Tel-Chai Nation

The former minister Moshe Nissim was critical of the Haredi parties in the topic of the conversion mess, and says today's Orthodox Judaist rabbis are far more prudish than Rambam was centuries before:

Today’s Orthodox rabbinical courts are 100 times more stringent than the venerated sage Maimonides was regarding conversions to Judaism, a former minister who has proposed a compromise reform on Israel’s conversion laws charged Wednesday, blaming the ultra-Orthodox parties for this week’s High Court ruling recognizing Reform and Conservative conversions.

[...] Moshe Nissim, a veteran lawmaker and minister, was tasked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2017 with heading a special government committee that proposed an overhaul of the conversion system in Israel, which would have removed it from the control of the ultra-Orthodox-dominated Rabbinate and establish a new state-run Orthodox authority instead.

But the 2018 proposal was never adopted by the government due to ultra-Orthodox and national religious opposition.

Speaking Wednesday with Army Radio, Nissim said the Haredi parties and the Chief Rabbinate were “undoubtedly” responsible for the High Court’s ruling, arguing that the court had been pleading with the government to legislate a policy and delayed its ruling for 15 years, but the government never honored that request.

Asked whether a conversion system could exist that would satisfy all parties, Nissim said that was impossible since Orthodox rabbinical courts have become too extreme in their demands from potential converts.

“There are rabbinical courts that are very stringent, demand that converts observe all 613 mitzvahs, ask them indecent and weird questions, reject many converts even though they studied and are willing [to undergo the process],” said Nissim, a former justice minister. “That’s why many people who yearn to convert avoid coming to these courts, because they say, ‘We don’t have the ability to fulfill all that is demanded of us.’

“That goes against halachic policy throughout history,” he charged, citing the famous 12th-century scholar Maimonides. “Maimonides set out rules for what is required from converts, and today’s rabbinical judges demand 100 times more than what Maimonides demanded. As if Maimonides were Reform, to the point where they don’t accept his halachic rulings.”

He charged that the existing situation was causing people to leave Judaism due to the stringent demands, calling it the “main problem” facing modern Jewry.

I think he's got a valid argument here. It's offensive how these corrupt Haredi politicians are behaving, and they certainly do have some soul-searching to do. IMHO, the best way the ultra-Orthodox "sages" could make amends is to quit their lifestyle and abandon Haredism for a change. But, they sadly won't.

To make matters worse, United Torah Judaism produced a video advertisement comparing Reform/Conservative sect members to dogs:

An Ultra-Orthodox party has stirred controversy on social media after publishing an election campaign video on Tuesday night that compared Reform and Conservative converts to Judaism to dogs.

United Torah Judaism (UTJ) released the video as a response to a High Court of Justice ruling that recognizes those who have converted to Judaism through Reform or Conservative conversions in Israel as Jewish by the state and would allow them to acquire Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return.

The video opens with a snippet from an old news story covering the "Bark Mitzvah" phenomenon, in which members of more liberal bar mitzvah ceremonies for the pet animals, mainly dogs.

The video continues with a series of photos featuring dogs wearing Jewish skullcaps on their heads, some wrapped in a prayer shawl and tefillin, holding holy books, wearing a Star of David pendant or boasting curled sidelocks.

As the images are paraded on the screen, a narrator tells the viewers, “in the High Court of Justice, this is a Jew”, while joking about one dog, “his grandfather was a rabbi, of course, he is Jewish!”

This is disgusting and unhelpful. Mainly because it gives awful politicians like Yair Lapid ammunition for his campaign. Worst, UTJ probably knows they're giving him a weapon, and they surely couldn't give a damn if it benefits him in every way.

Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah, a liberal Orthodox group, also slammed the campaign clip. “Another red line was crossed today in relation to our brothers, who represent millions of Jews around the world,” it said in a statement.

“As an Orthodox movement, we are very concerned. When ignorance and polarizing discourse work together, we reach a nadir of fraternal hatred.

"Instead of learning a lesson from the recent High Court ruling, which came after more than 15 years, in which the legislature refrained from reaching an agreement, and realizing that the only way to resolve disputes over religion and state is dialogue – United Torah Judaism continues its separatist, extremist and divisive line."

Such a party has indeed proven an embarrassment, and if they're smart, they won't use that video in the remainder of the election campaign. Worst, it comes close to the Islamic view of dogs and other such animals, which is dehumanizing. But that's not the only uproar they just caused. There's also this repellent statement one of UTJ's members made about a military conversion program:

An ultra-Orthodox lawmaker said women who convert to Judaism through the Israel Defense Forces’ conversion program are considered shiksas, using a pejorative term for non-Jewish women.

United Torah Judaism Yitzhak Pindrus, speaking Monday on a panel at a conference organized by the ITIM organization and Kipa website, discussed the case of the daughter of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother who converts under the military’s auspices.

She is a “shiksa, a non-Jew,” he said in a video clip aired by Army Radio on Tuesday.

“If she underwent an army conversion, she is not a Jew under halachic [Jewish legal] definitions.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Pindrus apologized on Channel 12 for his use of the term “shiksa,” admitting that it had not been appropriate.

“I apologize to those who were converted according to Halacha and were offended by what I said,” he told Channel 12.

However, Pindrus stood by his statements that the IDF’s conversion hierarchy was not religiously legitimate.

“If someone marries her, their father needs to sit shiva [the traditional mourning period], rend his garments, and say Kaddish [the mourner’s prayer]” over their lost son, he said.

Pindrus said he was unwilling to bend on the issue in order to be “pluralistic and nice.”

The army’s Nativ program, founded in 2001, is the only state-recognized conversion system in the country not controlled by the Chief Rabbinate. Hundreds of soldiers, most of them non-Jewish immigrants or descendants of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, enter the army’s conversion system each year.

Thousands have successfully finished the program and converted to Judaism through the IDF’s rabbinic court, which is Orthodox.

It's clear this Haredi party has lost its way, and will prove a stain upon the nation in any capacity. I have no doubt this was all more deliberate than could be expected, and UTJ wants to give Lapid and Avigdor Liberman ammunition to use in election campaigns. If anything, they're paving the road to hell with "good intentions", and demonstrating their lack of respect for the concept of manners. Oh yes, they're also ignoring the Biblical statement, "life and death are in the hands of the tongue". Which only proves how really devoted they are to the Torah.

I think all the folks who conveted to the Judaist religion through the army are admirable people (you could say the army convert is a modern-day Ruth the Moabite), and should be embraced and celebrated for joining what the Haredis don't want them to. Some could argue the Haredis in UTJ are adopting leftist talking points like "cultural appropriation", and indeed, they do seem to go by a similar mindset, seeing how they don't want anybody not of the same ethnicity as they're from to adopt what I'd like everyone to view as a good religion.

Labels: haredi corruption, Israel, Judaism, Knesset, military, misogyny, Moonbattery