Ha'aretz published an article today about Hillary Rubin, a 29-year-old Detroit native who was raised in a Conservative household made aliyah four year ago. Today she's a student who keeps Shabbos and kashrus -- and she's looking to get married. However, there seems to be a hangup -- the Rabbinate is asking for proof of her Jewishness. They want kesubos (marriage contracts) and death certificates going back four generations. This is an issue because most of her ancestors perished in the Holocaust. As such, the documents either no longer exist (the kesubos) or never existed in the first place (the death certificates). When she brought this to the attention of the Rabbinate, she was told that it's not their problem. She brought letters from four Conservative rabbis and a Chabad rabbi in Detroit attesting to her Jewishness. Not good enough. In the end, she's going to have to go to Cyprus for a civil ceremony.
If you've been paying attention at all, you're no doubt aware of the fact that the Rabbinate has been trying to take greater control of the "who is a Jew" question. They (and other groups around the world, such as the infamous EJF) have tried to take greater control of conversions, seeking to nullify conversions that don't meet their standards (even if they do meet halachic standards that have been used for centuries).
However, Rubin's case is different. She is not a convert. The article in Ha'aretz doesn't mention conversions at all. I'm guessing that none of her maternal ancestors (at least as far back as three or four generations) were converts (if I'm wrong, I'm willing to retract that). If so, what we're dealing with here is a case where the Rabbinate is now beginning to question the Jewishness of any person who doesn't come from an Orthodox background.
Not more than an hour ago (literally) a friend suggested that I make aliyah. He told me about tech jobs that are opening up there and that it is possible for a tech worker (such as myself) to make a decent living. But I have to wonder -- why should I even bother considering it?
My parents were not frum when they were married. As such, they did not have a kesubah. Furthermore, all my grandparents were born in New York. As such, their birth certificates and marriage certificates don't identify them as Jews. So, in the end, what proof do I have that I'm Jewish? Mind you, *I* know that I'm Jewish because I know my personal family history -- but the Rabbinate doesn't know that. Why should I make life difficult for myself and my kids -- where our very Jewishness is going to be questioned and probably cause troubles later in life?
You might make the argument that I'm already married and, hence, don't need to worry about marriage restrictions for myself. That's true, in and of itself. But I'm afraid the problems run far deeper than that.
Demographic studies show that the two largest growing population groups in Israel are Chareidim and Arabs. There is a good possibility that there will be a point when the Chareidim are the majority in Israel and fully control the government. When that happens, they'll have control over far more than simply marriages and conversions. What about citizenship? If I'm to move to Israel, what's to stop them from asking me for proof of my Jewishness on pain of being stripped of citizenship? What about burial? The last thing I would want to happen right after I shuffle off the mortal coil is to have a government tell my kids that I can't be buried where they want to bury me because I couldn't prove my Jewishness? And I would not be surprised if these issues were limited to marriage, citizenship and burial. Call me paranoid if you like, but I think that this has the potential to be a nightmare for every non-Orthodox Jew and every ba'al teshuva who might one day dream of living in Israel.
About six months ago, I wondered if I was truly Orthodox. Perhaps the better question I should be asking is if I'm even Jewish.
The Wolf
Showing posts with label convert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label convert. Show all posts
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
American Rabbanim Being Silent on the Giyur Bill. Why?
That's what a YWN Coffeeroom poster wants to know.
I gave an answer, but the moderators decided it was too... whatever... to put up. So here it is.
Why should most American Rabbanim support a bill in Israel that will delegitimize most of the converts that they create? Do you really think that they will stop with simply questioning the conversions performed under Conserative or Reform auspices? This will affect large numbers of Orthodox rabbis, too, who aren't on the list of acceptable rabbis. So, why should American Rabannim support a bill that will throw the lives of thousands of legitimate converts into turmoil and limbo?
The Wolf
Tonight the government decided to postpone by 6 months a crucial Geyur Bill that would have strengthened the hand of the Rabbanut HaRashit and helped to halt Reform and Conservative "conversions" from creeping into Israel.
HaGon HaChacham Shlomo Amar shlita even demanded that the religious parties quite the government should the bill not pass. The reform and conservative movements in the US waged a serious battle that lead to the postponement of the bill, but for some reason the Orthodox movements outside of Israel remained more or less silent.
