Mihu Yehudi

[Hiskashrus]

can someone please shed light on this issue?

[Jude]

gee, that's kind of general ...
"Mihu Yehudi" means "Who is a Jew?" How does the Torah define a Jew?
This was/is a major issue particularly in Israel because the Law of Return says that any Jew from anywhere in the world has the right to "return" to his homeland (no quota system). The issue was that the wording of the Israeli law was "yehudi" and "ger" without specifiying K'HALACHA. This has caused no end of problems till this very day, because under this law, anybody who claims to be Jewish is allowed in.
The numbers vary, but in the Russian influx of the past many years, there are those who says that anywhere from 30% -70% are OUTRIGHT GOYIM! How do they come in? If a Russian man is Jewish for ex. he, of course, can come in. But he can also bring his gentile wife, kids, in-laws ...
Then there are the so-called converts who did not convert according to HALACHA, who are also allowed in.
For decades, even the most irreligious Jew in Israel would marry Jewish, because who else was there to marry, Arabs? Today though, it's MAJOR problem because there are thousands and thousands of GOYIM living in Israel, who serve in the army (do they really care about Israel?), want to be able to buy tarfus, etc.

"Who is a Jew" is an issue in America and elsewhere too. One fine day, Reform decided that patriarchal descent "works for them," i.e. that HALACHA says a Jew is a Jew by virtue of his/her Jewish mother or a halachic conversion. But in their great wisdom, Reform thought they could do better than that and welcome people whose fathers were Jewish, as Jews. This wreaks havoc among the Jewish people, for today, for the first time in history we can no longer assume that somebody named "Cohen," is in fact Jewish. His father might be a cohen stemming from Aharon Ha'Cohen, but if his mother is a shiksa, he is a full-fledged GOY.
On the other hand, a person's name might be McDonald because his father is Irish, but if his mother is Jewish, halacha says he is JEWISH!

[ChachChach]

are ppl still fighting for this in israel? i dont recall hearing anything new about this in the news recently...has it died down, or is it still going strong? what is the bottom line for these laws today?

[770dovid]

just today, the high court of israel ruled that conservative and reform conversions "in israel" must be put on id cards as jewish.

[CheBraccia]

I just heard of the supreme courts ruling, it's shocking... 11 of the 12 judges ruled that a reform conversion is considered Jewish (to list someone as Jewish on the Identity cards - Teudat Zehut)!!!

Shocking!!!

[Yehudiya]

It is indeed shocking .
For years the Rebbe campaigned begged and pleaded with the Religious members of the knesset to push forward this issue.
Unfortunately most of them did not have this issue at the top of their agenda and therefore we see results like yesterdays ruling of the Supreme court.

[770dovid]

Many of you think that just yesturday the court ruled that reform conversions are valid. This is a mastaken belief. This belief that reform conversions are valid goes back to 1986. The only thing the court ruled on was that now the reform conversions done "in Israel" will be allowed to stamp jew on their ID cards. For years they allowed reform conversions from the USA and other countries outside Israel. The rebbe was screaming about this for years because of the conversions in the USA not only the conversions in Israel. I hope shas takes this serious and makes legislative laws circumventing this ruling. I believe this can be done.

[TzivosHashem]

I am glad this subject came up b/c it is really bothering me.

What shocks me is that the Rebbe made such a shturm about mihu yehudi and yet the shluchim in Russia and Ukraine accept goyim into their communities. Out of over 30 shluchim i know across Ukraine and Russia, only 2 or 3 have 'clean' schools whith only Jewish children in them!

And no one even opens their mouth in a complaint b/c it would mean loosing money from the Israeli Government and the Federation!!!

What has happened to the Rebbe's shluchim? Since when have shluchim sold out on the Rebbe's directives in such an open way!?

I really respect the shluchim around the CIS - life is not easy there - so i will not go any further and talk about specifics, but the matzav is really bad!

[Jude]

could you explain the situation? why would they lose funding for taking in Jews only? I don't get it. Don't the Jewish philanthropists want to provide money for Jewish education for JEWS? And what about the brissin and the Jewish naming ceremony for girls? Is this done on goyim? :confused: Can't be!

btw: this happens in the U.S. too when a Jewish father sends his gentile kids to the Chabad school and the shaliach doesn't want to alienate the Jewish father. I'm sure the Rebbe was asked about this situation way back when. What did the Rebbe say?

[masbir]

The Isreal gover. is paying per child, so the more childern, the more money.

