Court decision stirred row
צילום: איי פי
Knesset debates conversion ruling
Interior Minister Pines-Paz: rabbinate obstinance brought on ruling; Shinui leader Lapid: Israel won't be Iran
JERUSALEM - Interior Minister Ophir Pines-Paz said Wednesday that last week’s Supreme Court ruling on “jump conversions” pointed to an “overall failure of the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel,” and said that if the rabbinate would only ease the crunch on people trying to convert to Judaism, the ruling might have been avoided.
Speaking during the Knesset’s final session before the Pesach break, Pines said Israel’ must not “confuse the Jewish religion with Jewish political nationhood,” and presented the country with two options: “either we come up with a solution to a changing reality, or we bury our collective head in the sand and pretend that nothing is happening here.”
Yishai: one way to become Jewish
Shas Knesset Member Eli Yishai opened the debate from the Knesset floor, telling colleagues not to “poke fun at Jewish law, don’t poke fun at the Jewish People. There is only one way to become Jewish. We are opposed to religious conversion, and so we don’t force anyone to convert.”
Lapid: Jews don’t allow Jews to be Jews
Opposition leader Yosef Lapid of the Shinui Party said the Knesset debate was entirely unnecessary, saying there were more Shinui parliamentarians at the debate than from the Shas Party who initiated it.
Lapid said “these people are dying to become Jewish. You were born Jewish, they are choosing to be Jewish. They’ve learned for a year, they know more than you. I never thought I would see the day the State of Israel prevented Jews from being Jews.”
Lapid charged “if any other country in the world did this to Jews, you would scream and shout about fascism in Europe. But here a rabbi is not a rabbi if he is not Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox.”
Lapid also turned to Knesset Member Avraham Ravitz, saying “if you understood the antagonism and damage you are bringing to the Jewish people, you would act differently. Israel will be a free country, not a medieval one like Iran.”