As a person living in Israel I cannot understand this! We cannot allow the reform and conservative "conversions" to reach Israel, we are the last place standing.
I gave an answer, but the moderators decided it was too... whatever... to put up. So here it is.
Why should most American Rabbanim support a bill in Israel that will delegitimize most of the converts that they create? Do you really think that they will stop with simply questioning the conversions performed under Conserative or Reform auspices? This will affect large numbers of Orthodox rabbis, too, who aren't on the list of acceptable rabbis. So, why should American Rabannim support a bill that will throw the lives of thousands of legitimate converts into turmoil and limbo?
The Wolf
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The Potential End of a United World Jewry.
Rabbi Avraham Sherman, the head of the Israel's High Rabbinical Court, has been making some very threatening and ominous statements concerning conversions. He started out by stating at the Eternal Jewish Family conference in Israel last week that the majority of potential converts do not intend to keep the commandments (generally viewed as a sine qua non of conversion). This is the same Rabbi Sherman who made the decision to annul thousands of conversions performed by Rabbi Haim Druckman, who was the head of the state Conversion Courts. This is also the same Rabbi Sherman who, this past week, invalidated another conversion (although, to be fair, I don't know the grounds on which this was done).
I blogged about the possible dangers of retroactive nullification of conversions last year. Rabbi Zvi Zohar, a professor of Sephardic Law and Ethics at Bar-Ilan University, showed how it possible that, taken to it's logical conclusion, a convert could never participate in Jewish society. Since his or her conversion is always subject to nullification at a later date, how can you rely on them for anything? Can you allow a convert to be the 10th man in your minyan? Perhaps he's not Jewish? Can he daven for the amud, receive an aliyah or become a ba'al kriah? Can he join with you in a zimmun when there are only three of you? Can you use him for hataras nedarim? What if he wrote your mezuzzos or tefillin?
And how about things that have long-reaching consequences? What if you use a convert as a witness to your wedding? Or even worse, what if a convert servs on a bais din (or is a witness) to a divorce? Can you imagine the halachic nightmare that would result from a witness (or judge) on a divorce case (or multiple cases) being found to be not Jewish retrocactively, throwing all those divorcees, their new spouses and children (and grandchildren) into some halachic purgatory from which they and their descendants may never escape? What about a convert who sits on a bais din for other conversions -- you could have multiple "generations" of invalidated conversions, each wreaking havoc on countless individuals and society as a whole. And, don't forget, this doesn't go just for the convert, but for any descendant of a female convert as well!
The problem is further compounded by the fact that there are almost certainly people who have been converted in past generations that would not pass muster even by some of the more lenient rabbis in our community. As any student of quality control can tell you, in any human endeavor and with a large enough production run, you are going to find some products that are outside the range of what you would consider acceptable. Applied to conversions, it means that if you convert enough people, you are practically guaranteed to find a number of people that are accepted as converts that should not be. There are bound to be a few people who are admitted to the Jewish nation who do not meet the halachic standards.
Of course, this situation has persisted for generations -- and for generations we have learned to take things at face value. We have standards by which people are believed for certain matters -- if a woman shows up in a town where no one knows her and announces that she is not married, she is believed. If a man shows up in a town with a boy and announces that the boy is his son, no DNA test is required... he is given the halachic status of his son (along with the possible status of a kohen), whether or not that is the actual reality. If a woman gives birth to a child, the child is automatically assumed to be the husband's (absent any evidnece to the contrary, of course). If her husband is a kohen, so is the child -- we don't test him for the Cohen Modal Haplotype gene. And we do this despite the fact that there certainly are some kohanim that are not *really* kohanim (either because an ancestor of theirs lied, or was lied to, or because some ancestress of theirs might have cheated on her husband). We don't require a DNA test to prove paternity before not branding them a mamzer -- again -- almost despite the fact that there are certainly people who are mamzerim in our midst. (As a side note, see this comment thread from a DovBear post where someone tries to make the case that perhaps we're ALL mamzerim). In short, when it comes to personal status issues, we generally take a position that absent any evidnece to the contrary, we accept people as they present themselves to be. I can't think of a single shul that would require a visiting kohen to present genealogical proof of his status before giving him the first aliyah on Shabbos morning.
