I've always known former Justice Minister Moshe Nissim to be both pragmatic and careful in his speech. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been as alarmed over the headline religious newspaper Makor Rishon attached to its recent interview with him, after the report on conversion in Israel was published: "Whoever opposes my recommendations helps the Reformists infiltrate the country!"
My immediate reaction was that if Nissim is saying this, Israel is facing true danger – this danger being the arrival of Reform Jews to Israel. It appears the former minister has sat on the powder keg of conversion in Israel, an issue that remains unresolved, and apparently won't be resolved by the committee he is heading. Because the committee's conclusions garnered criticism from the orthodox and liberal sides alike, he was sure this was proof he was right. The principal conclusion: provide conversion access to the new converts, while preserving the Orthodoxy's monopoly over its character.
But the Nissim Committee, like the Ne'eman Committee and others before it that tackled the issue of state-run conversion, interceded where the state shouldn't: religious procedures. Israel is the country of the Jewish people and all of its citizens, and it will stay that way as long as its Jewish majority doesn't stem from the exclusion of others. The most important law in Israel, in my eyes at least, is the Law of Return, which permits all Jews to immigrate and become naturalized.
This is the only difference, and it's a legitimate one, between Jews and non-Jews in Israel. Due to the fact that not only Jews immigrate within the framework of the Law of Return, but their immediate relatives as well, there are hundreds of thousands of Jews among us – the vast majority of whom don't identify with any religion and have no interest in transitioning from atheists who were born Christian to atheists who are Jewish – who have to lie and promise they will remain observant after their conversion.
The fact that the IDF has become part of the conversion issue, and that the state is trying to ease the process, is an interjection in a facet of society that falls outside its purview. If a person wants to convert – let him convert; if a person wants to become Muslim, Christian or a Buddhist – a democratic country shouldn't have a say in the matter.
Conversion within the framework of the military is one of the more bizarre, grave things that can exist in a democratic country. It is the antithesis of Jewish tradition, which isn't missionary in nature, doesn't encourage conversion, and seeks to ensure that those who do convert aren't doing so for convenience but because they truly want to be Jewish. It was Talmudic Rabbi Helbo who said: "Proselytes [gentiles converted to Judaism] are as injurious to Israel as a scab." While Nissim states: "There is no other option but to establish a new national conversion authority that will operate according to the laws of the Torah."
There is another option, Moshe Nissim; and that option is not doing it. In the first phase, anyone who comes to Israel under the Law of Return is considered a Jew, if that's what they want. Then, every stream in Judaism should be able to convert anyone according to its own customs, and if this leads to many Reform Jews coming to Israel – nothing can be more Zionist.
