Ultra-Orthodox MKs on Sunday blasted the recommendations of a committee tasked with regulating conversion to Judaism in Israel headed by former Justice Minister Moshe Nissim.
Nissim submitted his committee's report on Sunday morning to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he would study its findings.
Well before the report was submitted, leading rabbis, including both of Israel's chief rabbis, had already expressed opposition to the mere establishment of the committee.
Netanyahu appointed Nissim to head the committee a year ago to recommend legislation on standardizing conversions, after the High Court of Justice ruled that Israel must recognize conversions performed outside the exclusive framework of the Chief Rabbinate.
Over the next 10 months, Nissim met with rabbis, rabbinical judges and representatives from non-Orthodox movements to try to formulate recommendations for legislation.
However, in light of the stiff haredi opposition, his recommendations are unlikely to be presented for approval before the cabinet, let alone the Knesset.
Nissim's report recommends establishing a national conversion authority attached to the Prime Minister's Office. Conversions would be performed under that authority in accordance with Jewish law, and private rabbinical conversion courts would not be recognized.
The major sticking point for the haredim was that Nissim's recommendations allow for recognition of conversions performed by "Jewish communities abroad" for the purpose of qualifying for the Law of Return, which grants Jews automatic Israeli citizenship. The opposition stems from fears that such recognition would allow non-Orthodox movements into the authority's appointments committee.
In a press conference on Sunday, Nissim lamented the dire state of conversion law in Israel.
"We are experiencing today a spiritual holocaust. Mixed marriages are a drug of death. The governments and head rabbis have sinned for years," he said.
"The conversion system has not produced a result. There wasn't a system of rapprochement."
Nissim said the attacks against him by rabbis came because the "rabbis did not look properly at the report. Whoever opposes the report is distorting the truth. They talk as if I'm eliminating the Chief Rabbinate. I am merely establishing a parallel authority for the courts."
Ahead of the press conference, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Yizhak Yosef gathered leading rabbis to oppose the conclusions of the Nissim committee. The rabbis released a public declaration demanding recognition for "only those conversions performed under the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's auspices."
"We call upon the prime minister to reject the Nissim committee's findings and immediately advance legislative amendments to halt the High Court's attempts to recognize private conversions and Reform conversions," the statement said.
Haredi MKs declared that they would not allow the recommendations to pass.
"I unequivocally oppose the recommendations and will make sure that they will not even come up for debate," Shas leader Aryeh Deri said. "I demand the immediate reintroduction of a bill I introduced on the subject that was approved by the cabinet, whose underlying principle was that the only conversions to be recognized by Israel will be performed by the Chief Rabbinate."
The opposition to the committee's recommendations were not limited to the haredim. Reform movement leader Rabbi Gilad Kariv criticized both the recommendations and the haredim, saying that "there are disconcerting components and good components, and it would be proper to discuss them. But it is already clear that the haredi parties and the rabbinate establishment would sooner give it a dishonorable burial."