Yet, when it comes to conversion, Rabbi Sherman seems to want to go in the opposite direction. Rather than accepting all conversions as valid (barring evidence to the contrary), his opinion seems to be that all conversions are to be viewed as suspect until and unless there is evidnece validating it. Indeed, according to a Ynet article, Rabbi Sherman has instructed municipal registrars to question every conversion certificate that they are presented with.
At this rate, one has to wonder... why bother with conversions at all? Why would anyone in their right mind want to consider a conversion when it can be challanged years down the road? Why would anyone consider a conversion in the United States when there is no guarntee that it will be accepted when one gets to Israel, despite one's best efforts to get the highest standards of Orthodox conversion? Why would anyone want to start the process of conversion when they know, in the back of their mind that years down the road, after they are enmeshed in a marriage and have children and grandchildren that it could all come crashing down on them... even for factors over which they had no control?
So far, it seems, this particular form of madness seems to be restricted to the area of conversion in Israel. But does it have to stop there? What about divorces in Israel? If a woman marries, divorces and remarries (and has children with her second husband) in the Diaspora and then makes aliyah, does she always have to fear that her family will be thrown into a halachic quagmire because the Chief Rabbi of the day does not accept the divorce from her first husband? Does a woman who went through chalitzah have to fear that the Israeli battei din will not recognize the bais din she used -- again despite her best efforts to get the most Orthodox rabbis she could find?
And does this madness have to remain confined to Israel? What's to stop splinter groups from not recognizing divorces or conversions done by other Orthodox groups? Some rabbis have gone on the record as saying that Zionism is a form of avodah zarah. How long before they use that rhetoric to refuse to recognize divorces, marriages or conversions performed by Zionist rabbis on the basis that they are not fit to be rabbis? Will they then declare those converts to be non-Jewish and the divorcees' children to be mamzerim?
I believe that there is a very real danger here in Rabbi Sherman's approach. I believe that his approach has the possibility to put thousands and tens of thousands of people into halachic situations from which they cannot escape. I believe that his approach, carried to it's logical conclusion, can end up fracturing k'lal yisroel irreperably. It's one thing (and a separate debate) to set up higher standards for conversions going forward. But it's another to start demanding extra evidence of converts (and whose to stop him from requiring it of descendants of converts) that their conversion from years ago is valid when they have a valid certification. To start questioning every past conversion (or marriage, or divorce) is not only a complete departure from established precedent, but also can only lead to irreperable harm to the Jewish nation.
The Wolf
Hat tip: Failed Messiah
I blogged about the possible dangers of retroactive nullification of conversions last year. Rabbi Zvi Zohar, a professor of Sephardic Law and Ethics at Bar-Ilan University, showed how it possible that, taken to it's logical conclusion, a convert could never participate in Jewish society. Since his or her conversion is always subject to nullification at a later date, how can you rely on them for anything? Can you allow a convert to be the 10th man in your minyan? Perhaps he's not Jewish? Can he daven for the amud, receive an aliyah or become a ba'al kriah? Can he join with you in a zimmun when there are only three of you? Can you use him for hataras nedarim? What if he wrote your mezuzzos or tefillin?
And how about things that have long-reaching consequences? What if you use a convert as a witness to your wedding? Or even worse, what if a convert servs on a bais din (or is a witness) to a divorce? Can you imagine the halachic nightmare that would result from a witness (or judge) on a divorce case (or multiple cases) being found to be not Jewish retrocactively, throwing all those divorcees, their new spouses and children (and grandchildren) into some halachic purgatory from which they and their descendants may never escape? What about a convert who sits on a bais din for other conversions -- you could have multiple "generations" of invalidated conversions, each wreaking havoc on countless individuals and society as a whole. And, don't forget, this doesn't go just for the convert, but for any descendant of a female convert as well!
The problem is further compounded by the fact that there are almost certainly people who have been converted in past generations that would not pass muster even by some of the more lenient rabbis in our community. As any student of quality control can tell you, in any human endeavor and with a large enough production run, you are going to find some products that are outside the range of what you would consider acceptable. Applied to conversions, it means that if you convert enough people, you are practically guaranteed to find a number of people that are accepted as converts that should not be. There are bound to be a few people who are admitted to the Jewish nation who do not meet the halachic standards.