About the Rebbes opinion (I dislike to rely on half baked hearsay, but I have the source, anyone can ask the Rav qouted here). I know for a fact that Rabbi M. landau of Bnei Brak has some notion (pesak?) from the Rebbe that in Russia a big percentage of Goyim are indeed Jews, so if someones claims he is a jew in Russia there is a kind of Chezkas Yehudi to him.

Now, 1)I am writing hesistantly, since I didn't hear from him but someone (not a scholar) who heard from him, but the essence of this ruling is true. 2)I don't know exactly how broad a license this gives you, and if it includes all Russia or only certain regions, 3) I think it is partially contignent on the fact that Millions (many more than officially estimated) of Russian jews assimilated in Russian society in the Soviet era and they are still Jewish. 4)Again, I know Rav Landau bases this on the Rebbe, How much he got from the Rebbe and how much is his understanding of what the Rebbe wrote or said - I don't know.

[Jude]

about the Israeli govt. paying per child - I didn't think there was a shortage of Jewish children there!!

about there being many more Jews in Russia than we think - I remember hearing that the numbers the Rebbe used about how many Jews there were in Russia way back when (before the fall of communism) was much higher than the numbers commonly quoted, millions higher

[TzivosHashem]

Jude - i wish i could explain it!

A lot of teachers get paid by the misrad hachinuch in Israel. The official Israeli policy is that anyone with a Jewish grandparent is entitled to a Jewish education, and so the teachers and shlucim - in order to receive the money from the misrad hachinuch - let in non-Jewish kids.

But it is worse than that. I know of schools where they take kids without any Jewish grandparent! Or schools which do not get money from the misrad hacnhinuch but still take non-Jews.

The other problem is that the bigger your school is, the more money you get from the sponsoring orghanization. The hanhola of the organisation also wants to present a large number of pupils b/c it looks better for potential sponsors, so they too turn a blind eye.

I would like to believe that if the main sponsor fo the schools and shluchim knew what was really happening he would not be happy, but i don't know if that is true....

These are only my initial feelings - it goes a lot deeper than this.

[masbir]

<<<about the Israeli govt. paying per child - I didn't think there was a shortage of Jewish children there!!>>>

Not everyone wants to come to THIS mosed.

<<<about there being many more Jews in Russia than we think - I remember hearing that the numbers the Rebbe used about how many Jews there were in Russia way back when (before the fall of communism) was much higher than the numbers commonly quoted, millions higher>>>

Its true, I heard from the Rebbe, but since I don't remember when the Rebbe said it, I didnt want to throw it in.

[TzivosHashem]

and what about people who never claim to be Jewish, but they just want their child to get a better education and better meals?

i really don't know how much the mods. will let me say over here, bc some of the evidence i have is very damning about certain shluchim/moisdos, but i guess i should just write, and whatever they don't like they will just take out

[TzivosHashem]

there is a major difference between accepting people who have no documents (in the former Soviet Union everything works by documents) or those who claim that their documents where changed, and no even asking to see documents because you are not interested in knowing if the person is Jewish.

Unfortunately a lot of shluchim in the CIS do the latter

[masbir]

Those in the know, know about the problem, It seems that you are very familiar with the problem and seething about it. The following shall be in the Shluchim thread (and the thread police will be very diligent in their persuit of transgrassers, can't they be lenient, many times a conversation natuarly digresses, its stunting good debate, this is not a code of law, but a debating forum!), but this a lot to do that Shlichos means (o.k. I wont generalize etc...) a big front cover in Kfar Chabad magazine several times a year, and If you a have big building with 600 children with a nice tie you are in Shluchim heaven. (who cares who they are?) The publicity trumps content

[TzivosHashem]

maybe one of the mods. will be kind enough to set some specific rules for this thread. I know in general loshon hora is not allowed, but how about debating the different pro/cons of certain organisations and the apporaches to shlichus of different shluchim.

i mean there are two sides to the story....

[Jude]

<<It is one of history's ironies, then, that the Law of Return has become the single greatest threat to Israel's Jewish identity. The Interior Ministry has a computer file of more than 200,000 non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union. And the leading experts in clarification of Jewish status believe the true figure is nearly twice as high.

Even those figures do not begin to convey the scope of the problem. The Immigration and Absorption Ministry acknowledges that nearly 60 percent of recent immigrants are not Jewish.

