Ministerial panel to vote on bill that would bar citizenship for non-Orthodox converts

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation is slated to vote Sunday on a proposal that if passed into law would invalidate the legitimacy of non-Orthodox conversions in the context of potential immigration and citizenship.

The Law of Return offers citizenship to Jewish immigrants, including converts. An amendment proposed by Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman would define conversion to Judaism, in this context, as only that carried out “in accordance with halacha,” or Jewish religious law.

For decades, Israel has accepted conversions performed by the Reform and Conservative movements abroad as sufficient for Israeli citizenship, as the Law of Return left the issue of conversions deliberately vague, not specifying if they had to be performed by an Orthodox rabbi.

However, conversions inside Israel had to be performed under Orthodox religious law to be recognized for the purposes of citizenship.

That held until 2021, when the High Court of Justice ruled that people who convert to Judaism in Israel through the Reform and Conservative movements must be recognized as Jews for the purpose of the Law of Return, and are thus entitled to Israeli citizenship.

In its explanatory notes, Rothman, the chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, stated that his bill comes in response to that ruling. The justices, Rothman noted, specified that they had previously withheld issuing a ruling to allow the state to handle the matter, but the state had failed to do so.

Rothman asserted that changing the language of the law “expresses a return to the principles established by the founders of the state and is necessary for the unity of the Jewish people both in Israel and in the Diaspora.”

Committee approval is only the start of a long process and it remains uncertain if enough time remains before the election, and if it is enough of a coalition priority, for the bill to pass under the current Knesset.

Should the Ministerial Committee for Legislation back the bill, it will be added to the legislative agenda and advance to a preliminary reading in the Knesset, after which it will be assigned to a committee for further discussion ahead of the three readings necessary for it to be passed into law.

Non-Orthodox and liberal leaders condemned the bill Thursday, calling it discriminatory against Jewish communities around the world.

“As is well known, the Reform and Conservative movements constitute the largest public among world Jewry, and even in Israel, the majority of Jews do not maintain an Orthodox lifestyle,” declared Anna Kislanski, CEO of the Reform movement in Israel.

“Instead of supporting our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora who are facing antisemitic attacks, the Israeli government is slamming the door in their faces,” said Kislanski.

“Passing this law will lead to unprecedented consequences regarding Diaspora Jewry’s relationship with Israel,” she said.

The Democrats MK Gilad Kariv, an ordained Reform rabbi, said: “Simcha Rothman and his associates aren’t content with the terrible destruction they’ve sown within Israeli society, and now they seek to restart the campaign of destruction within the Jewish people and to collapse the bridge between the State of Israel and Jews around the world.”

“Anyone with common sense must wonder aloud whether this group is being controlled by those who hate Israel,” he added.

The Law of Return was formulated in 1950, two years after the State of Israel was established, giving every Jew from around the world the automatic right to immigrate to the Jewish state.

While Orthodox religious authorities traditionally only recognize as Jewish those who have a Jewish mother or who converted to Judaism through an Orthodox track, the law was expanded in 1970 to also allow any grandchild of a Jew to immigrate even if they themselves are not Jewish.

Last summer, lawmakers voted down another amendment to the Law of Return proposed by far-right Noam MK Avi Maoz, which would have denied non-Jews with a Jewish grandparent the right to immigrate to Israel and automatically obtain citizenship.

Several similar bills over the years have been pushed, with all failing to garner enough votes in Knesset to pass into law.

There are currently hundreds of thousands of Israelis who are not considered Jewish by the Chief Rabbinate.