Israel's "Who is a Jew?" battles: The direct impact on Diaspora Jewry
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein's degrading experience
Uri Regev 30/06/2016 14:24
Tags: Haskel Lookstein · Avi Weiss · Marc Angel · Shlomo Riskin · Chief Rabbinate · conversion
A women converting to Judaism in front of a three-judge Orthodox rabbinic court in Jerusalem. (Flash90)
It's been many years since the increasingly fundamentalist Israeli Chief Rabbinate forced its will on the leadership of American modern Orthodoxy and got them to fall in line with its refusal to accept even all Orthodox American conversions. They succumbed to a dictate, by which conversions officiated by mainstream modern orthodox rabbis in the USA would not be recognized by the Israeli Rabbinate, but only those of a handful of rabbis would be deemed worthy in the eyes of the Israeli rabbinic monopolistic establishment.
At the time, such Orthodox luminaries as Rabbi Marc Angel and Rabbi Avi Weiss voiced their strong criticism and stood up to the Chief Rabbinate and its discriminatory policy, which targeted the North American Orthodox community. Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, who was then in his prime as a leading modern Orthodox rabbinic figure, refused to join this effort, and refused to criticize the Israeli Rabbinate. Still, as so often is the case, he now finds himself rejected by the very coercive establishment he refused to challenge, for not being frum enough himself! Having now been personally scorned, he has spoken out, acknowledging the injustice against and the plight of converts, saying: "I was very sad because first of all a woman is being hurt at one of the most vulnerable moments in her life... and instead she is running up against the cruelty of a rabbinic court."
All major religious groups in Judaism deserve to have their religious choices respected by the State of Israel (even as individual rabbis may maintain their own personal autonomy and norms, but not force them on the State).
Even as Rabbi Lookstein has finally spoken out, the question is: did he really learn the lesson to be drawn from this case? The likes of Rabbi Avi Weiss, Rabbi Marc Angel and Rabbi Shlomo Riskin have rightly concluded that the time has long since come to affirm religious diversity and recognize that all major religious groups in Judaism deserve to have their religious choices respected by the State of Israel (even as individual rabbis may maintain their own personal autonomy and norms, but not force them on the State). Clearly, not all rabbis have reached the same necessary conclusion. For example, the Tzohar rabbinic organization repeatedly fights against the Chief Rabbinate to gain recognition for itself and its members, but not only refrains from supporting religious diversity and freedom, but actually launches its own attacks against the State of Israel potentially recognizing non-Orthodox conversions and civil marriage.
So what lesson is Rabbi Lookstein willing to take away from his own degrading experience? This remains yet to be seen, and we very much hope that he will publicly declare that this is not simply a personal issue, but rather a systemic inequity, which cannot be corrected by simply tweaking the list of Orthodox rabbis who are recognized by Israel's coercive Orthodox Chief Rabbinate but by respecting the religious diversity of the Jewish People and Israel’s core democratic values and promise of religious freedom and equality.