Two Articles on the Rabbinate
There are two recent articles in Ynet about the rabbinate. The first was posted in translation at Reblen. It’s about a young woman who made aliyah, served in the army, and was unable to marry because her mother underwent a reform conversion. The second can be found here (Hebrew) and describes what may be a growing phenomenon, religious couples who choose not to get married through the rabbinate and don’t even get a civil marriage abroad in order to be recognized as married by the State of Israel. They just want to avoid any reason to get the rabbinate involved in their lives.
May 4th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
I hope this does not degenerate into a flamewar, but I think that your phrasing that Jessica Fishman “was unable to marry because her mother underwent a reform conversion” is incomplete, and perhaps misleading. While classic Halachah can sometimes cause irremediable personal status problems, this is really not the case here. The article clearly implies that it would be fairly routine for her to undergo an acceptable (to the Orthodox and the State) conversion, but that she is so outraged at having what she considers her Jewishness denied, that she utterly refuses to do so. One may or may not sympathize with her perspective, but I don’t think we can say that she is “unable to marry”.
Ever worse is Rotam’s assertion (in translation, I suppose) that “Her case is scandalous. It hurts me to hear that a young woman who contributed so much to Israel was forced to leave, and this is exactly what my law seeks to correct.” Nothing “forced” her to leave Israel but her own sense of indignation and insult.
Once again, I do not mean to imply that I do not sympathize with her predicament.
The core issue here is exemplified by this statement of her mother:
“I broke out weeping. This was the first time that someone dared state to me that I who chose to be Jewish, am not Jewish.”
You know as well as I do that Judaism has rules, although we may not agree on their exact nature and their degree of flexibility. I understand (or perhaps I don’t, fully) the woman’s pain, but the assumption that one’s choice is the paramount determinant of one’s Jewishness is simply, fundamentally wrong.
May 4th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
I agree with you that she could have converted, although I am not sure if today she would have been accepted for conversion in Israel and then allowed to marry. All you have to do is hear some of Rabbi Seth Farber’s (from Itim) stories to understand how difficult it is to do this in Israel today for many people.
I think that the phrasing was relatively correct, because since the conversion was by a reform rabbi, she wasn’t able to marry. Yes, she could have possibly remedied her situation, which I would have suggested that she do, but in her current status she was unable to marry in Israel. My implication was not that she would never be able to marry, and I hope that she changes her mind and goes back to Israel. I definitely don’t agree with the whole article, but I think that it is important for people to hear the stories of the flesh and blood people who are affected by what I think is a rabbinate which simply doesn’t care about anything except their skewed image of how they are defending halakhah.
May 4th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Fair enough.
May 4th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
But I’ll still add two points:
I) I still feel that, assuming that she had / has the option of converting and marrying (I have not heard R. Farber’s stories), she and her pique, and not the the Rabbinate, bear the brunt of the blame for her problem.
II) I am not expert on the Halachah of conversion, but it is my impression that there’s a pretty strong consensus across the spectrum of Orthodox decisors that Reform conversions are utterly invalid. I therefore do not consider this sad story a support for your thesis that the Rabbinate “simply doesn’t care about anything except their skewed image of how they are defending halakhah”.