That is a conservative figure. A survey of 100 recent immigrants by the ministry found 75 non-Jews, and two weeks ago the Knesset heard testimony that of the 1,004 new immigrants from Chaburusk only 38 were Jewish. Among those of marriageable age, the percentage of non-Jews in the total immigration is much higher.

The percentage of non-Jews will only grow. There are many with a vested interest in increasing the immigration from the former Soviet Union, without regard to religious status. More and more, the Russian aliya provides the Jewish Agency with its sole raison d'etre. And that requires numbers.

Another vested interest is the Reform Movement. American Jewish parents rarely demand even the most pro forma conversion from their children's non-Jewish spouses, which has severely cut into the market for clergymen advertising their conversion services.

But in Russia, they have something of tangible economic benefit to peddle. With the conversion certificate goes automatic Israeli citizenship. The Russian gets his certificate and the Reform Movement claims another adherent.>>

[noahidelaws]

BS"D I had not yet read this thread and recently I met a "dissident" Shliach from Russia who complained bitterly about the situation of accepting non-Jews into "Jewish" "Chabad" schools. I was mammosh appalled. Horrified.

For many years I have felt strongly about Mihu Yehudi. I have never understood why this campaign is not emphasised more. I have listened to many tapes of long Sichos of the Rebbe SCREAMING, literally, filled with pain, in a way that made me shiver, crying out with every fiber of his being at the thought of giving a gentile the impression that he is a Jew, and that this DESTROYS THE VERY EXISTENCE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE, R"L HOYO LO SIHIYEH.

To me, this seems like nothing less than CORRUPTION. Pure and simple.

Although that is a word that I very much hesitate to use.

Mikra molei dibber haKosuv (the Written Torah tells us explicitly): "You shall not twist judgment, nor recognize faces, and you shall not take bribes, because bribery blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous." [Devorim 16:19]

Tzivos Hashem, I really wish you would tell us EVERYTHING you know because ONLY if there is a public outcry against this outrage will the prepetrators be stopped.

This Shliach pointed out that the other Rabbis, our Litvishe competition, are very successful, WITHOUT accepting gentiles as Jews (or at least nowhere near as many as us percentage-wise). How shameful that it is davka "Lubavitchers" and "Shluchim" (?!) who are most guilty of this horrendous crime!

They are not much different from the accursed Jewish Agency.

[Fundamentalist]

I think before we start condemning individual shluchim or whole organizations we have to make sure we know all the facts. It is never difficult to find a 'dissident' in any organisation, and if this shliach was in some way hurt by the main sponsoring organisation in Russia then it is no surprise that he is upset. I would certainly not believe everything he has to say.

The first point I would like to make is that until someone is in the position that these shluchim are in - living out in an 'eretz tziyo veoyef' it is not fair to judge the shluchim. They often have to compete against other organisations, including reform and or someach, for children, and they need to have a lot of backing in the town they live in.

Another point is that there is no 'rule' that a shliach MUST take non-Jewish children into his school. I personally know of shluchim who stand firm and will not let ANY non-Jewish kids into their school. The sponsoring organisation does not have a problem with this, or if they do, they keep quiet about it.

On the other hand there are shluchim who have more non-Jews in their school than Jews!

What i think it boils down to are the two age-old temptations of money and honor. A shliach with a school with 500 kids in is not looked up to the same way as a shliach with a school with only 50 kids. And funding falls also. Not just from organisations but from private backers also. When you take a local gvir to a school with 500 children learning in it it makes a certain impression on them.

And the ball keeps rolling.

If the two or three 'biggest' shluchim are not makpid on having non-Jewish children in their school, when a young shliach moves out to a town and one of his big donors asks to put his son from his non-Jewish wife into the school, it will be a lot harder for the new shliach to put up a fight when he knows that there are 'bigger' shluchim who have already given in to this temptation.

A number of shlucim told me that they would happily get rid of all the non-Jews in their school, but how would it look for them to have only 50 kids in their school when other schools have 150+ b/c they take in non-Jews?

Another shocking story.

I know a shliach who is fighting very hard to 'clean his school.' Unfortunately for the shliach he came to the city when the school was already there and he is having a very hard time. One time he told a non-Jewish mother that her son could not learn in his school. A month later he heard that the child had gone to live with his grandmother in a different city and had been accepted to the Chabad school there. What do you think the shliach felt like then?

I don't mean to bash Chabadtalk, but I doubt that posting names of shluchim will help. Nowadays there are already 100's of bochurim and baalei batim who have been to Russia or Ukraine and a lot of people know the situation. It is up to the Rabonim to take a stand on these things.

