I laugh that the article calls Rabbi Haskel Lookstein “esteemed.” Esteemed by who? Like all major rabbis, he has people who esteem him and people who loathe him. Everything is a matter of perspective. <\/p>\n
New York Times<\/a>:<\/p>\n \nJERUSALEM \u2014 Critics of Israel\u2019s chief rabbinate have long complained that scores of American converts to Judaism have trouble getting approval to marry in Israel. Now, one such case with a celebrity connection could break open the rabbinate\u2019s longstanding secrecy over which foreign rabbis are approved to conduct conversions.<\/p>\n The case involves an American who, shortly after her Orthodox conversion in New York, became engaged to an Israeli, only to have the local rabbinical court in his hometown reject her status as a Jew when they tried to register for marriage.<\/p>\n As it turns out, the rabbi who signed the woman’s conversion certificate also converted Donald Trump\u2019s daughter Ivanka, and officiated at Ms. Trump\u2019s 2009 wedding to Jared Kushner, the newspaper publisher now planning the presumptive Republican nominee\u2019s potential transition to the White House.<\/p>\n The rabbi, Haskel Lookstein, is one of the most respected Orthodox rabbis in New York, where he has led Manhattan\u2019s Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun for decades, after taking over the pulpit from his father. He recently received an honorary doctorate from Israel\u2019s Bar-Ilan University in recognition for what it called \u201cthe influential role he has played in deepening Jewish values and heritage among American Jewry.\u201d<\/p>\n The case raises the question of whether Ms. Trump \u2014 who said in a Vogue magazine interview last year that she and her husband were \u201cpretty observant,\u201d keeping kosher and the Jewish Sabbath \u2014 would be accepted as Jewish herself in all quarters in Israel.<\/p>\n More broadly, it illustrates a growing divide between Israel\u2019s increasingly strict ultra-Orthodox religious establishment and many Jews abroad over the age-old question of \u201cwho is a Jew\u201d that has complicated Israel\u2019s relationship with the diaspora for decades.<\/p>\n The Israeli rabbinate, which controls Jewish marriage and most Jewish burial sites in the country, does not recognize non-Orthodox streams of Judaism like Reform and Conservative, with which the majority of affiliated American Jews identify. In rejecting Rabbi Lookstein\u2019s conversion and those of others in similar positions, the rabbinical authorities now risk alienating Jews abroad who practice modern Orthodoxy according to Halakha, or Jewish law.<\/p>\n Continue reading the main story He added, \u201cI\u2019d say this is unprecedented in Jewish history, that one group of rabbis rejects another.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I laugh that the article calls Rabbi Haskel Lookstein “esteemed.” Esteemed by who? Like all major rabbis, he has people who esteem him and people who loathe him. Everything is a matter of perspective. New York Times: JERUSALEM \u2014 Critics … Continue reading
\n\u201cTen years ago, if an Orthodox rabbi in good standing performed a conversion, it would have been a given that it would be accepted here,\u201d said Rabbi Seth Farber, the founder of Itim, an Israeli organization that has been critical of the rabbinate and is pressing the case of Rabbi Lookstein\u2019s American convert.<\/p>\n