Of course, this situation has persisted for generations -- and for generations we have learned to take things at face value. We have standards by which people are believed for certain matters -- if a woman shows up in a town where no one knows her and announces that she is not married, she is believed. If a man shows up in a town with a boy and announces that the boy is his son, no DNA test is required... he is given the halachic status of his son (along with the possible status of a kohen), whether or not that is the actual reality. If a woman gives birth to a child, the child is automatically assumed to be the husband's (absent any evidnece to the contrary, of course). If her husband is a kohen, so is the child -- we don't test him for the Cohen Modal Haplotype gene. And we do this despite the fact that there certainly are some kohanim that are not *really* kohanim (either because an ancestor of theirs lied, or was lied to, or because some ancestress of theirs might have cheated on her husband). We don't require a DNA test to prove paternity before not branding them a mamzer -- again -- almost despite the fact that there are certainly people who are mamzerim in our midst. (As a side note, see this comment thread from a DovBear post where someone tries to make the case that perhaps we're ALL mamzerim). In short, when it comes to personal status issues, we generally take a position that absent any evidnece to the contrary, we accept people as they present themselves to be. I can't think of a single shul that would require a visiting kohen to present genealogical proof of his status before giving him the first aliyah on Shabbos morning.
Yet, when it comes to conversion, Rabbi Sherman seems to want to go in the opposite direction. Rather than accepting all conversions as valid (barring evidence to the contrary), his opinion seems to be that all conversions are to be viewed as suspect until and unless there is evidnece validating it. Indeed, according to a Ynet article, Rabbi Sherman has instructed municipal registrars to question every conversion certificate that they are presented with.
At this rate, one has to wonder... why bother with conversions at all? Why would anyone in their right mind want to consider a conversion when it can be challanged years down the road? Why would anyone consider a conversion in the United States when there is no guarntee that it will be accepted when one gets to Israel, despite one's best efforts to get the highest standards of Orthodox conversion? Why would anyone want to start the process of conversion when they know, in the back of their mind that years down the road, after they are enmeshed in a marriage and have children and grandchildren that it could all come crashing down on them... even for factors over which they had no control?
So far, it seems, this particular form of madness seems to be restricted to the area of conversion in Israel. But does it have to stop there? What about divorces in Israel? If a woman marries, divorces and remarries (and has children with her second husband) in the Diaspora and then makes aliyah, does she always have to fear that her family will be thrown into a halachic quagmire because the Chief Rabbi of the day does not accept the divorce from her first husband? Does a woman who went through chalitzah have to fear that the Israeli battei din will not recognize the bais din she used -- again despite her best efforts to get the most Orthodox rabbis she could find?
And does this madness have to remain confined to Israel? What's to stop splinter groups from not recognizing divorces or conversions done by other Orthodox groups? Some rabbis have gone on the record as saying that Zionism is a form of avodah zarah. How long before they use that rhetoric to refuse to recognize divorces, marriages or conversions performed by Zionist rabbis on the basis that they are not fit to be rabbis? Will they then declare those converts to be non-Jewish and the divorcees' children to be mamzerim?
I believe that there is a very real danger here in Rabbi Sherman's approach. I believe that his approach has the possibility to put thousands and tens of thousands of people into halachic situations from which they cannot escape. I believe that his approach, carried to it's logical conclusion, can end up fracturing k'lal yisroel irreperably. It's one thing (and a separate debate) to set up higher standards for conversions going forward. But it's another to start demanding extra evidence of converts (and whose to stop him from requiring it of descendants of converts) that their conversion from years ago is valid when they have a valid certification. To start questioning every past conversion (or marriage, or divorce) is not only a complete departure from established precedent, but also can only lead to irreperable harm to the Jewish nation.