That is all I have the time for at the moment.

Noahide I hope this answers your question ;)

[noahidelaws]

BS”D << I think before we start condemning individual shluchim or whole organizations>>

:confused: So you DON’T condemn them?!

<<I would certainly not believe everything he has to say. >>

Everything he has to say is more than confirmed for me in this thread.

<<The first point I would like to make is that until someone is in the position that these shluchim are in - living out in an 'eretz tziyo veoyef' it is not fair to judge the shluchim.>>

:mad:Some things are simply inexcusable. IMO, this is one of them.

<<Another point is that there is no 'rule' that a shliach MUST take non-Jewish children into his school.>>

When did I, or anyone else, imply that?

<<What i think it boils down to are the two age-old temptations of money and honor.>>

EXACTLY. So you DO agree with me.

<<What do you think the shliach felt like then? >>

:confused:The Shliach who fought to 'clean his school' did what he had to do, and the other one’s irresponsibility is irrelevant.

<<I don't mean to bash Chabadtalk, but I doubt that posting names of shluchim will help.>>

Okay, fine, don’t post names, but please give us more details and personal accounts or information etc. reported to you by your colleagues. Thanks in advance.

[notalubab]

Originally posted by TzivosHashem
I am glad this subject came up b/c it is really bothering me.

What shocks me is that the Rebbe made such a shturm about mihu yehudi and yet the shluchim in Russia and Ukraine accept goyim into their communities. Out of over 30 shluchim i know across Ukraine and Russia, only 2 or 3 have 'clean' schools whith only Jewish children in them!

And no one even opens their mouth in a complaint b/c it would mean loosing money from the Israeli Government and the Federation!!!

What has happened to the Rebbe's shluchim? Since when have shluchim sold out on the Rebbe's directives in such an open way!?

I really respect the shluchim around the CIS - life is not easy there - so i will not go any further and talk about specifics, but the matzav is really bad! Tzivos, i hope what u say is not accurate, if it is it is indeed shocking!

[Jude]

Yad L'Achim, an anti-missionary organization started by the Rebbe years ago, has its hands full. Although there are laws in Israel which make it illegal for missionaries to offer incentives (a.k.a. bribes) to entice people to convert, these laws are not enforced. Apparently, the government has more important things to take care of :rolleyes:

Did you know that there are 5000 Jewish girls living in Arab villages? Of course their children are Jewish, but their Arab husbands keep wife and kiddies under constant scrutiny so they can't escape. Yad L'Achim does dangerous undercover work to ferret intelligence and ways and means of helping these women escape. They actually have the Jewish daughter of an Arab sheik, a baalas teshuva, working for them. She dresses in her former Arab garb and goes to the Arab villages to talk to the Jewish girls!

Missionaries in Israel have huge buildings and lots of money at their disposal. The Messianic Jews are the worst because they come with yarmulkas, tzitzis, Friday night services, magen davids, etc. and they say you can still be Jewish ... but you need to believe in J.

Yad L'Achim has unbelievable intelligence sources and so when they hear that hundreds of Jews are going to be "baptised" in the Kinneret, they show up and make noisy protests and tell the innocent Jews what's really going on.

What I find really, really painful and frustrating is that all this would be completely unnecessary if the Israeli government would throw out all the missionaries and give the Jewish people a Jewish education. Once again, like the ill-fated peace process, we are our own worse enemy.

[Jude]

Almost 60% of the new immigrants who have arrived in Israel from the former Soviet Union since the beginning of 2002 are not Jewish. The Interior Ministry reports that in the first seven months of this year, Israel has absorbed some 9,300 immigrants from these areas, of whom only 3,800 are Jewish.
Interior Minister Eli Yeshai says that the statistics indicate the gravity of the situation and "emphasize the urgency with which the Law of Return must be changed." The law currently grants automatic citizenship to non-Jewish grandchildren of a Jew immigrating together to Israel. "If this law is not changed," Yeshai says, "the State of Israel will lose its Jewish identity within eight years

[rebayzl]

THe Rebbe wanted to change a different clause in Chok Hashevut. Not the one about grandchildren, but the one about Conversion.

[TzivosHashem]

I think if you are bringing a quote like this from a news service (I guess you saw it on Arutz Sheva like me), then you should say where you got it from to give the quote more credability.

On the subject of Mihu Yehudi... a lot of shluchim are getting a lot stronger on the issue. I heard that Or Avner - they sponsor all the shluchims schools in the CIS - only give money based on the number of Jewish kids (with documents) in the school.

