Cruelty In The Name Of God

From Haaretz:

The decision by three rabbinic judges at the Supreme Rabbinic Court in Jerusalem, headed by Rabbi Avraham Sherman, to annul conversions conducted since 1999 by Rabbi Haim Druckman and the conversion court system comes as no surprise. The threat of the revocation has been hovering for more than half a year now, ever since the Ashdod Regional Rabbinic Court revoked the conversion of a city resident, which served as an excuse for the sweeping revocation.

The harassment of converts who, at the end of an exhausting and sometimes even very humiliating process, were granted the conversion certificate they desired – which now seems to be worth less than the paper it is printed on – has become a predictable and familiar trick. This is especially the case ever since the establishment of the conversion court system in conjunction with the Prime Minister’s Office. This time the rabbinic judges’ gall is utterly intolerable.

In effect, the judges ratified the ruling by the Ashdod regional court, which, when it conducted divorce proceedings for a woman who had converted to Judaism 15 years ago, dared to snoop after her and discovered, it claims, that she does not observe religious strictures and never intended to observe them. This being the case, the three judges in Jerusalem, in the wake of the judges in Ashdod, ruled that the woman is not Jewish and therefore her marriage is not valid and her children from that marriage are not Jewish. They ruled that she will be registered as ineligible for marriage or eligible only under restricted circumstances.