The Wolf
Hat tip: Failed Messiah
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Scary Paper On Annulling Conversions
I'm sure that by now, most of you have heard about the revocation of the conversion of "Sarah," the woman who was converted by Rabbi Leib Tropper of Eternal Jewish Family. About a year after her conversion, her husband let slip the fact that Sarah sometimes went out of the house with her head uncovered and/or wearing pants. On these grounds Rabbi Tropper declared that her original intent to convert was not sincere and her conversion was declared null in June 2006. The news of this was followed by the announcement that it's possible that ALL the conversions done by Rabbi Haim Druckman's Beis Din in Israel (as part of the official government conversion authority) over the last nine years may be invalidated.
Being able to invalidate a conversion years after the fact is a scary thing. Perhaps the scariest article I've seen on the subject was written by Dr. Zvi Zohar, a Professor of Sephardic Law and Ethics at Bar-Ilan University. He begins by bringing up a fictitious, yet very possible scenario. A woman (Miriam) converts in an Orthodox ceremony and marries a Jewish man (Reuven). They have a son and a daughter. The son goes to Yeshiva, obtains semicha and becomes a rabbi himself. He serves as a witness for several marriages, sits as a dayan (judge) in several cases (including, possibly divorce and conversion cases), etc. The daughter goes on to marry a Kohen and has several children of her own. Her children duchen, receive the first aliyah in shul, participate in a pidyon haben, etc.
The story then continues:
Miriam, now nearing sixty, has been working secretly for several years on an autobiography – and it is accepted for publication. When published, the public is informed about matters that her husband and close friends have known all along: Miriam opted for giyyur because of Reuven, whom she wanted to marry. She declared acceptence of mitzvot during her giyyur procedure, but was never really convinced that the commandments were ordained by G-d and revealed to Moses, and her observance of halakha, never consistent even at the beginning, soon become spotty, then totally haphazard. She has no problem with the fact that her son Yehuda has adopted a religious lifestyle, and indeed keeps a kosher home for his sake, and when Yehuda and his family come to visit in the U.S., Miriam and Reuven make sure that everything is halakhically meticulous. But when they are alone, they are not religiously observant. Miriam’s good friend Maureen knows someone at the New York Times, and Miriam is interviewed. She tells the reporter how happy she is to be Jewish, and how she really identifies with the Jewish People and the Jewish values of social justice, warm community and family ties, etc. However, she confides, the ritual parts of Judaism – such as Shabbat, kashrut, taharat hamishpaha – never really attracted her, and she doesn’t personally observe them. The interview is picked up by HaAretz, and published in Hebrew in Israel.
What happens then is the scary part. A rabbi reads about this in HaAretz. He calls up the son's Rosh Yeshiva and advises him that the son was never Jewish to begin with, since his mother's conversion was invalid. Everything the son has done in his life (in a halachic sense) is invalid. Any marriages that he witnessed need to be re-performed. If he acted on a court to convert other geirim, then those conversions are invalid too. And if he acted in an official capacity at a divorce... well, let's just hope and pray those women haven't remarried and had kids.
The convert's daughter is also in a very precarious situation. Her life has just turned into a living hell. Since she' s not Jewish, she has to separate from her husband. Furthermore, even if she converts, she cannot "remarry" her husband, since he is a Kohen. Her children are no longer Kohanim (and never were to begin with) and have no "relationship" with their father.
Taken to it's logical conclusion, a ger cannot participate in Jewish society at all. As Dr. Zohar writes:
But is all this possible? Of course -- if one accepts that giyyur can be retroactively annulled. Indeed, if it is possible to retroactively annul even one giyyur based upon subsequent conduct of a ger, then we can NEVER rely upon the Jewishness of ANY person who underwent giyyur, nor upon the Jewishness of any descendent of a female proselyte. The Jewishness of all such persons is eternally contingent, always liable to being undermined by some future revelation. Knowing this, other Jews should always refrain from having gerim or the descendents of female giyyorot serve as witnesses, rabbis, Cohanim … they cannot be counted for a minyan, for a zimmun etc… and of course, no one will ever agree to marry them.
And, the end result will probably be an end to all conversions:
In fact, the most reasonable conclusion for any Orthodox rabbi to draw is that it is better never to accept anybody for giyyur – for who can really know what is in a person’s heart, and how he/she will behave in the future? And of course, once it gets around to persons who have been planning to undergo Orthodox giyyur that they and their children will always be only conditionally Jewish – they will surely revise such ill-considered plans. Who would knowingly place themselves and their families in such a terrible bind?