[Jude]

<<only give money based on the number of Jewish kids (with documents) in the school.>>

is that something new - bec. earlier posts in this thread decried the situation in Russia

[TzivosHashem]

Yes i think it just started this year, or is about to start this new school year, i am not sure.

The truth is that the situation in the CIS is still very nasty especially if you think of the amount of time that the Rebbe spent shouting about Mihu Yehudi.

[Yankel Nosson]

Originally posted by Jude
On the other hand, a person's name might be McDonald because his father is Irish, but if his mother is Jewish, halacha says he is JEWISH!
You got the Jewish part right, but a fellow named McDonald with good Scottish lineage would be ready for a duel with anyone who called him Irish! Put up yer dukes, lassie!

(I couldn't resist :cheeky: )

[bochur770]

ok, about Mi Yehudi it is terrible that the religious ministers throughout the years did not listen to the Rebbe and change the wording of the law, because today we suffer from their actions.

now, i do not understand how the issue of goyim in chabad schools in the CIS came to this thread, it has nothing to do with israel, mi yehudi.
but once its here, let me say the following:
the major problem of goyim in schools is in ukaraine NOT in russia, where most schools (including r' berel lazar's in moscow) are only jews. the major problem started in the ukraine where they recieved some heter from rabbi landau. and even in ukraine, western ukraine is 99% jews, it is mostly eastern ukraine.

or avner fund never gave money for the non-jewish kids in the school, they belived the shliach when he said he has (lets say) 200 jews and 50 non jews. for the next school year, they have decided tehy want real proof on every jewish child in the school, and it has had a major effect, with many schools cleaning up.

for camps, the federation of jewish communities also never gave funds for the non-jews, and this year, as in every year they sent out to teh shluchim forms to be filled out about the jewish children.

whoever woried on the debate that brisim etc are done to non jews, let me tell you this: if it does happen it is a big mistake, shluchim make sure that the person is jewish before proceeding with these things.

and to that dissident shliach who claimed that the misnagdim are succesful, maybe he should visit the CIS and tell me where he actually found misnagdim (except for moscow, where there are ten schools of all types), lubavitch totally rules the CIS in every aspect, the misnagdim are just non succesful, period.

[bochur770]

and not to mention that the misnagdim sit with reform "rabbis" in represnting jews in russia, and they were the ones that gave reform power to say that they are jewish!

[Jude]

any sources for that last post?

[bochur770]

sure, i personally heard from a shliach in the CIS:
to be considered a religious organization in russia the organization must be 10 years old. the only ones that were official were: judaism, ******ianity and islam, thats it!
so reform coudnt sit anywhere coz they were not old enough, so the so called "frum" oragization invited them and gave them recognition by the gov.

there was an article recently about the misnagdim in russia where it clearly states how they sit with reform.
and the Rebbe once said: they will go to reform abi not to work with lubavitch.
and remember : all religious organizations in the world that stae cleary that no one can sit with reform support the misnagdim in russia, even though it is common knowledge that the work hand in hand with reform!

[Jude]

so the so called "frum" oragization invited them and gave them recognition by the gov.

what did they gain thereby?
if you tell me which organization it is, depending on who it is, I would certainly call and ask them for an explanation

[bochur770]

rabi pinchas goldshmid rabbi of moscow
rabbi shayevich whoi still considers himself chief rabbi of russia
they are supported by agudas yisroel, dayan erenthrau of london.

and this dissident that was disscussed before now works hand in hand with these people and they are now starting to attack chabad shluchim all over europe!

[Jude]

"You write about a child whose mother isn't Jewish - the din is clear that they go after the mother, and therefore it is asur to teach them Torah, [aside from the Sheva Mitzvos Bnei Noach]. And what may be even more important - absorbing them within a Jewish framework is very likely to lead to assimilation ch'v within the Jewish people - without any conversion [and even if they sometimes mention it to them]. The explanation - to teach them and to wait about the conversion question until they're 18 - simply does not matir the isur and does not do away at all, with the fear mentioned above. In addition to which, conversion is first at age 13."

from Igros Kodesh, vol. 22, letter #8344; also printed in Shaarei Halacha U'Minhag, vol. 3, p. 245

[FJC]

Why are you disscusing a matter what all you have to do is go around and explain people just to marry a Jew, its somthing what shouldn't matter if you are'nt doing anything about it!!!!
if you make a talk show and explain what a Jew is, that might do somthing

