A network of multi-denominational study centers for those seeking to convert to Judaism has decided to stop referring candidates to Israeli conversion courts until the conversion process is reformed.

Prof. Benjamin Ish-Shalom, the head of the Joint Conversion Institute, said the rabbinic conversion courts reject about half the institute graduates after they have completed their studies. The institution is run jointly by the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform movements.

The institute, which was established in the wake of the Ne'eman Commission findings on religion and state, is demanding the conversion courts adopt an approach that is both halakhic and Zionist, and exempt the prospective converts from demands like placing their children in religious schools.

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Ish-Shalom said such demands deter many potential converts and do not take into account the "national need" to convert some 350,000 people from the former Soviet Union who now live in Israel and are not recognized as Jews.

"If there is no change in the conversion policy and the gates of halakha remain closed, there will be several Jewish nations here that won't recognize each other," said Ish-Shalom. "We won't be able to continue taking responsibility for that."

Conversion Institute representatives met recently with leading rabbinic judges from the conversion courts to ask them to adopt the more lenient approach of Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, who was chief rabbi of Israel in the 1940s. According to that approach, converts must prove their sincere desire to live as Jews, but are not obligated to live a religious lifestyle, as required today.

Rabbi Moshe Klein, deputy director of the Conversion Administration, said the matter is under discussion and that "everyone shares the desire to increase conversions."