IDF program quietly carries out nearly half Israel's conversions
Nativ program responsible for 2,213 conversions since its inception by the IDF, Jewish Agency in 2002.
By Anshel Pfeffer Tags: Jewish conversion IDFThe Israel Defense Forces, with the help of the Jewish Agency and Absorption Ministry, has been carrying out a quiet revolution in conversion over the last few years.
On Sunday a reception held in the prime minister's sukkah honored the 2,000th convert participating in the 'Nativ' program.
In a little more than five years, 2,213 people were converted as part of the program. What is even more impressive is that in the past year alone, of the nearly 2,000 conversions that took place in Israel, excluding the special program for Ethiopian Jews, nearly half were carried out in the IDF.
Those who have witnessed the disagreements between the various ministries and the rabbis over issues of authority and procedure, believe the IDF program offers the best possible solution to the problem. The hope now is that some of the rabbis, who are raising objections on matters of conversion, will not try to disrupt the IDF program.
The initiative to set up the special conversion program in the IDF came from the Human Resources Directorate, Major General Elazar Stern, who at the time was the chief education officer. Stern discovered that many of the new conscripts were asking to take their oaths of loyalty with a New Testament and not the Torah.
According to IDF statistics, some 6,000 new immigrants are serving in the IDF who are not Jewish according to halakha.
A rabbinical court has been in place in the IDF for decades, but until the new program was initiated six years ago, only several dozen soldiers were converted over the years.
Starting in 2002, the Education Corps and the Jewish Agency's Jewish Studies Institute, established in the late 1990s to address the issue of conversion, joined forces to launch the project.
The two formed Nativ, in which the soldiers undergo an intensive seven-week course called the "Jewish-Zionist Identity Program," which then enables them to apply to two seminars that prepare them for conversion.
Initially there was opposition to the program, according to Professor Benjamin Ish-Shalom, chairman of the JA's Institute. The rabbis were reluctant to acknowledge that the kind of preparation being offered in non-religious settings could contribute to a formal conversion process.
"The rabbis were opposed to the fact that we were completing the entire process in a few months," says Nehemia Citroen, director of the institute. "They were accustomed to conversion taking a full year."
A long process of dialogue, and exposing rabbis to all the lessons the converts undergo, led them to agree to accept the soldiers as full-fledged converts.
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You do not need to be Jewish to serve in the IDF. Everyone is drafted except Muslim and Christian Arabs and the Ultra-Orthodox. This includes Jews, Christians, Druze, Circassians, Vietnamese, etc. Arabs, especially the Bedouin, do volunteer and serve in the IDF.
once they go through the proccess every genuine convert goes thru:1) Accepting full commitment to Jewish practice and belief 2) immersion in a kosher Mikve 3)circumsision for males this needs to be supervised by a competent Beit Din, a jewish court whose judges have studied 10 times more than it takes to qualify as a Rabbi
there is no party line, but there are standards. there is as much room for differences as any Jazz musician uses when playing a piece of good jazz. besides, jews always ask questions and enjoy discussing possible answers.In short it ought to be fun. if it isn't' probably you didn't get the real thing.
According to Moses Low You have to exept them as Jews! Example is Exodus 13:48, or Ruth who was converted Moab and exepted by Jewsih sociaty! P.S. I'm not leftist!
I don't get it....converts in IDF..the Israeli army? Converts to Judaism..I thought anyone serving in IDF had to be jewish!!?? or what?? are there levels of how jewish a person can be?
Be careful before you convert, because you will be subjected to the most horrendous smear campaign if you don't walk the party line.
Untill the first rain they might even seem Jewish. then it all washes away. Send the JA abroad, anyplace that will take them.
the Nativ course is designed to inoculate against Judaism in the hope that no participant will get it.It usually works.
Fraud is a crime.thank you for telling us all about the forgery of fake conversions.
Well done and yashar coachachem, for blowing the whistle on this fraud.
He is proof of how ignorant you can be of basic Judaism and still be living here. No wonder the Rabbis want converts to really learn.
If the convert is not informed of basic Judaism the conversion is not worth the paper it was printed on. what does the Army know about halacha? Next the army will begin training nuclear biophysicists, on weekends, for a month.who would hire them?
We were a host family for those in the Nativ program and were very disappointed with the motivation of these converts to keep mitzvot. One of the rabbis who run the program admitted to me that these soldiers go back to their non-religious families and usually do not end up keeping mitzvot. According to most rabbis, such a conversion is invalid, as it does not include kabbalat ol mitzvot. The rabbis of Netiv rely on the controversial view of Rabbi Goren, who believed that in Israel no kabbalat ol mitzvot is needed. The majority of dati leumi (and needless to say, haredi) rabbis disagree with this view, which is based on the Yerushalmi and has no basis in the Shulchan Aruch.
You make bricks without straw. You assume that these people don't want to be converted and it's forced on them. You couldn't be more wrong. Judaism is distinguished from Christianity and Islam in that it discourages proselytism. We have many good soldiers who aren't Jews. There are many citizens who aren't Jewish and have voting rights. Get your facts right.
Yahweh of the Old Testament sanctioned war and violence. Interesting to note mythic legends... and those who have put themselves above nature. Usurping and polluting the land and life giving water. Seems the goddess of nature is none too happy - with any of us!
The Rabbis of Israel insist on the most stringent and overbearing rules for conversion wheras things are more lax in the diaspora. This is backwards. Israel pulses with the Jewish lifeblood and fitting into a Jewish society is so much easier in the Jewish State. As a result, the conversions can be "fast tracked."
Do they believe in Moses or Herzl? What kind of converts are they giving their Jewish diploma to? A non-Jew living under a Jewish culture called secular-Zionism is a death sentence, and equally a Human Rights issue. Why human rights, because it's government supported deception, telling a non-Jew he is a Jew when he is nothing but another body for the IDF and a vote for similarily dysfunctional government is a moral crime.
I will not for one moment be negative about this programme, but I do have reservations about the spate of Anti Semetism in our country by young people. Could the culprits have taken part in this programme as many of them were and are in the IDF.
Once it becomes obvious to you that things are working well because nobody is interfering, dear Media, you destroy the peace by making it a 'news item' and it is no longer quiet. sigh