A bitter conflict has broken out within the Israeli Chief Rabbinate over the question of conversions to Judaism performed by the Beth Din (religious court) of the Jewish community in Vienna, the main way station for Jewish immigrants going to Israel from Eastern Europe. The dispute arose when two delegates sent by the Chief Rabbinate to look into the situation in Vienna, returned with a negative report alleging that the local Beth Din members were not always qualified rabbis and did not properly examine the would-be converts. The Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Isser Untermann, nevertheless favored upholding the Vienna conversions. He was supported by Brig. Gen. Shlomo Goren, the military chief chaplain who is also Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv. Sephardic Chief Rabbi Itzhak Nissim has taken no stand so far. But other members of the rabbinate insist that the Vienna conversions cannot be recognized. The conversions carried out in Vienna are chiefly of non-Jewish wives of immigrants. Unless they are converted, their children are refused recognition as Jews when they enter Israel.
Observers noted that the underlying problem is that most of the immigrants are not religious and are not interested in the religious aspects of conversion. But the non-Jewish wives must undergo the rites in order not to jeopardize the status of their children in Israel. The Israeli rabbinate insists that the only valid conversions are those carried out by Orthodox rabbis according to strict Orthodox procedures, even though the converts are neither Orthodox nor religious. The issue has caused a rift between the National Religious Party and Rabbi Menachem Schneerson of New York, leader of the Lubavitcher Hassidic sect. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today that the Lubavitcher rebbe refused to receive Dr. Joseph Burg, Israel’s Minister of Interior and a leader of the NRP when he was in New York recently. According to the report, he snubbed Dr. Burg as an expression of disapproval of the NRP’s alleged “soft” position on the Vienna conversions.
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