Ritual baths bill approved for final votes

A bill to prevent non-Orthodox Jews from using state-run ritual baths for conversions is approved for its final votes in the plenum by the Knesset Internal Affairs and Environment committee.

“There is no change in the status quo,” says MK Moshe Gafni from the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party. Gafni says the law will not prevent anyone who wishes to use the baths for ritual purposes from doing so. “We must not prevent any man or woman from immersing. A problem was created when the mikvehs were rented out for purposes other than regular purity immersion, so the law allows the religious council not to agree to [rent out the baths].”

Rabbi Gilad Kariv of the Reform movement in Israel warns, “It will start with the Reform converts and within a year it will harm the rights of women who want to immerse. Religious Zionists have already learned that what is done to the Reform and Conservatives, the belligerent ultra-Orthodox establishment also does to the Religious Zionists.”

Likud MK David Bitan says the bill will not be defensible in the High Court of Justice unless a Jewish Agency plan to build several mikvehs for the Reform and Conservative communities goes ahead.