Daniel Gordis on the Israeli Supreme Court's New Conversion Ruling

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2021

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last week, Israel’s Supreme Court announced that, for the purpose of Israeli citizenship, conversions to Judaism that take place under the auspices of the Reform and Conservative movements and within Israel would be recognized by the state. This move ends the Orthodox rabbinate’s exclusive jurisdiction over internal conversions as they relate to citizenship, though not to other domains of religious life like marriage and burial. Though the ruling itself doesn’t affect many people, it is seen as a monumental shift in Israeli society. Why?

To answer that question, and to illuminate the many tensions in Israeli life that the court's ruling lays bare, the American-Israeli writer Daniel Gordis joins Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver for this episode of our podcast. Together the two process what the ruling really says, why it happened now, and what it could mean for Israel’s connection to the diaspora, as well as for the role of Jewish law in public life and for its ongoing political fight over the role of the judiciary.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Transcript

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0:00.0	On March 1st, 2021, Israel's Supreme Court announced that, for the purposes of Israeli citizenship,
0:15.0	reform and conservative conversions to Judaism that take place within Israel would be recognized by the state, thus ending the
0:21.9	Orthodox rabbinets exclusive jurisdiction over internal conversions as they relate to citizenship.
0:28.9	Okay, there's a lot to unpack in that statement. So let me just establish a few important
0:34.7	facts. First, non-Orthodox conversions that take place outside of
0:39.3	Israel were already recognized under the law of return, so that reform and conservative converts
0:45.1	from the diaspora could already become Israeli citizens. Second, I say that the court's ruling
0:51.2	ends the Rabinets' exclusive jurisdiction over internal conversions
0:55.0	as they relate to citizenship, because it does not end the rabbinets' exclusive jurisdiction
1:00.8	over other important domains of religious life in Israel, such as marriage, burial, and the like.
1:06.6	Nevertheless, the court's decision is seen as a monumental shift in Israeli society.
1:12.1	Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.
1:15.5	The court's decision exposes, I think, five tensions in Israeli public life.
1:20.3	The first is the tension between the law of return or civil law and halakha, Jewish religious
1:26.0	law, that through the establishment of the Orthodox
1:28.3	rabbinite has in certain areas official or quasi-official standing in Israel.
1:33.7	The second is the tension between the Orthodox rabbinic authorities and pluralistic Jewish bodies
1:38.6	also in Israel. The third is the tension between the religious, of whatever affiliation,
1:43.8	and Israel's
1:44.6	secular population.
1:46.0	Yet another tension that this Supreme Court ruling raises is between Israel and the diaspora.
1:51.8	Non-Orthodox rabbis of the diaspora are attending to this ruling with great care and excitement,
	...

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