Israel has no civil marriage or divorce, which means that every Jewish Israeli is at the mercy of the state’s rabbinic courts. During the past decade, ultra-Orthodox rabbis have wrested control of those state rabbinic courts from their more moderate Religious Zionist and Modern Orthodox peers. Now securely in control, they have begun to use this new power to de-legitimize those who came before them. What weapon are they using to do this? Conversion to Judaism. If a rabbi’s conversions are not recognized by the state, he is stripped of the authority needed to function and is essentially no longer a rabbi.
Last month, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox rabbinic judges voided hundreds, perhaps thousands of Religious Zionist conversions, creating a nightmare scenario where converts woke up one day—often years after their conversions—to find that they and their children had been ruled “goyyim.” The impact has not stopped at the Mediterranean. Converts in Europe, the Americas, and Australia now find their Jewishness under question. Even converts who have lived strictly Orthodox lives now must consider undergoing a second conversion procedure administered by ultra-Orthodox rabbis to clear up the “doubt”—“doubt” created by the ultra-Orthodox themselves. Many other converts, now less religious then at their conversion, or whose lives are not up to ultra-Orthodox standards, have nowhere to turn.
What follows is a brief list of the most involved ultra-Orthodox rabbis behind this mayhem—a rogues gallery, if you will, of ultra-Orthodox malfeasance.