Scary stuff indeed. The havoc that a single individual can wreak on the klal as a whole is mind boggling. In addition, it's possible that this can be used as an extortion threat by the potential convert themselves. Suppose the convert and her son disagree about an issue -- grandparent's visitation for example. Do we allow a system where the convert can tell her son to accede to her demands or else she'll have him declared a non-Jew by stating that her conversion was never sincere? Do we allow one person to hold a figurative sword over people? It's bad enough that a husband can withhold a get from his wife, but at least there she entered into the marriage willingly. In this case, the parties affected have absolutely no say in the matter -- one person can threaten to destroy the lives of all their descendants with just one word.
Is this really where we are headed? To the point where converts are so completely disenfranchised that they cannot do anything religiously? You can't use them (or their descendants) for a minyan, for a dayan, for a witness at a marriage/divorce, or for anything at all. Heck, you can't even marry them, since it's possible that the conversion will be invalidated even generations later. Is this where the rabbanim who are overseeing this debacle want to take us? If so, then we're really entering a scary world indeed.
The Wolf
UPDATE: Apparently, EJF has it's own version of how "Sarah's" conversion went. The details are here. In any event, the main point of the post wasn't about "Sarah" but about revoking the validity of conversions years after the fact, as is being done in Israel. Since that's still the case and the main point of the post is still valid, I'm going to leave it up.
The Wolf
Being able to invalidate a conversion years after the fact is a scary thing. Perhaps the scariest article I've seen on the subject was written by Dr. Zvi Zohar, a Professor of Sephardic Law and Ethics at Bar-Ilan University. He begins by bringing up a fictitious, yet very possible scenario. A woman (Miriam) converts in an Orthodox ceremony and marries a Jewish man (Reuven). They have a son and a daughter. The son goes to Yeshiva, obtains semicha and becomes a rabbi himself. He serves as a witness for several marriages, sits as a dayan (judge) in several cases (including, possibly divorce and conversion cases), etc. The daughter goes on to marry a Kohen and has several children of her own. Her children duchen, receive the first aliyah in shul, participate in a pidyon haben, etc.
The story then continues:
Miriam, now nearing sixty, has been working secretly for several years on an autobiography – and it is accepted for publication. When published, the public is informed about matters that her husband and close friends have known all along: Miriam opted for giyyur because of Reuven, whom she wanted to marry. She declared acceptence of mitzvot during her giyyur procedure, but was never really convinced that the commandments were ordained by G-d and revealed to Moses, and her observance of halakha, never consistent even at the beginning, soon become spotty, then totally haphazard. She has no problem with the fact that her son Yehuda has adopted a religious lifestyle, and indeed keeps a kosher home for his sake, and when Yehuda and his family come to visit in the U.S., Miriam and Reuven make sure that everything is halakhically meticulous. But when they are alone, they are not religiously observant. Miriam’s good friend Maureen knows someone at the New York Times, and Miriam is interviewed. She tells the reporter how happy she is to be Jewish, and how she really identifies with the Jewish People and the Jewish values of social justice, warm community and family ties, etc. However, she confides, the ritual parts of Judaism – such as Shabbat, kashrut, taharat hamishpaha – never really attracted her, and she doesn’t personally observe them. The interview is picked up by HaAretz, and published in Hebrew in Israel.
What happens then is the scary part. A rabbi reads about this in HaAretz. He calls up the son's Rosh Yeshiva and advises him that the son was never Jewish to begin with, since his mother's conversion was invalid. Everything the son has done in his life (in a halachic sense) is invalid. Any marriages that he witnessed need to be re-performed. If he acted on a court to convert other geirim, then those conversions are invalid too. And if he acted in an official capacity at a divorce... well, let's just hope and pray those women haven't remarried and had kids.
The convert's daughter is also in a very precarious situation. Her life has just turned into a living hell. Since she' s not Jewish, she has to separate from her husband. Furthermore, even if she converts, she cannot "remarry" her husband, since he is a Kohen. Her children are no longer Kohanim (and never were to begin with) and have no "relationship" with their father.
