MKs reject bill that would bar rabbis from annulling conversions

The Knesset plenum yesterday rejected a bill that would have prohibited rabbis from annulling conversions to Judaism which were granted in the past and recognized by the state.

Lawmakers present at the hearing were surprised to see the Yisrael Beiteinu faction reject the bill - drafted by MK Shlomo Molla (Kadima) - as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's party had long promised voters it would work to rewrite conversion laws.

Yisrael Beiteinu representatives said yesterday that the party is pushing its own, similar proposal, one which has already passed a preliminary reading. Unlike Molla's bill, they said, their proposal has the support of both the Justice Ministry and the rabbinical establishment.

"The bill proposed by MK Molla is defective in that on the one hand it attempts to embarrass Yisrael Beiteinu, and on the other hand it doesn't even solve the problem," said one faction member. Yisrael Beiteinu's bill, he said, "would set comprehensive guidelines on conversion, both by expanding the number of converts and by setting standards for conversion."

Yesterday's plenum vote was preceded by a raucous debate in the Knesset Immigration, Absorption and and Diaspora Affairs Committee over a series of incidents in which rabbis had overturned the conversion of IDF soldiers.

MK Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) said at the hearing, "These are Israeli citizens, immigrants, who see themselves as Jews, want to be part of the Jewish people, enlist in the IDF and undergo conversion according to halakha [Jewish religious law]."

"Later on, Haredi rabbis, sometimes anti-Zionist ones from families who don't serve in the IDF, don't recognize their conversion due to their zealous, extremist outlook," Horowitz said, adding that those rabbis' worldviews were also evident in their approaches to education, dietary laws and relations with women.

Several rabbis who had converted IDF troops in the past were expected at the hearing, but ultimately did not attend.