Haredi leaders storm out of ministerial meeting on delaying conversion bill

The leaders of the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties stormed out of a cabinet meeting Friday over disagreements with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about delaying the controversial conversion bill.

At the meeting, Netanyahu proposed to the heads of the coalition’s six factions that the bill, which has sparked fury and protests from a broad cross-section of the American Jewish community, would be delayed for six months while a state committee headed by a retired judge is appointed to craft a compromise that would satisfy that demands of Haredi lawmakers and those of American Jews who oppose the bill in its current form.

Under the proposed delay, the state would ask the High Court of Justice to freeze appeals related to conversion that were filed by liberal Jewish streams and the Orthodox Giyur Kahalacha organization in recent months.

The proposal was accepted by most of the party leaders, according to sources familiar with what transpired in the closed-door gathering.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit reportedly also backed the delay.

But then Netanyahu asked an aide to draft a letter announcing the decision that he would send to American Jewish leaders.

The request reportedly led Interior Minister Aryeh Deri of Shas to demand that in exchange for Shas acquiescing to the delay, the other coalition parties would agree to advance the bill if the High Court of Justice accepts the appeal of the Reform movement on recognition for its conversions.

Kulanu leader Moshe Kahlon, the finance minister, insisted that any new push for the bill would require a new cabinet debate, leading Deri to complain angrily that he was the only one compromising.

Deri then stalked out of the meeting, followed by MK Moshe Gafni of UTJ.

UTJ sources told Hebrew-language media outlets that their coalition partners had “backtracked on explicit agreements and violated the coalition agreement.”

If passed, the conversion bill, which won the backing of the government in a Sunday vote in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, would deny citizenship rights under the Law of Return to non-Israelis who convert to Judaism under private auspices in Israel. It would not affect the eligibility for citizenship of those who convert outside Israel.

Liberal American Jewish groups have noted that the bill, if passed, would mark the first time the Haredi-controlled state rabbinate was given control not only over who it recognizes as Jewish, but over who the state as a whole views as eligible for the right of return.

Defenders of the legislation, chiefly the ultra-Orthodox parties in the governing coalition, say it consolidates the conversion system in Israel and safeguards its integrity.

The conversion initiative, along with a move to nix the construction of a permanent pluralistic prayer space at the Western Wall, angered liberal Israelis and triggered an unprecedented clash this week with representatives of US Jewry.

After Friday’s meeting, Kahlon wrote on Twitter that he “expects all sides to return [to the table] and sit until we reach an agreed-upon framework.”

He added: “National resilience and the real security of the Jewish people lies in its unity. The Jewish people paid a steep price in the past for its divisions, and we won’t return to those periods.”

The bill is also being challenged from within the coalition, with Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party submitting an appeal that ministers will debate next Sunday during their weekly meeting.

In a statement following the vote on the bill on Sunday, Liberman warned the legislation would harm Israelis seeking to convert and asserted that “in its current form, it pushes away anyone who is trying to and wants to grow closer to Judaism.”

The measure, which was drafted last month by the Interior Ministry, led by Deri, appears to constitute an effort to circumvent a March 2016 Supreme Court ruling that allowed those undergoing private Orthodox conversions in Israel to become citizens under the Law of Return. The court did not take a stand on the religious question of rabbinic recognition of the converts as Jews, but did require Israeli civil agencies to treat them as Jewish for the purposes of naturalization.

Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers have vowed to fight for the bill, with Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, leader of UTJ, threatening his party will bolt the coalition if it isn’t signed into law.

JTA contributed to this report.