[Jude]

some interesting articles on the topic (http://ou.org/publications/ja/5764/5764winter/THECONVE.PDF)

[Frumkite]

Boruch Ellison, who usually attacks the shluchim for not signing his anti-PLO petition, now claims that the shluchim have been against mi hu yehudi:



Naturally, shrieking and anger came from the phony "Reform" and "Conservative" leaders against Rabbi Hollander's restatement of the traditional Jewish view. But shockingly, even more venom and hatred was spewed by other orthodox rabbis - with many Chabad-Lubavitch "Hasidic" rabbis leading the charge! In direct violation of Jewish Law and orthodox practice, these orthodox rabbis brazenly condemned Rabbi Hollander's brave, accurate declaration. Ironically, many Chabad rabbis accused Rabbi Hollander's statement of being against the principles of the Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson), yet it turned out that it was the Lubavitcher Rebbe who had specifically asked Rabbi Hollander, a few years earlier, to make the public statement! The Lubavitcher Rebbe had become frustrated by his own representatives, the Chabad rabbis, who refused en masse to condemn "Reform" and "Conservative" publicly, and so he finally turned to a non-Hasidic leader (Rabbi Hollander) to make the declaration instead. That was one of the more shameful episodes in Chabad history, and unfortunately, Chabad rabbis still hold to their rebellious position, largely because they are frightened of alienating "Reform" and "Conservative" Jews who constitute the largest donors to Chabad Houses.
http://noahide.com/newsletter/news72.htm


Anyone have any evidence to controvert his claims?

[Meshulam]

Most of that publication seems a little crazy to me. I don't think we need to controvert his claims.

[shalomaleichem]

I can say what I saw w/my own eyes. The week we made aliya all of the Maon Olim in Kfar Chabad was bussed to a Mihu Yehudi demonstration. The Rebbe was talking about it almost daily. He was very forceful and called it the last gezero before Mashiach. R' Chefer was in charge of an organization printing tons of informative pamphlets and such to explain it to everyone. R' Immanuel Shochet wrote a book in English. It was the big koch.

Then came the tremendous chillul HaShem of the 1988 elections. Charedim fighting each other in the streets. The Rebbe said we should onetime vote Aguda. Eliezer Mizrachi was elected by Chabad vote as 5th Aguda MK. Mihu yehudi was buried six foot under never to rise again. The religious parties have since put a premium on being in the coalition. The reform and conservative have formal agreements with the larger Israeli parties in the Jewish agency. Ignoring Mihu Yehudi is a minimum to be in a coalition. Eliezer Mizrachi was the swing man and is praised for not allowing Peres to form a govt but it is ignored that he never made mihu yehudi a requirement for his support. He tried to run independent in the next election based on a Chabad vote and the Israeli Anash did not fall for it.

Mihu Yehudi has not been brought up by any Israeli Chabad organisation since.

[Yankel Nosson]

Continuation of Mihu Yehudi b'dakus yosair?


Chief Rabbi: Decision to Overturn Conversions Won't Stand
by Hillel Fendel

(IsraelNN.com) Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar has assured government ministers that the recent Chief Rabbinical High Court decision to overturn recent conversions to Judaism will have no effect. His basis for such a sweeping statement is unclear.

A leading religious-Zionist rabbi bitterly castigated the High Court's ruling, and said he would work immediately to form an alternative to the Chief Rabbinate's conversion courts if it is not overturned (see below).

It was reported late last week that the Rabbinate's High Court had overturned a specific conversion of a woman who apparently never lived a religious Jewish lifestyle, as required by Jewish Law. In addition, the Court ruled all the conversions performed in the last several years by Rabbi Chaim Druckman, the head of the Conversion Administration, were hereby null and void. The number of people directed affected by this decision is unknown, but could be in the thousands.
Rabbi Cherlow: The ruling stands in total opposition to Jewish Law, embarrasses and shames a great Rabbi, violates the Torah's commands not to cause sorrow to converts, and deals a terrible blow to the fight against intermarriage.

At the heart of the matter is a halakhic [Jewish legal] dispute that has largely been drawn along hareidi-religious and national-religious lines. Both disagree with the minority Halakhic opinion that a convert need not affirm his intention to observe the Torah's commandments; they rather demand that the prospective convert display sincere intention to observe a religious lifestyle. They disagree, however, as to how to implement this requirement.

One school says that if a convert appears to be sincere in his desire to be a religious Jew when he appears before the rabbinical court, the judges may suffice with this and allow the conversion. In addition, they need not check up later on his "progress."

