Talk:Conversion to Judaism

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This page is a double duplicate. It should be merged with either Religious conversion or the exclusively Jewish Ger tzedek. JFW | T@lk 23:21, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] "Jew by choice"

This section is awfully confusing. It seems completely redundant with the general topic of conversion, but then it talks about the notion that all Jews are Jews by choice in this day and age. I'll try to clean it up, but don't want to do so without giving notice on this page. --Leifern 16:08, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Annulment

I think we need to be more clear about the basis for so-called annulment - a reader may infer that a beit din may at any time annul a person's conversion if he/she is observed violating any element of halacha. I don't believe this is true, because it would end up being awfully arbitrary. I am only familiar with one such case, the so-called Paula Cohen case, and that was when she married a Kohan immediately after her conversion; and it became known when she tried to enroll her kids in an Orthodox day school years later. As far as I know, there is no ritual element to the annulment - the London Beit Din simply announced that they weren't going to respect her conversion but didn't want to put the original Beit Din in a bad light. But we can not lead a reader to believe that a convert is being watched with eagle eyes, and if he/she (and particularly she) slips up, her conversion is considered null and her children are no longer Jewish. --Leifern 16:32, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

The Paula case is somewhat different - the LBD simply did not recognise the giur. To annul a giur there needs to be a lot of evidence that the convert is not interested in keeping halakha. The annulment is a legal matter - whether the convert actually needs to be notified I do not know (although this makes sense). There is no ritual for it. Whether the children are retroactively gentiles is even more difficult. If during their birth the mother was living according to halakha this may not be so obvious. JFW | T@lk 19:55, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Do we have examples or other sources on this issue? It is not as if there is an indefinite "probation period" for a convert, during which time a beit din can annul it if the convert throws off the yoke, so to speak. If there is any meaning to the notion that a conversion is irreversible, then you can't leave this kind of power with a beit din indefinitely. In the Paula Cohen case, it turned out that the Bet Din in Israel also "annulled" its initial conversion, partly also because she emigrated from Israel. It's all very messy; which is why this needs to be pretty precise. --Leifern 20:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I found a case here in the Jerusalem post [1], in which the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel reserves the right to withhold "final documentation" and possibly annul the conversion if the convert is found to have misled the original bet din about his/her intentions; but implied in this is once the documentation has been granted, it's irreversible. The article also mentions that this came up when a man wanted to annul his marriage to a convert without getting a divorce; and that many Orthodox rabbis opined that such annulment is contrary to halacha. --Leifern 20:22, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
There is no such thing as formal annullment of a conversion in halakhah. Period. There is only one thing: To conclude that a bet din was misled, and that it conducted a conversion under false pretenses, in which case the conversion isn't "annulled" but is rather considered never to have truly happened in the first place.
This, however, is extremely rare. In serious halakhic contexts, it is normally only used when there is a need for a halakhic pretext to annull a conversion for other halakkhic reasons (such as to remove the stigma of mamzerut, as in the famous case with Rav Goren of "the brother and the sister"). In fact, because of the biblical prohibition not to "oppress the convert," a process of "checking up" on converts might even be halakhically forbidden in normal circumstances!
In the current political climate, where Orthodox rabbis often condemn other Orthodox rabbis with the accusation that their conversions are too lenient (we won't even get into non-Orthodox movements now), sometimes the claim is made that people should be better supervised after their conversion (more to supervise the process conducted by the rabbi in question than to actually deal with the convert!) or that their conversions should be "annulled." Nevertheless this is usually rhetoric and not practice, such that the invalidation of a conversion rarely actually happens.Dovi 20:43, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Just to be clear, "annulment" means exactly what you are talking about: to decide that an event never took place in the first place, typically because it was made on false pretenses. This is, then, not the same as to reverse a conversion, but to say that it was all a misunderstanding from the very beginning. --Leifern 20:55, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


Truthfully, Leifern is correct that "annulment" means that we know that the convert never intended to commit even minimally to Torah and Mitzvot. In such a case we realize with an unambigous knowledge that there was *never* the bais for conversion. Therefore there is no conversion. See a short Responsa by Rabbi Feinstein Yorah Deoh 157 where he states that in a situation of "umdenoh demuchach" (undeniable assumption) that the convert never intended to keep the commands of G-d there is no conversion whatsoever.