Taken to it's logical conclusion, a ger cannot participate in Jewish society at all. As Dr. Zohar writes:
But is all this possible? Of course -- if one accepts that giyyur can be retroactively annulled. Indeed, if it is possible to retroactively annul even one giyyur based upon subsequent conduct of a ger, then we can NEVER rely upon the Jewishness of ANY person who underwent giyyur, nor upon the Jewishness of any descendent of a female proselyte. The Jewishness of all such persons is eternally contingent, always liable to being undermined by some future revelation. Knowing this, other Jews should always refrain from having gerim or the descendents of female giyyorot serve as witnesses, rabbis, Cohanim … they cannot be counted for a minyan, for a zimmun etc… and of course, no one will ever agree to marry them.
And, the end result will probably be an end to all conversions:
In fact, the most reasonable conclusion for any Orthodox rabbi to draw is that it is better never to accept anybody for giyyur – for who can really know what is in a person’s heart, and how he/she will behave in the future? And of course, once it gets around to persons who have been planning to undergo Orthodox giyyur that they and their children will always be only conditionally Jewish – they will surely revise such ill-considered plans. Who would knowingly place themselves and their families in such a terrible bind?
Scary stuff indeed. The havoc that a single individual can wreak on the klal as a whole is mind boggling. In addition, it's possible that this can be used as an extortion threat by the potential convert themselves. Suppose the convert and her son disagree about an issue -- grandparent's visitation for example. Do we allow a system where the convert can tell her son to accede to her demands or else she'll have him declared a non-Jew by stating that her conversion was never sincere? Do we allow one person to hold a figurative sword over people? It's bad enough that a husband can withhold a get from his wife, but at least there she entered into the marriage willingly. In this case, the parties affected have absolutely no say in the matter -- one person can threaten to destroy the lives of all their descendants with just one word.
Is this really where we are headed? To the point where converts are so completely disenfranchised that they cannot do anything religiously? You can't use them (or their descendants) for a minyan, for a dayan, for a witness at a marriage/divorce, or for anything at all. Heck, you can't even marry them, since it's possible that the conversion will be invalidated even generations later. Is this where the rabbanim who are overseeing this debacle want to take us? If so, then we're really entering a scary world indeed.
The Wolf
UPDATE: Apparently, EJF has it's own version of how "Sarah's" conversion went. The details are here. In any event, the main point of the post wasn't about "Sarah" but about revoking the validity of conversions years after the fact, as is being done in Israel. Since that's still the case and the main point of the post is still valid, I'm going to leave it up.
The Wolf
Thursday, July 05, 2007
My Take on the Cholent Convert story
Many bloggers have already commented on the "Cholent Convert" story. For those of you who don't read other blogs, or may have missed it, here is the crux of the story. (Original story from Mishpacha in Hebrew here).
A certain Ba'al Teshuva who had been learning in Israel for two years was eating at a kollel couple's house on Shabbos. During the meal, it became apparent that the Ba'al Teshuva did not like cholent. The kollel husband remembered reading that one who does not eat "chamin" on Shabbos is to be suspected of being an min (heretic). In addition, he also realized that the Ba'al Teshuva did not shukkle (sway rhythmically back and forth) when he davened (prayed), as many Orthodox Jews do. Upon observing these two behaviors and realizing that the Ba'al Teshuva comes from a country where Judaism is not kept very well, he reasoned that the Ba'al Teshuva must not be a Jew according to halacha. Further questioning of the Ba'al Teshuva's background turned up nothing to indicate that he was not Jewish. Nonetheless, the question was forwarded to Rav Eliyashiv, who determined that the man must undergo a giur (conversion).
To me, the whole story sounds fishy on several counts.
1. The halacha regarding not eating "chamin" on Shabbos was not applied correctly. "Chamin" means "hot food" (from the Hebrew word cham, meaning hot). Only relatively recently has the term come to mean the specific food that we know of as cholent.
If someone did not eat hot food at all on Shabbos, they were suspected of being a min (heretic) because it was feared that they might be following the erroneous position that one cannot use fires at all on Shabbos. The halacha here is referring to someone who specifically objects to eating hot foods on those grounds, not someone who does not eat hot food because he doesn't like the cholent, thinks it's too hot outside for hot food in the summer, or doesn't eat a specific hot food for any other reason.
