More than two years have passed since the High Court of Justice ruled that the state must recognize the conversions of people who studied in conversion programs in Israel and then completed the process overseas.

Despite this, the Interior Ministry, with the support of Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, is still refusing to recognize such people as Jewish and grant them immediate citizenship under the Law of Return.

The reason for the delay is that the verdict authorized the state to set criteria for when "pop over conversions" (so called because the converts, though living in Israel, "pop over" to another country to complete the conversion) should be recognized, in order to prevent the process from being abused by people who have no interest in being Jewish and are converting solely to obtain Israeli citizenship. However, the government has not yet set these criteria, and is refusing to recognize any pop over conversions until it does so. According to the Justice Ministry, "an effort will be made" to finalize the criteria by the end of this month.

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Since the court issued its decision, by a 7-4 majority, in March 2005, several people who have sought to have their conversions recognized and receive Israeli citizenship have been turned down by the Interior Ministry. They include Rachel Lazar, 20, a Romanian who underwent a Conservative conversion in Hungary and is now living with her Israeli husband in Jerusalem; L.K., a Ukrainian who moved here in 2001 to be with her daughter (who had married an Israeli), then decided to convert, which she did in a Reform ceremony in Kiev in 2003; and K.R., a Brazilian who studied for conversion through Jerusalem's Reform community and then completed the conversion in Sao Paulo. These three, and others like them, have all petitioned the High Court against the Interior Ministry's refusal to grant them citizenship, in defiance of the March 2005 verdict.

However, the state has requested - and received - countless postponements of the hearing, on the grounds that it needs more time to finalize the criteria. In the meantime, it has granted the petitioners temporary residency.

Attorney Nicole Maor of the Reform Movement's Israel Religious Action Center argued in a letter to Mazuz two months ago that as long as the state has failed to formulate criteria for pop over conversions, it has no right to refuse to recognize the conversions undergone by the petitioners. However, the Justice and Interior Ministries evidently disagree - though neither related explicitly to this issue when asked for comment by Haaretz.

Maor also noted that not everyone caught in this limbo has in fact been granted temporary residency, which confers most of the benefits of citizenship. Some of the "pop over" converts only have work visas, which excludes them from the national health insurance plan, while others have been denied visas entirely.

Equally troubling, she said, the Interior Ministry has begun to insist that these converts "join a recognized Jewish community in Israel." Such a demand, if it indeed becomes part of the official criteria for recognizing pop over conversions, would violate the court's 2005 ruling, Maor charged.

In response, the Justice Ministry said that in the wake of the verdict, "which said that it was permissible and desirable to set criteria for pop over conversions so that they would not be abused for the sake of obtaining Israeli citizenship via the Law of Return," the Interior Ministry studied the issue, then sent its conclusions to the attorney general for his input. "This is a complex issue, and its clarification naturally requires time," the ministry said. However, it added, "an effort will be made to finalize the criteria by the end of May at the latest."

The Interior Ministry said that it is not ignoring the verdict; rather, it has drafted criteria for recognizing pop over conversions, and these criteria are now being discussed by Mazuz's office, "with the goal of completing the process soon. Another discussion is due to take place in the coming days and the issue will be sent to the attorney general for a final decision," it said.