[edit] IP 88.152.3.199

Sorry, I was editor IP 88. Thought I was signed in. My remark on the article history page was unnecessary, I apologize for that. --Yodamace1 10:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Orthodox/Conservative differences

There are significant differences between Orthodox and Conservative Judaism on these issues -- will try to address --Shirahadasha 07:30, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Marriage to kohanim

The halachic issue of a union between a female ger and a kohen is involved. I don't have the time to look it into it in detail right now, but if I remember correctly, a marriage may be accepted after the fact though it is always disallowed before the fact. The mechanics and enforcement of this are complicated. In any event, the children of such a union have a perfectly normal status and inherit in fact the kohein status, if I remember correctly. --Leifern 13:30, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

You remember incorrectly. In Orthodox Judaism, a kohen who marries a ger loses kohanic priveleges and children born of the union do not inherit Kohen status, although the marriage is nonetheless considered a valid marriage after-the-fact. Many Orthodox rabbis will not perform such a marriage, although and some will. In 1996 the Conservative CJLS abolished the rules entirely, holding that such a marriage is fully permitted and there is no effect on Kohen status or children's inheritance. See [2] In doing so, the paper claimed that the prohibition on marrying a convert was Rabbinic rather than Biblical in origin and that the CJLS has the power to overrule all rules of Rabbinic origin. The companion paper [3] abolishing the prohibition on marriage between a cohen and a divorcee, however, went much further. It has a section called "On Uprooting a Biblical Prohibition" which specificially acknowledges the prohibition involved is Biblical in origin, but declares that the CJLS has a power to abolish Biblical commandments which it deems inexpedient for modern times. It invoked the concept of "Horaat Hasha", exigency of the hour, the canonical example being Elijah the Prophet's dramatic sacrifice on Mount Carmel, violating a prohibition against sacrificing outside the Temple in Jerusalem when the Temple was standing. It said:
  • Horaat Hashaa speaks of crisis. Should the current rate of intermarriage be reversed, a future Law Committee may well decide to review this issue. At this time, however, we face a crisis of such proportion we dare not, in good conscious, stand between the marriage of two Jews whose union as forbidden by virtue of his being a Kohen and she a divorcee.
Best --Shirahadasha 19:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Attempts to solve the "Who is a Jew?" issue

In this section of the article, I was rather surprised to read the following regarding the 1997 Neeman commission:

The plan has been effectively rendered non-existent due to denunciations from haredi rabbis, causing some other Orthodox rabbis to back out, and causing the Israeli Chief rabbinate to not support this program.

It is indeed true that Haredi rabbis harshly denounced the findings of the Neeman commission, and that the Chief Rabbinate disliked them. However, from there to "non-existent" is quite far from reality. The recommendations of the Neeman commission were ratified into law by the Knesset, namely: That there be established a pluralistic institution to train potential converts, who would then go before the batei din of the Chief Rabbinate. The Chief Rabbinate is required by law to give fair conversion hearings to the Institute's graduates, whether the judges are pleased with the institution or not.

