The ultra Orthodox Shas Party and the more mainstream National Religious Party traded charges Thursday over the handling of converts to Judaism.
Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz, leader of Shas, who resigned as Interior Minister this week rather than comply with a Supreme Court order to register American immigrant Shoshana Miller as a Jew, because she was converted by a Reform rabbi, charged that the NRP, when it held the Interior Ministry portfolio, “registered gentiles as Jews.”
Peretz was responding to NRP charges that he had mishandled the Miller case. Shas has threatened to quit the unity coalition government unless the definition of a Jew in the Law of Return is amended according to Orthodox demands. Shas has four seats in the Knesset, as does the NRP.
If Shas leaves the coalition it would be difficult for the other Orthodox factions to remain, particularly if a non-Orthodox person is appointed to replace Peretz and registers Miller as a Jew, as ordered by the court.
The religious parties planned to bring the controversial Who is a Jew amendment to the Knesset for a vote this week. They backed off when it became clear they lacked the votes to pass it.
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