A mess no ritual bath could cleanse

Usually, when a new law is being attacked from all sides of the political spectrum, you can rest assured that there is something sensible about it. If not, the politicians wouldn't be up in arms.

But after reading the new conversion law proposed by Yisrael Beiteinu MK David Rotem and seeing the bickering between his party and the ultra-Orthodox parties, now joined by the Reform movement and its allies, the only sensible conclusion is to wish a plague on all their houses.

None of the parties involved can navigate the conversion minefield because none of them share any joint values, let alone any genuine regard for the poor individuals who have been disenfranchised from their basic rights of self-identity. That is not to mention their lack of the freedom to marry, to bring up children in the faith of their choice and even the freedom to not be buried in some humiliating plot outside the fence.

When you break down the motives of each of the parties involved, there is only political interest.

Let's begin with the law's authors, Yisrael Beiteinu. I wrote here in the past that Avigdor Lieberman's party was the only one to publish a comprehensive manifesto before the last elections dealing with the issue of state and religion. Some liberals thought at the time that despite the party's frankly racist views on citizenship, not to mention their ultra-hardline stance on security and diplomacy, perhaps, at least on religious affairs, they would make some headway.

After all, the main group currently suffering from the conversion impasse and the rabbinate's stranglehold over marriage are the Russian-speaking voters of Yisrael Beiteinu, 300,000 immigrants who are not recognized by the Rabbinate as Jews and therefore cannot get married in Israel.

The conversion law has certainly been tailor-made to help them, and only them. Along with the laudable attempt to allow local rabbis to perform conversions - in addition to the special conversion courts, ruled by the super ultra-Orthodox dayanim (judges) - the law also contains Clause 3, which says conversions performed in Israel will not include automatic citizenship under the Law of Return.

In other words, this law is specifically aimed at helping those immigrants who are already citizens because of their Jewish fathers or grandfathers. If anyone thought that it could actually lead to a wider liberalization of conversion they have a long wait ahead of them. Like it or not, the issue is inextricably linked to the issue of citizenship unless the Law of Return is overhauled.

In addition, it is hard not to suspect that Lieberman, one of the most savvy political operators on the scene, did not foresee the opposition that the Haredim would put up. He still bullheadedly charged in to the china shop.

Yisrael Beiteinu can now claim that they tried to solve the conversion problem; it was the others who foiled their attempts.

Shas' motives are transparent as well. At first they went along with the proposal. They had nothing to lose, since the rabbinical courts are controlled by their Ashkenazi rivals. The law, should it ever pass, allows the local religious councils to perform conversions, and they rule most of those councils. In addition, Clause 3 means that the Interior Ministry, currently (and usually) another Shas fiefdom will not have to give citizenship to any of these new converts, so they can carry on deciding who gets to be an Israeli no matter what.

Like so many times in the past, Shas has now retreated from its support of the bill, afraid of Ashkenazi rabbis who can decide tomorrow to throw all their children out of the elite Haredi schools.

But either way, they have little to lose. At least United Torah Judaism and its rabbis who are kicking up all the fuss and threatening a coalition crisis if the bill gets to a vote are not being two-faced about it. Their position is clear: there is only one interpretation of Judaism, and that is whatever Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv says it is.

They will do everything in their power to preserve the monopoly they have over matters of personal status. That is what the UTJ representatives were sent to the Knesset to do and they make no bones about it. They have never claimed to care about hundreds of thousands who want to be part of the Jewish people and can't get married.

And while I believe the Reform leaders who have belatedly joined in the fracas do care somewhat about these individuals, they are not proposing any realistic solutions. Their constant refrain over the last three decades that non-Orthodox conversion be recognized as equal by law may have impressed the Supreme Court judges and helped with fundraising in America, but it has yet to gain any real traction in the public forum.

The basic fact remains, the Israeli in the street may say in surveys that they are in favor of civil marriage, equality for all religious streams and streamlining the conversion process, but that is not the stuff that coalitions are built from. They are not worked up about it enough to change their voting patterns or take to the streets, and they still continue to regard the Reform and Conservatives as essentially American movements with little connection to daily Israeli life.

Even when the now defunct secular Shinuy Party was at the height of its political power - a major coalition partner controlling the justice and interior ministries - we were no closer to achieving this.

The conversion issue is a godawful mess because it is not just about the religious definition of "who is a Jew?" New laws may alleviate the sufferings of a few individuals or even of an entire group, they will not solve the most fundamental flaw, which is a total lack of any clear description, even a vision, of what Israeli citizenship means.

All the problems of conversion, immigration and civil marriage derive from that yawning chasm in the unwritten Israeli constitution. People used to say that first we will make peace with our neighbors, end the occupation and achieve recognized borders before tackling our internal identity dilemmas.

But in a week when even the most limited indirect talks with the Palestinians are unattainable and we are hurtling (happily or not) down the slope toward a bi-national state, a serious debate over the meaning of citizenship in the Jewish state is a matter of national urgency.