June 26, 2017
Background: Israel Government Decision Regarding the Kotel
It is 50 years since June 1967, when Jerusalem was unified and the Jewish People regained access to the Old City and the Kotel (the Western Wall).
Until 1948, when Jews were expelled from the Old City, the Kotel was a prayer space with no formal structures in place, and no separation between men and women. If you visit the Jerusalem mayor’s office, you will see historic photos showing mixed gender groups gathered at the Kotel.
After the 1967 Six-Day War, Orthodox religious authorities funded by the Israeli government have controlled customs at the Kotel. In recent years, women were banned from holding Torah scrolls, leading services, wearing tallit or tefillin, or singing out loud at the site. Similarly, mixed gender services were not permitted.
In 2013, following a decades-long advocacy campaign led by Women of the Wall and supported by the Conservative and Reform movements, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tasked Jewish Agency Chair Natan Sharansky with coming up with a compromise that would enable diverse Jewish practice at the Kotel.
Just as discussions began on the eve of Rosh Hashanah 2013, Minister of Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett— who himself leads an Orthodox party — established a temporary prayer platform at Robinson’s Arch for egalitarian prayer. While this location is part of the Kotel, it has not traditionally been used for prayer and is outside the established Kotel plaza. The platform, which remains in use today, has a number of significant drawbacks. Women of the Wall commented that it was “the very definition of separate and not nearly close to equal.” Nonetheless, the platform marked the first time that there had been a state-sanctioned venue for egalitarian prayer at the Kotel.
Sharansky’s Kotel proposal kicked off several years of intense negotiations that resulted in a seemingly historic compromise. The Jewish Federations of North America played a central role in that effort, working with Reform and Conservative movements, The Jewish Agency for Israel, Women of the Wall, the rabbi of the Western Wall, and the Israeli government to reach an agreement. Negotiations were complicated by the involvement and opinions of other diverse groups, including archeological authorities, the Waqf (Muslim religious authorities), and even the Jordanian government.
From the Israeli government side, then-Cabinet Secretary Avichai Mandelblit (a former chief military advocate general) led efforts to reach the agreement. As Ha’aretz noted, “Mandelblit has devoted countless hours to an almost-impossible task: trying to make outspoken feminists understand why they need to bow to ultra-Orthodox pressure and leave the traditional women’s section at the Wall, and at the same time, to convince the ultra-Orthodox that giving up their hitherto-unchallenged claims to the Kotel will be in their best interest.”
As a result of the agreement, the Israeli Cabinet approved the proposal in January 2016 in a legally binding government resolution. Among other provisions, the Cabinet agreed to create a formal egalitarian prayer space as part of the overall Kotel area. The Resolution envisioned an upgraded and permanent prayer platform for non-Orthodox prayer at the Robinson’s Arch area at the southern end of the Western Wall, along with a redesign of the approach to both this area and the traditional Kotel plaza and prayer space. See more details of the plan here as well as in this piece from the Conservative movement and this piece from the Reform movement.
Beyond the success of the plan itself, many hoped that the groundbreaking agreement would have set a precedent, showing that compromise can be reached. The fact that so many disparate groups were able to reach an understanding with the assistance of the government and The Jewish Agency was seen as a very positive sign.
Nonetheless, the optimism proved to be short-lived, as implementation of the plan was halted due to pressure from Israeli Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox politicians and groups. For close to 18 months, the Israeli government avoided moving forward with implementing the resolution while ultra-Orthodox interests looked for ways to overturn the decision. A number of petitions were filed in the Supreme Court (Bagatz) on the issue, including one asking the court to direct the government to implement its own resolution. In September 2016, the Court strongly reprimanded the government for not implementing the deal and in April of this year, the Court
ordered the government to respond as to why it had not yet begun implementation. With a Court established deadline of June 26, 2017, ultra-Orthodox groups intensified their efforts to block the deal.
At the urging of ultra-Orthodox coalition partners, the government voted on June 25, 2017 to formally freeze the Kotel Resolution. The prime minister appointed two government representatives, Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Haneg and Cabinet Secretary Tzachi Braverman, to undertake negotiations toward a new deal.
June 26, 2017
Background: Proposed Israeli Conversion Law
Overview
On Sunday, June 25, 2017, the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a bill submitted by Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, that would require the State to recognize only conversions to Judaism implemented under the supervision of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate.
The bill was supported by a majority of the members of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Immigration Absorption Minister Sofa Landver, both of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, opposed the bill and formally appealed the decision. The full cabinet must now vote to approve or reject the bill before it is submitted for consideration in the Knesset.
Circumventing the May 2016 Supreme Court Ruling
The bill aims to circumvent a March 2016 Supreme Court ruling that permitted those who underwent private Orthodox conversions in Israel to become citizens under the Law of Return. The bill would grant the Chief Rabbinate direct supervision over conversion, an authority that it does not hold today.
In 2005, the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel petitioned the court for the same recognition of their private conversions conducted in Israel; Israel currently recognizes non-Orthodox conversions performed abroad for the purpose of Jewish immigration. The proposed law seeks to prevent non-Orthodox conversions performed in Israel from being recognized for immigration and remove the recourse of pursuing such issues through the Israeli courts.
The bill would also negate private Orthodox conversions such as those of the Giyur Kahalacha private rabbinical courts, which were established two years ago to help the 364,000 Israelis who immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union but are not recognized as Jewish by the Rabbinate.
Upending the Status Quo
The bill will revoke the de facto state recognition of Orthodox conversions through independent Orthodox rabbinical courts and the right of Reform and Conservative converts in Israel to register as Jewish in the Interior Ministry.
Today in Israel, anyone may perform a conversion and the courts may accept that those conversions were performed by a recognized Jewish community. The bill aims to anchor the entrance to joining the Jewish People solely through the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate. The State conversion system, established following the Ne’eman Committee agreements in 1997, was based on the mutual understanding between the different streams of Judaism that they must work together to find solutions for conversion. The agreements were purposely not anchored in law in order to avoid defining proper Jewish conversion.
The bill will revoke public funding for Reform and Conservative conversion classes.
The bill will impact pending religion and state matters in the Supreme Court, such as the types of Jewish conversion that may be recognized for the purposes of adoption.
The bill seeks to prevent any potential future conversion solution that may solve difficulties faced by tens of thousands of immigrants. Today, independent conversion courts may be recognized in civil courts. The proposed law seeks to prevent recognition of conversions for both civil and religious purposes.
The new law will retroactively legitimize the Interior Ministry’s “closed door policy” toward non-Israeli citizens interested in conversion through private conversion courts in Israel. The policy, never enshrined in law, was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court. The new law will create a new status quo.
The approval of the bill violates the 2015 coalition agreement to preserve the status quo on matters of religion and state.
Implications for the Jewish People around the World
The bill creates uncertainty regarding the future recognition of both Orthodox and non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism that were conducted outside Israel.
The law may open the way for the State to recognize only conversions carried out abroad that are approved by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate. By placing the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and the State conversion system as the ultimate authority on conversions within Israel, Israeli legislators may seek to create a unified policy regarding all conversions including this abroad.