Bennett ‘supported conversion reform as a tactic’

Education Minister Naftali Bennett says he opposes the establishment of an alternative conversion authority in Israel but wants to “deflate” the Chief Rabbinate back to its original proportions and this is why he supported a group of rabbis who announced earlier this week that they want to establish the new authority.

Speaking to Haaretz, the Jewish Home leader clarifies that his support of the group was a tactical move. The minister “is happy that people are waking up” and says the rabbis who established the religious court network “Giyur Kahalacha” (A Proper Conversion) are “taking responsibility for the people of Israel and decided not to close their eyes.”

Bennett says he supported the network so that the conversion reform, advanced by Jewish Home but killed by the government following pressure from ultra-Orthodox parties, gets back to the stage. The minister says he still wants “to reach a situation in which the institutions of the state are preserved.”

“What happened now [with the establishment of Giyur Kahalacha] – is that the cord was torn, and from this perspective I am happy that people are waking up. But what will need to happen at the end, and I will try to do this in coming months, is lead to some compromise or outline that will see the Chief Rabbinate in control again but with its power dispersed,” Bennet says.

“This means, allowing the panels conducting conversion now [in alternative courts] and in fact reviving the government’s previous decision. Otherwise, we will have more and more partisan authorities, and the Jewish State as such will be destroyed. We did not come to be a Jewish State in the Land of Israel so that we have Shtetls of different communities,” he says.