UJC, JAFI press Olmert on conversion

UJC, JAFI press Olmert on conversion

Jacob Berkman

Diaspora Jews are stepping up pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to intervene in a dispute in Israel over conversions to Judaism.

Published: 07/15/2008

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Diaspora Jews are stepping up pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to intervene in a dispute in Israel over conversions to Judaism.

Leaders of the United Jewish Communities federation umbrella organization sent a sharply worded letter to Olmert on July 9 urging him to assign his Cabinet secretary "to oversee conversion."

At issue in this case is a dispute over who can perform conversions and which conversions should be considered valid by Israeli religious authorities.

The petition followed a Jewish Agency resolution, adopted at its board of governors meetings in mid-June, "to act immediately to advance the conversion issue."

"As leaders of the American Jewish community, we are writing to you to express our deep concern regarding the untenable instability that has characterized the conversion system in Israel over the past few months and ask for your personal involvement," said the UJC's chairman, Joe Kanfer, and its CEO and president, Howard Rieger, in their letter.

Calling out Olmert publicly is an unusual step for the UJC, which generally attempts to avoid placing public pressure on the Israeli prime minister.

Conversion long has been a flashpoint in Diaspora-Israel relations and within Israel itself, as the Orthodox-dominated Israeli Rabbinate has squared off with non-Orthodox denominations over the "Who is a Jew" debate. The Rabbinate consistently has refused to recognize Reform or Conservative conversions, and as it continues to adopt increasingly stringent conversion standards, a growing number of Orthodox voices are voicing alarm as well.

The most recent flare-up in this religious struggle came in the spring, when Israel's Rabbinical High Court dismissed Rabbi Haim Druckman, the head of the Conversion Committee that was established to facilitate the conversion process. In dismissing Druckman, who was considered relatively lenient on conversion, the court said it would annul thousands of conversions of immigrants from the former Soviet Union that he had approved.

The move rankled modern Orthodox rabbis, the Conservative and Reform movements, and the UJC, which holds that the conversion issue is central to its effort to create a sense of "Jewish peoplehood" between Diaspora and Israeli Jews.

"The issue of conversion has been around for a long time, and it became much more important since 1 million FSU Jews came into the country," Nachman Shai, the director general of UJC-Israel told JTA. "It suddenly became a central issue in terms of the reality of what are we going to do about them. On the record, we are saying we expect you to be involved."

A group known as the Coordinating Committee, which is comprised of officials of the UJC, Jewish Agency and the agency's international fund-raising arm, Keren Hayesod, meets with Israel's prime minister three times a year, and conversion is always brought up, Shai said.

While the conversion issue has been framed as a question of respecting the identity and practices of Diaspora Jews, critics of the Chief Rabbinate are stressing the predicament of an estimated 300,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not recognized as Jewish.

These are people who were eligible to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, which requires only that a prospective immigrant have at least one Jewish grandparent. But they are not recognized by Israel's religious authorities because they do not have a Jewish mother or have not undergone an Orthodox conversion.

The result is a host of social problems, starting with their inability to wed Jewish Israelis, since marriage is controlled by the Chief Rabbinate.

The recent letter from UJC comes at a time when many see Olmert as a lame duck because of political scandals that ultimately may force him from office. But Shai said it is an open letter to the Prime Minister's Office, not necessarily Olmert.

"If it is not Olmert, it will be someone else," he said.

As of Monday afternoon, the UJC had not heard back from Olmert, according to Shai.

Officials at the Jewish Agency, which receives about $140 million per year from the federations and plays a lead role in facilitating immigration to Israel and promoting Zionist education worldwide, are irked as well by the High Court's decision and the Orthodox Rabbinate's continuing attempts to hold a monopoly over conversion practices.

They are particularly upset that the court has stymied its Nativ program, which helps Israelis convert to Judaism over the course of their tours of duty in the army.

Hundreds would get through the courses and "at the 11th-and-a-half hour, after they have made all the efforts, there would be some minuscule reason why the applicant was not given the conversion," said Carole Solomon, the immediate past chair of the Jewish Agency's Board of Governors.

Druckman's firing was the last straw that forced the Jewish Agency to pressure the government for some sort of resolution, according to Solomon, now the chair of the agency's North American Council.

"It has been extremely frustrating," she said.

Orthodox leaders and organizations in America generally have urged the federation system to keep out of the debate over conversion and religious pluralism, arguing that the matter should be left to the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. Yet now even some Orthodox figures are speaking out against the recent moves by Israel's religious authorities.

The Rabbinical Council of America, a union made up primarily of modern Orthodox rabbis from North America, condemned Druckman's firing. But the RCA does not yet have a formal response to the UJC's letter to Olmert, according to the head of its conversion committee, Rabbi Barry Freundel.

Freundel said he was skeptical about the effect of such a letter, given Olmert's political situation and the fact that the prime minister is not a religious expert and might not be able to settle the issue. The letter, though well intentioned, was a bit misguided, he said.

"I think everybody has been concerned about what is going on," Freundel said. "This letter is very non-specific and is very hard to react to, but matters of Jewish law should be decided by experts in Jewish law, and I don't think he is one.

"I understand their frustrations," he added, "and I share those."

