Conservatives pursue legal battle despite last Orthodox conversion

JERUSALEM, March 1 (JTA) — The Conservative movement in Israel says its effort to gain legal recognition of its conversions is still relevant — even though all the adopted children involved in a case on the issue currently before the High Court of Justice have undergone Orthodox conversions. The last adopted child whose parents had filed the petition was converted by an Orthodox rabbi last week. The families of 14 children adopted abroad first filed the petition three years ago, seeking recognition of the Conservative conversions their children had undergone. The families had turned to the Conservative movement after refusing what they considered to be unreasonable conditions for conversions set forth by the Orthodox establishment, including one calling on the families to live a religiously observant life. Since then, however, the families obtained conversions from Orthodox rabbis who adopted a more flexible stance. The lawyer for the families acknowledged that with this last conversion, the argument before the high court is now mostly theoretical. But Hila Keren, who described the case as a “hot potato,” said the principle was still of vital significance. She acknowledged that the motivation for issuing a ruling soon could diminish, given the changed situation for the children. The High Court of Justice gave its first hearing of the petition last month, after repeatedly postponing such a move in the hope that the matter would be resolved through a compromise among the various religious streams. The court still has a number of pending cases regarding the conversion issue, including an appeal of a recent district court ruling ordering the Interior Ministry to recognize 30 individuals who underwent Reform and Conservative conversions as Jewish. Regarding the Orthodox conversion performed last week, each side accused the other of dragging things out and creating difficulties. The director of the Orthodox rabbinic court, Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, accused the petitioners’ attorney of preventing the child’s conversion in order to propel the legal battle. But Rabbi Ehud Bandel of the Conservative movement accused the rabbinic court of refusing to convert the child over the course of six years, despite the fact that he studied at a religious school. Bandel charged that the High Court petition motivated the rabbinate to change its view and conduct what he called a “quickie conversion.”