Seth Farber

Non-Jews who come to Israel, pay taxes and serve in the IDF shouldn’t have to get married in Cyprus if they don’t want to convert to Judaism.

"They want mass conversion. This won’t happen," Rabbi Yosef said about the deputy religious affairs minister.

There is good reason to believe that should the new legislation pass, immigrants who are seeking conversion will have a new avenue that is transparent, straightforward and simple to convert.

Part of the reason that Rabbinical Courts have fallen out of favor is that some of the judges are not in step with modern sensibilities.

The rejection of Ethiopian-Israelis’ Jewish identities is antithetical to Israeli thinking of the past 40 years, including that of Israel’s leading rabbis.

Israel’s increasingly extremist religious authorities have, in recent years, rejected the Jewish identities of almost a half-million immigrants to Israel.

Let us hope that by the next state comptroller’s report, we will have succeeded in democratizing Israel’s religious establishment by giving greater control of religious affairs to local communities.

The rabbinate’s new database of Jewishness is already being abused and has the potential to undermine the Jewish character of Israel.

The conversions of Giyur Kahalacha have the best potential in more than a decade to help the hundreds of thousands of immigrants fully join the Jewish People.

Despite being sponsored by the coalition, the bill is a gross violation of the coalition agreement which promised to support the status quo.