This has in fact happened. The Institute of Jewish Studies has been operating since 1999, and thousands of its graduates have been converted through the Chief Rabbinate. It also operates in the army, and nearly all of the thousands of immigrant soldiers converted in recent years have gone through its programs. For more information see here. NetanelY 13:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

You are incorrect. The joint conversion institute, as originally envisioned, never even happened. If you are claiming that any significant fraction of Orthodox rabbis respect as valid the original Neeman proposals, please provide firm sources. I do not know of any such institute, which has its converts accepted by Orthodox Judaism in Israel. The current institute does not allow for joint Reform, Conservative and Orthodox teaching and conversion. Even the Religious Zionists and the Modern Orthodox have also lost control. This institute that you refer to is now controlled by Ultra-Orthodox rabbis. They have created a new halakha that is stricter than anything known to pre-1970s Orthodox Judaism. They now force everyone to convert their families to Orthodoxy, and not just themselves. Since this is very hard to do the result is that fewer people than ever are being allowed to become Jewish. Mark3 16:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
The Joint Institute was established in 1998 as part of a plan by a government-appointed commission to break the decades-long deadlock between the Orthodox and non-Orthodox movements over control of the conversion process. The commission, headed by then-finance minister Yaakov Ne’eman, called for conversion candidates to undergo preparation at a special institute whose board and faculty would include Orthodox, Reform and Conservative rabbis. The plan reaffirmed the monopoly of the Orthodox chief rabbinate over the conversion ritual itself, but it called on the rabbinate to create special conversion tribunals that were expected to act more leniently than before.
Instead, according to Ish-Shalom and others, the tribunals have been stricter than ever. They cite cases of would-be converts who were required to show their intention to practice Orthodox Judaism by moving to Orthodox neighborhoods, sending their children to Orthodox schools and proving that their entire families have adopted Orthodoxy. That, liberals say, puts undue burdens on hundreds of thousands of people who live in Israel and want to be accepted into the mainstream.
Pluralist Body Blames Rabbis for Reopening ‘Who Is a Jew?’ Crisis Orly Halpern, The Forward. Feb 16, 2007
http://www.forward.com/articles/pluralist-body-blames-rabbis-for-reopening-who/

It is quite true that the Institute accuses the Rabbinate conversion courts of being too strict (even within the bounds of halakhah). In fact, this past week they just announced a "boycott" of the batei din for this reason (see recent article in Hazofe). They claim that up to half their candidates are rejected in the first visit to beit din. (The majority of those are later accepted on their second or third visits.)

However, all of this simply proves what I initially claimed, namely: That the institute has brought thousands of converts through the courts in recent years (the half that were accepted). Even the above article correctly points out that the majority of Russian immigrants who have converted in recent years have done so through the Institute:

The Institute of Jewish Studies, which is the body jointly managed by the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency, and whose graduates are the majority of new immigrants who convert...
Since the Institute of Jewish Studies was set up six years ago, it has succeeded in increasing the number of conversions in the civilian sector two and a half times, and five-fold among soldiers.

So despite all the controversy, the Institute for Jewish Studies has become a very important part of the world of conversion to Judaism in the State of Israel, through the Chief Rabbinate. The article should surely be corrected. NetanelY 21:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit]  ?

I am shamanist. Can I join the Jewish?

Teşekkürler, iyi çalışmalar. XD kızılsungur 20:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

This really has nothing to do with the article... I recommend you see your local, or closest, rabbi. You cannot converto to Judaism, however, while still believing in and practicing shamanism. Tomertalk 00:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Random but amusing point

The webcomic One Over Zero starts as a pointless for-the-sake-of-it webcomic and grows into some kind of philosophical examination of metafiction in self-aware comic form. At one point a golem character, Zadok, expresses interest in his originating faith, but since his fictional universe consists largely of a couple meters of desert and a handful of artificial people, he has no way of fulfilling the rituals required to convert. He is literally incapable of Judaism.

This may be the amiable brain-sprainer kind of thought, or just a dull self-evident statement to those with more than casual knowledge of the matter. Let's hope it's the former. --Kizor 01:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-adulthood Conversion

  • This section needs to be rephrased and/or rewritten because it claims that renunciation can be achieved after the age of majority by "declaring the commitment to remaining a Jew." This, obviously, makes no sense, seeing as this is consistent with adherence to Judaism and would not extricate one from the faith. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Absurdatheist (talk • contribs) 19:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)