“Israeli” Halakha: The Chief Rabbinate’s Conversion-To-Judaism Policy 1948–2018

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This article presents, for the first time in the literature, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate’s policy on conversion to Judaism during the past seventy years. It focuses on the conversion policy applied to immigrants who are non-Jewish according to Jewish (Orthodox) parameters. The article’s main question is: what was the rabbinical establishment’s policy regarding the conversion of non-Jewish immigrants? Did the Israeli establishment encourage non-Jewish immigrants to convert to Judaism so that they could fully join the Jewish majority society, or did it, on the contrary, raise the level of requirements and make it difficult for them to convert? This question reflects a deeper one: How did the establishment of the State of Israel affect Israeli halakhic ruling? Was the creation of a Jewish sovereign state halakhicly significant for the Israeli rabbis? The main argument presented in this study is that the halakhic policy of conversion was indeed deeply influenced by the state, and that Israeli halakhic ruling has unique characteristics distinguishing it from Orthodox rulings in the Diaspora. At first sight, this claim is not new; many scholars have already demonstrated “Religious Zionist influence” on halakhic rulings on conversion to Judaism as well as on other issues.1 The exposure of new sources in this article reinforces this claim by providing further in depth scholarly analysis of this topic. At the same time, this article will also point out the limitations of this claim by revealing Zionist rabbis’ difficulties in applying Israeli halakha. Finally, while the Ultra-Orthodox’s influence on contempoary struggles over conversion in Israel today is well known, this article shows that as much as the Ultra-Orthodox have influenced the state’s policies on conversion, the state has in turn shaped the Ultra-Orthodox’s views of conversion. Thus, while not necessarily Zionist, the Ultra-Orthodox position is essentially Israeli.