contribute to society and the economy, but
they are not part of the Jewish people," she said.
"They have to grow alongside us."
Dr. Asher Cohen of Bar-Ilan University said
that, according to official statistics, some 270,000
non-Jews have immigrated to Israel in the past decade.