The more hareidi school of thought is that if a convert is later seen to be living a non-religious lifestyle, this renders the conversion invalid almost automatically.

Judges Revoke Hundreds of Conversions, or More
The three judges of the High Rabbinical Court, representing the second approach, abruptly revoked the Jewishness of the woman in question in the specifica case at hand. In addition, they found irregularities in the way Rabbi Druckman - who represented the more lenient approach - carried out his court's conversions, and blanketly revoked all of them.

Rabbi Druckman has a sterling reputation among his many thousands of students, and regularly remains awake until after 1 in the morning in order to meet with and help the many people who need him. For decades, he maintained a harrowing schedule as the founder and head of the Yeshivat Or Etzion institutions (including a military yeshiva high school), father to nine children, head of the nationwide Yeshivot Bnei Akiva umbrella organization, teacher in Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav, Knesset Member, advisor and helper to uncounted people who turned to him at all hours of the day, and more.

Rabbi Amar: No Need to Worry
Rabbi Amar - who, as the Sephardic Chief Rabbi, has ultimate authority for the courts under him - was angered at the decision. He tried to control the damage on Monday by assuring Absorption Minister Yaakov Edry that new immigrants who had converted under Rabbi Druckman would not be affected by the ruling. Rabbi Amar said that the issue never should have been judged in that forum, and that he would make sure to have it officially overturned.

Edry had said that the ruling had dealt a death blow to the entire system of conversion in Israel, as well as to the motivation of Israeli non-Jews - mostly Russian immigrants - to begin the conversion process.

Rabbi Amar and Minister Edry agreed that the issue of conversion is a matter of top national priority, and that all those involved must contribute to the national effort towards the full integration of new immigrants into the Jewish nation and Israeli society.

Orlev: Sharply Against Ruling
Rabbi Amar also met with MK Zevulun Orlev, the head of the National Religious Party, who had taken a sharp stance against the Chief Rabbinate's decision. Orlev expressed satisfaction with Rabbi Amar's promise to overturn the ruling, but said, "He must not only say it, but must do it... The goal is that the [conversion] courts must be convert-friendly, ruling in keeping with a national and Zionist approach."

A leading Conversion Authority figure told Arutz-7 that he does not believe the ruling will be able to withstand a Supreme Court appeal, "as the High Rabbinical Court probably does not have ultimate authority over the Conversion Courts in the Chief Rabbinate." This is likely to be put to the test, as an appeal to the Supreme Court is likely.

Rabbi Cherlow's Attack
Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, a leading figure in the religious-Zionist camp - he heads the Hesder Yeshiva in Petach Tikvah and is a founding member of the Tzohar Rabbis Organization - wrote a scathing attack against the High Court's decision. He called it a "desecration of G-d's Name," and more.

The rabbi concluded by writing that the ruling it was not overturned, he would work to create an alternative conversion court system - a surprising call coming from a leader of the camp that has traditionally supported the Chief Rabbinate.

Rabbi Cherlow wrote that the ruling:
* stands in total opposition to Jewish Law,
* embarrasses and shames a great Rabbi [Rabbi Druckman],
* violates the Torah's commands not to cause sorrow to converts,
* and deals a terrible blow to the efforts against intermarriage.

The rabbi wrote that the ruling also:
* leads to intervention by the secular Supreme Court in Jewish Law,
* is an unfair Halakhic intervention in an "ugly struggle against the religious-Zionist rabbinic world,"
* will lead to continued erosion of the status of rabbinical courts in the State of Israel,
* as well as to a deepening of the rift in the rabbinic world.

Rabbi Cherlow left his most hard-hitting claim for last:
** "It is the worst case of desecration of G-d's Name."

"If the ruling is not overturned," he concluded, "a genuine conversion authority will be immediately established that will operate according to Jewish Law and not according to politics, and will deal with one of the supreme missions in the Nation of Israel in a manner that is in keeping with the Torah and not via ugly manipulations. We can no longer evade this responsibility..."


http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126074

[yehudi]

Ani Yehudi!!

Netivot Haim Institutions (http://www.torahindex.com/sites/NetivotChaim/en/homemain.htm)of Bnei Brak.

Have a great day!

[Intrigued]

ANyone know what this letter in Igros 27 is talking about?

http://chabadlibrary.org/books/default.aspx?furl=/admur/ig/27/10164


י'קסה


ב"ה, מוצאי שבת קודש, י"ב סיון, ה'תשל"א


ברוקלין, נ.י.


