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President of the CER, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt.
(photo credit: ELI ITIKIN)
The Chief Rabbinate and the Conference of European Rabbis agreed that Israeli rabbis would not convert to Europe, while the REC would adopt a policy of non-recognition of converts converted to Israel through independent Orthodox rabbinical courts.
In 2015, several leading Orthodox rabbis in Israel set up a conversion network called Giyur K halacha, independent of the chief rabbinate and state, to increase conversion rates mainly among the non-Jewish citizens of the former Soviet Union, descendants of Jews, to prevent an increase in mixed marriages in future generations.
The chief rabbinate fought fiercely against this initiative and supported a law that has not yet been adopted, which would give him the monopoly of Jewish conversion and revoke in court the rights that Giyur K'halacha had obtained. .
The chief rabbinate has gained support from the CER, the leading badociation of European Orthodox rabbis, who will no longer recognize any converts from non-governmental conversion authorities.
This includes the converts of Giyur K'halacha as well as those of the rabbi court haredi (ultra-Orthodox) of Rabbi Nissim Karelitz of Bnei Brak and others.
A senior rabbinate official confirmed the mutual agreement, but insisted that it was not a counterpart agreement, but rather a mutual adoption. of policies.
The Israel rabbis and the chief rabbinate are sometimes involved in conversions in European cities without a rabbinical court.
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The agreement between the Chief Rabbinate and the REC will put an end to this practice and allow the REC to control Orthodox conversions on the continent.
Talk to The Jerusalem PostThe president of the REC, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, said that the agreement was not yet finalized, but that the organization had demanded that the conversions in Europe be done "in concert with the rabbinate European ", because" rabbis parachuted into Europe have to do with corruption, are totally detrimental to community life. "
THE RABBI said non-state conversions in Israel would not automatically be accepted by rabbinic courts in Europe.
"Every conversion not carried out under the official Israeli Rabbinate will have to go through a verification and verification process," Goldschmidt said.
"There will be no automatic acceptance [of non-state converts]. Such a convert will have to appear again in front of a European Bet Din. "
The rabbi admitted, however, that conversions by Giyur K'halacha or other non-state Israeli courts could have some halachic validity. So he said that if there was a case where a woman converted through Giyur K'halacha would get married but later asked for a divorce, she would need a valid receipt or divorce letter before remarry.
"I do not think it's a political position." Mitzvot acceptance [commandments] is an integral part of the conversion process. We should not examine this issue solely from the Israeli point of view, but also from the diaspora, where lax conversion procedures accelerate badimilation.
"Giyur K'halacha and other bodies come to Europe and convert to it, in France and elsewhere. We know that the standards demanded by Giyur K'halacha are not the ones we are asking for.
"We have many cases where candidates not accepted by their local European authority have arrived in Israel and received an express conversion, then returning to their original communities. If the converts from Giyur K'halacha all observed Shabbat, they would not go in the first place. "
Rabbi Seth Farber, who helped found Giyur K'halacha, sharply criticized the ERC during the deal.
He said no conversion to Europe had taken place under the auspices of Giyur K'halacha and rejected Goldschmidt's criticism of his conversion standards.
"The vast majority of converts to Giyur K'halacha are miners and are not expected to be immediately observers of Shabbat," Farber said.
"It's a well-known halachic standard [according to Jewish religious law] that children under [the age of] bar or bat, the mitzvah does not need to be fully observant to convert.
"The bottom line is that these conversions are done in a halachic way, but are rejected for political reasons so that the ERC can better position itself, which is nonsense.
"Throughout Jewish history, Rabbinic courts have respected each other despite their differences. This movement is an absolute distortion of all halakhic history. If the REB and the rabbinate understood their historic responsibility, they would be concerned about the Jewish future and the integrity of the halakha and would not engage in political maneuvers to send the converts back to halachic. "
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