Silly minister (of justice), tricks are for kids

MK Yaakov Neeman has a long and honored history for his service to the State of Israel. An accomplished attorney - he has served as justice minister and as finance minister. Once again, he occupies the position of Minister of Justice in the Netanyahu government.
 
But Neeman is a great manipulator. He has a brilliant way of twisting justice to meet his point of view and shunting aside those who have views with which he disagrees. He is a supreme illusionist.
 
A classic example: In the fall of 1996, one of the Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Netanyahu's government introduced a Knesset bill that only those converted under Orthodox auspices be registered as Jews. This caused outrage in the non-Orthodox world, in particular the Masorti and Reform communities abroad. These streams felt that they were being disrespected, discounted, and insulted. An unexpected uproar led Netnayahu to seek his most favored solution - he appointed a commission. He asked Yaakov Neeman to head it and its mandate was to create a process that would enable the government to register converts "in a manner satisfactory to all parties."

Neeman immediately changed the mandate into finding a way to ease the process of conversion within the Orthodox context. He violated the goodwill of the Masorti and the Reform representatives to the committee who were a minority.
 
In the end, the commission proposed the establishment of an institute for the instruction of converts involving Masorti and Reform teachers along with the Orthodox. The Neeman Commission report, however, was rejected out of hand by the Chief Rabbinate, even though the actual conversions would have remained exclusively in their hands.
 
A group of prominent Ultra-Orthodox rabbis issued the following statement:

As darkness covers the earth, the Reform and Conservative sects that are the destroyers of the religion are trying to dig their nails into the Holy Land and receive recognition so that they may be counted among the streams of Judaism, God forbid. We hereby pronounce da'at Torah that it is inconceivable to grant them any recognition whatsoever, and it is forbidden to conduct any negotiations with the destroyers who counterfeit the Torah and bring about assimilation and the destruction of Judaism in the Diaspora."

Rabbi Yisrael Eichler, a spokesperson in the Haredi world, wrote that "Reform Rabbis are further from Judaism than Christians and Muslims and that they should be considered as filthy, lying, shekotzim who are criminals, who brought about the holocaust on the Jewish people". 
 
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said, "Reform Jews should be vomited up...and thrown out of the country."
 
Nonetheless, the Joint Institute for the Study of Judaism was established. Far too few non-Orthodox teach. But this could be forgiven if the Institute became a critical player in the goal of easing the conversion for the 350,000 Israelis who live as Jews but are not Jewish according to Jewish law.
 
Why are the numbers of those being converted so very small-and falling year by year? The answers are complex. The conversion process can be filled with humiliation and infantilization. Many olim [immigrants]from the Former Soviet Union feel that they live just fine as "sociological Jews."
 
But when push comes to shove - the Rabbinic Courts not only fail to convert in significant numbers - most applicants are never given the opportunity to appear before a Rabbinic Court.
 
The judges have been heartless and callous. The system, after a series of bureaucratic and procedural changes remains in shambles. Tens of millions of dollars have been poured into a mechanism that has produced few positive results.
 
But on Tuesday, the very man who designed this failed system pulled a rabbit out of his hat. He unveiled his brilliant solution. MORE OF THE SAME. 
 
At a conference held in Efrat, the Zionist Orthodox representatives present - many of them rabbis -  acknowledged the failure of the conversion system and the Batei Din [Rabbinic Courts.] They spoke of the need for greater flexibility and new approaches within the broad context of Jewish Law.
 
The final speaker, Minister Neeman, called for enlisting dozens of rabbis as dayanim [rabbinic judges] in the state's conversion courts, to speed up the process for tens of thousands of immigrants who are not Jewish according to religious law.
 
The architect of the failed plan wants to do more of the same. Israeli law requires that the conversion judges be approved by Israel's Chief Rabbi. Does Neeman expect the Chief Rabbi to approve liberal Orthodox rabbis? If so - he continues to live in his little never-never land. And does he expect that the Chief Rabbinate will marry these converts (many of those converted in the army conversion program have difficulty registering marriages).
 
Does he expect that these newly appointed judges will follow the most liberal approach Halacha (Jewish Law) allows for? What would be his litmus test for selecting such rabbis? And are there  really dozens of such enlightened rabbis willing to be enlisted?
 
Neeman has spent the last fifteen years blocking efforts to have Masorti and Reform conversions recognized. Here too he has failed as the courts have decided that there in no Orthodox monopoly on Judaism in Israel. Israelis are voting with their feet as the numbers of those who decide on non-Orthodox conversion in Israel rises each year even as the number of Orthodox converts decline (and the number of non-Jewish olim rises).
 
Last week I attended a demonstration held opposite the home of Minister Neeman. The protesters were objecting to his reported efforts to give the Rabbinic Courts enhanced powers in matters related to divorce settlements. This could cause a serious potential for judicial injustice against women who stand before these courts that have been far from sympathetic to women.
 
Neeman, pulled another trick. He publicly denied any intention to grant greater power to the Rabbinic courts.
 
Yet, just yesterday, representatives of the Justice Ministry admitted that discussions had already been held to consider increasing the power of the country's rabbinic courts to include decisions on money matters and children in divorce cases.
 
So there you have it. Neeman, the great illusionist, portrays himself as a friend to those in need while all the time manipulating the system to continue an Orthodox monopoly mired in the mud of the dark ages.
 
There are solutions. The Masorti Movement offers conversion, in keeping with Jewish law, to those who wish to join us. There are now some Zionist-Orthodox rabbis pushing for independent Rabbinic Courts.
 
There is no one solution to the conversion issue any more than there is one alternative to fossil fuels. But we may as well follow Sigfried and Roy if it is illusions we seek.