הרה"ג הרה"ח אי"א נו"מ בעל מדות עסקן רב פעלים איש המעלה בנש"ק וכו' מו"ה יצחק מאיר שי' הכהן

שלום וברכה!


קבלתי מכתב כת"ר וכיון שתוכנו הי' תמוה רציתי לעכב המענה עד שאקבל ידיעות נוספות מאה"ק ת"ו. אבל כיון שמסר לי הרה"ג והרה"ח אי"א נו"נ עוסק בצ"צ רב פעלים הר"ש שי' עלברג שכת"ר ביקשו לברר אצלי ע"ד המכתב, אין ברצוני לעכב יותר.


וסיבת תמיהתי היא שידוע מנהגי מכמה וכמה שנים שאיני מזכיר שם איש פרטי או גם מפלגה פרטית, וכן נהגתי גם בהתועדות שכנראה לה מתכוין כת"ר.


ועוד נקודה בזה, שבקשתי והפצרתי ותמהתי היו על שאין הכחשה ע"ד השמועה אודותה כותב מר. וקודם שדברתי עד"ז בהתועדות נסיתי לברר גם כאן בחוגי אגו"י למה אין הכחשה, ולא קבלתי תשובה. ועל פי שאמרו לי הי' כל הענין ששאלתי אי' ההכחשה נדפס גם ב"שערים" וכנ"ל לאחרי כמה שבועות לא היתה כל הכחשה.


ועוד להוסיף שבקשת ההכחשה היתה כמובן ופשוט לא לכבודי ולא לכבוד בית אבא, כי אם לשלול פירוש העדר הכחשה בחוגים ההולכים ומתרבים, וק"ל.


ובקשת הכחשה היתה לא רק בנוגע להענין אודותיו כותב כת"ר אלא גם בנוגע למה שנתפרסם ב"הארץ" ע"ד שיחה עם רה"מ ומה שכאילו נאמר לה בנוגע לשתיקת "מועצת גדולי התורה". ולפלא אשר אין כת"ר מזכיר דבר עד"ז. וגם עם גיסו הרה"ג וכו' הררש"ב שליט"א דברתי (בביקורו כאן) ע"ד הכחשה בזה.


וכיון שחדשים לבקרים הרי נתוסף עוד ענין שכאילו ראש ישיבה מפורסם באה"ק ת"ו קרא אליו פב"פ ואמר לו אשר אף שהבטיח לעשות בנוגע לביטול החוק דמיהו יהודי, ולעשות כמה פעולות בזה, הרי כיון שנדפסה חוברת וכו' מבטל כל הבטחותיו ולא יעשה שום דבר וכו'. ומובן אשר גם בזה משתמשים בחוגים ההולכים ומתרבים, וקוראים הראש ישיבה בשמו, ומובן הפירוש שנותנים לענין זה בנוגע לכבוד הראשי ישיבות בכלל וכו' וכו'.


ויהי רצון שבבואנו מזמן מתן תורתנו, אשר אז בחר ה' בעמו ישראל מכל העמים, וכן כדאיתא במס' סופרים שבמוצאי עצרת קוראים רות (שרוב דיני גירות כהלכה נלמדים משם) יגדור הוי' פרצות עמו ישראל ויכירו כל הארץ כמו שנאמר במתן תורה – ושמרתם את בריתי והייתם לי סגולה מכל העמים.


בכבוד ובברכה.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


י'קסה

מו"ה יצחק מאיר: לוין. אגרות נוספות אליו – לעיל חכ"ה אגרת ט'תנה, ובהנסמן בהערות שם. לקמן אגרת י'קצד.

הררש"ב = הר"ר שמחה בונים אלטר. לימים האדמו"ר מגור (ה"לב שמחה").

בביקורו כאן ביום ה', ל' שבט שנה זו.

החוק דמיהו יהודי ראה גם לעיל אגרת י'ב, ובהנסמן בהערות שם.

במס' סופרים ספי"ד.

שרוב דיני גירות ראה יבמות מז, ב. וראה בארוכה שיחות יום ב' דחג השבועות וש"פ נשא שנה זו (שיחות קודש תשל"א ח"ב ע' 226 ואילך; ע' 259 ואילך. חלקם נדפסו ב"מקדש מלך" ח"ב ע' 353 ואילך).

ושמרתם . . העמים יתרו יט, ה.

http://chabadlibrary.org/books