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/print/2008071520080715ujc.html

UJC, JAFI press Olmert on conversion - A Commentary

I read the article "UJC,JAFI press Olmert on conversion".  Since becoming officially a Jew and keeping up with the issue of conversion in Israel, I am frustrated and sadden.  How can one group of narrow-minded, prejudice individual set in judgment of who is a Jew and who is not?  I am angered when I see Orthodox Jews control every aspect of life in Israel.  It is dangerous.  Since when did G*d put them to over us? I have heard lies and misrepresentations of Reform Judaism on Israel National Radio, namely by Tovia Singer. In his and other Orthodox Jews opinion anyone who choose to convert to other branches of Judaism are not real Jews.  Makedah and I studied many years before we were able to find a Rabbi in the branch of Judaism we chose and convert.  There are countless other Jews who do not belong to or even wish to become Orthodox.  Why should the doors to our recognition be controlled by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate?  I were to make aliyah to Israel as the Orthodox groups are pushing, why would I be willing to die defending a country which does not accept me for me.  As  Black American, my life in Israel would be no different than here in America.  In both countries white people control what I can do and what I cannot.  In both countries I would be treated as if I were a "nobody".  Both countries have barriers whether legal or socially to hinder marriages they have ruled to be "taboo".  It seems to me being well versed in the Jewish Law should not allow them to hold a monopoly on conversions and conversion practices.  It should not matter if I converted in the United States Of America, The former Soviet Union or Europe.  Conversion is conversion and should be universally accepted in Israel. 

3 police and 3 gunmen killed at U.S. Istanbul mission

Wed Jul 9, 2008 1:25pm EDT

 

By Daren Butler and Paul de Bendern

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Three Turkish policemen and three gunmen were killed in an attack on the United States consulate in Istanbul on Wednesday, the city's governor said.

Witnesses told Reuters four attackers drove a car up to the high-walled compound situated to the north of Istanbul city centre and overlooking the Bosphorus waterway. Three jumped out as the car halted and began firing at police at a guard post.

The attack coincides with political tensions in Turkey. The ruling party is in a legal fight to avert closure over charges of anti-secular activities and police are probing a shadowy far-right group suspected of plotting a military coup.

Governor Muammer Guler said one of the police officers died at the scene in a gunbattle lasting several minutes, at a time of day when many Turks go there to apply for visas. Two had died of their wounds at a nearby hospital.

Two other people were also slightly injured.

Turkish broadcasters CNN Turk and NTV said, without citing sources, that the three gunmen from east Turkey were suspected of being members of al Qaeda.

CNN Turk also said two people were later detained in Istanbul, one of them a brother of one of the dead assailants.

Turkey and the United States condemned the 11:00 am (4:00 a.m. EDT) attack for which no one has yet claimed responsibility.

"We very much appreciate what was clearly a very rapid and proper response from the government to try to deal with the security situation in front of our consulate," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters on her plane to Sofia.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said he as "greatly saddened by the martyrdom of our three police officers in a terrorist attack".

Television images showed four bodies lying on the ground around the police post at the consulate's gates, with paramedics carrying out heart massage on one man. The shirt of another was ripped open. Blood was flowing from the head of a third.

"They (the assailants) were four people. Three of them got out of the car and fired at the police. I saw them dead afterwards lying on the ground and many more dead among the police," Enis Yilmaz, who was going to the consulate to get a visa, told Reuters. He said the fourth man drove off.

WEARING COATS

"We saw four people in a car, they were wearing coats and that seemed pretty weird in this weather. Then we saw they had guns," Muhammet Nur, 15, told Reuters.

"At first we thought they might be civil police but at that moment they drew their guns and a gun battle began," said Nur, who saw the gunbattle from a nearby cafe.

"I could not get the (car) plate number but my friend did."

Istanbul governor Guler said that the three dead gunmen were Turkish citizens, believed to be aged 25-30. Police were searching for a man suspected of driving the car.

Mutlu Gunes, a 13-year-old eyewitness, told reporters he was on his way to a mosque when he spotted several men preparing guns and placing them inside a Ford Focus car, before driving a short distance to the modern consulate complex.

"The three of them got out of the car. One of them shot a policeman in the chest and I saw one terrorist killing himself after being shot by police. Then I hid under a car," he said.

Turkey has seen armed attacks from a variety of groups over the years, including Maoists, Trotskyists, Kurdish separatists and Islamist militants.

The U.S. consulate was moved to a high-security location in 2003 as major consulates and embassies stepped up security following the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York.

The most serious attacks in Turkey were in November, 2003, when 62 people were killed by Islamist militants targeting two synagogues, a bank and the British consulate.

Four people were killed and 15 wounded in an explosion in Istanbul in June 2004, before President George W. Bush visited the city.

(Writing by Paul de Bendern; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Iran threatens to "burn" Tel Aviv, U.S. targets

Iran threatens to "burn" Tel Aviv, U.S. targets

E-mail article Share on Facebook Digg this Tell the Editors What bloggers are saying Published: 07/08/2008 Iran threatened to "burn" Tel Aviv and U.S. targets in response to any attack on its nuclear sites. "The first bullet fired by America at Iran will be followed by Iran burning down its vital interests around the globe," the Iranian news agency ISNA on Tuesday quoted Ali Shirazi, a senior aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as saying. "The Zionist regime is pressuring White House officials to attack Iran. If they commit such a stupidity, Tel Aviv and U.S. shipping in the Persian Gulf will be Iran's first targets and they will be burned." The remarks further ratcheted up international concern that Iran's refusal to abandon nuclear projects with bomb-building potential could bring on preemptive military strikes by Israel or the United States. There was no immediate response from Washington or Jerusalem to Shirazi's statement. Previous Next If you reached