JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In a landmark ruling, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled Monday that conversion performed by the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel will be recognized by the state of Israel for the purposes of granting citizenship to the converts in accordance with the Law of Return.
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The nine-judge panel ruled that the conversions would be valid for obtaining citizenship ending a 15-year legal battle regarding the issue. The court stressed that its ruling had no religious implications and only dealt with the right to receive citizenship in Israel. Judge Noam Solberg, a religious Jew, dissented on the decision, preferring to delay the implementation until 12 months after the swearing-in of a new government, when it could be reviewed by the legal and executive branches of the government.
However the other justices noted that the Knesset had not acted during the entire 15-year period to resolve the issue and that therefore they needed to step in and resolve the issue. The court however added that the ruling would only apply as long as the Knesset did not pass a law denying the Jewishness of non-orthodox converts.
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid welcomed the decision. “Israel must have complete equality of rights for all streams of Judaism – Orthodox, Reform or Conservative. We need to live here together with tolerance and mutual respect,” he said in a statement.
However coalition leader Miki Zohar called the decision “scandalous”, adding that it would be a disaster since “any person around the world will approach a reform rabbi and receive a permit to immigrate within 30 days. It is clear that within a short time, Israel will not be Jewish or democratic. Today more than ever the public must decide who will manage the country, the government or the Supreme Court.”
Shas leader and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri called the court decision “wrong and very unfortunate.”
“It will will cause controversy and a severe rift among the Jewish people,” Deri wrote on Twitter. “I undertake to amend the law so that only conversion according to Halacha will be recognized in the State of Israel.”
Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef commented that reform conversions are “not conversions but rather a forgery.”
Numerous chareidi MKs expressed their strong opposition to the court’s ruling, stressing that it would endanger the Jewish nature of the state of Israel.
The court is not supreme. Hashem is. The reform and conservative movements deny Hashem gave the Torah and deny its laws.
The court has no right to rule on halacha.
TERRIBLE
If this is not overturned and rescinded
There SHOULD BE MAJOR PROTESTS EVERYWHERE
BLOCK TRAFFIC IN ALL SECULAR NEIGHBORHOODS
BURN THEIR GARBAGE BINS
THEY ARE GARBAGE
WE CAN NOT REMAIN SILENT AND ALLOW SELF JEW HATERS TO ATTEMPT TO DESTROY YIDDISHKEIT.
EVERYDAY
DONT LET THEM REST ON SHABBOS EITHER
DEMONSTRATE IN SECULAR NEIGHBORHOODS ON SHABBOS BY MAKING SHABBOS SING ALONGS IN THEIR STREETS TO PURIFY THE AIR.
THAT D3CISION MUST BE RESCINDED
The point here that people seem to be missing is that the Zionists are wrongly arrogating for themselves the right to decide who is a “Jew”.
Zionists have zero standing to decide who is or is not a Jew (yes, even if they now say it’s only for immigration purposes, that’s irrelevant and also subject to later change and, in general, a confusing mess).
The Zionists can decide only whom they wish to accept in their idolatrous State, but not who is or is not a Jew, which is solely determined by Torah-authentic halacha. Period.
If the Zionists want to allow reform “converts” to become citizens (they allow Arabs and Druze, too), then they certainly can do so. But the Zionists cannot in any way define anybody, including those “converts”, as Jews. That’s not in their purview.
The biggest issue here is not so much what the Zionist court decided; it’s that some Jews don’t know how terrible a chilul Hashem that decision is for the above reason and more.
Another step out of the misery of the ghetto and the phony triumphalism of the rightist rabbonim. Israel offers the RIGHT OF RETURN .
That’s your Zionist country – It’s a matter of time before it becomes just like any other country in the world!
Satmer rebbe was correct!
This not about who is a jew. It is about who can legally become a citizen of israel. The Torah tells us who is a jew. The law is based upon who Hitler YMS would have murdered for being jewish. These people qualify.