2. A min is someone who is specifically Jewish -- a non-Jew cannot be a min. As such, even if he was absolutely refusing to eat the food on the basis of the fact that he held that fires cannot used on Shabbos at all and that one must eat cold food, that in itself cannot be used to show that he is not Jewish -- as a non-Jew wouldn't care whether he used fires or not on Shabbos.
3. There have been plenty of people throughout history that didn't shukkle when they davened. At least one blogger has pointed out that R. Moshe Feinstein did not shukkle. I've seen countless people whom I know are Jewish and are far more learned than I that do not shukkle.
4. Another very important point that was brought out by Rafi is that certainly R. Eliyashiv knows all three points made above. As he states:
And before I continue, let me just say before some people jump down my throat, that I am sure Rav Elyashiv knows that section of shulchan aruch at least as well as me, if not 500 times better (though one does not need to be the gadol hador to quote a siman in shulchan aruch).
I can understand the kollel husband making the mistake and taking the halacha in Shulchan Aruch completely out of context -- just because one learns in kollel doesn't mean that one really knows how to learn or to think critically. But if I, who is certainly no rabbi and no talmud chacham, can easily understand this, I'm sure that Rav Eliyashiv knows it as well.
So, to me the whole story sounds just a bit fishy. I want more details before I swallow this one down.
The Wolf
A certain Ba'al Teshuva who had been learning in Israel for two years was eating at a kollel couple's house on Shabbos. During the meal, it became apparent that the Ba'al Teshuva did not like cholent. The kollel husband remembered reading that one who does not eat "chamin" on Shabbos is to be suspected of being an min (heretic). In addition, he also realized that the Ba'al Teshuva did not shukkle (sway rhythmically back and forth) when he davened (prayed), as many Orthodox Jews do. Upon observing these two behaviors and realizing that the Ba'al Teshuva comes from a country where Judaism is not kept very well, he reasoned that the Ba'al Teshuva must not be a Jew according to halacha. Further questioning of the Ba'al Teshuva's background turned up nothing to indicate that he was not Jewish. Nonetheless, the question was forwarded to Rav Eliyashiv, who determined that the man must undergo a giur (conversion).
To me, the whole story sounds fishy on several counts.
1. The halacha regarding not eating "chamin" on Shabbos was not applied correctly. "Chamin" means "hot food" (from the Hebrew word cham, meaning hot). Only relatively recently has the term come to mean the specific food that we know of as cholent.
If someone did not eat hot food at all on Shabbos, they were suspected of being a min (heretic) because it was feared that they might be following the erroneous position that one cannot use fires at all on Shabbos. The halacha here is referring to someone who specifically objects to eating hot foods on those grounds, not someone who does not eat hot food because he doesn't like the cholent, thinks it's too hot outside for hot food in the summer, or doesn't eat a specific hot food for any other reason.
2. A min is someone who is specifically Jewish -- a non-Jew cannot be a min. As such, even if he was absolutely refusing to eat the food on the basis of the fact that he held that fires cannot used on Shabbos at all and that one must eat cold food, that in itself cannot be used to show that he is not Jewish -- as a non-Jew wouldn't care whether he used fires or not on Shabbos.
3. There have been plenty of people throughout history that didn't shukkle when they davened. At least one blogger has pointed out that R. Moshe Feinstein did not shukkle. I've seen countless people whom I know are Jewish and are far more learned than I that do not shukkle.
4. Another very important point that was brought out by Rafi is that certainly R. Eliyashiv knows all three points made above. As he states:
And before I continue, let me just say before some people jump down my throat, that I am sure Rav Elyashiv knows that section of shulchan aruch at least as well as me, if not 500 times better (though one does not need to be the gadol hador to quote a siman in shulchan aruch).
I can understand the kollel husband making the mistake and taking the halacha in Shulchan Aruch completely out of context -- just because one learns in kollel doesn't mean that one really knows how to learn or to think critically. But if I, who is certainly no rabbi and no talmud chacham, can easily understand this, I'm sure that Rav Eliyashiv knows it as well.
So, to me the whole story sounds just a bit fishy. I want more details before I swallow this one down.
The Wolf
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