Conservative Rabbis Consider Plan on Conversion of Non-jews to Judaism

A plan to set up a “School of Jewish Studies” to regu-late procedures of conversion of non-Jews to Judaism is being considered by the Metropolitan Region of the Rabbinical Assembly of America, the association of Conservative rabbis.

The plan was proposed to a conference of the New York City region held in conjunction with the Philadelphia region, by Rabbi Seymour P. Friedman, who reported on a study of conversion problems. The rabbis responded enthusiastically to the proposal and decided that it would receive final action at a later meeting.

Rabbi Friedman told his colleagues that the number of persons seeking to convert to Judaism was increasing. He said that while precise statistics were not available, there were an estimated 16,000 conversions in the past decade performed by Reform rabbis in the New York City area. He estimated that Conservative rabbis were admitting 1,000 converts annually.

He said that while the vast majority of would-be converts wanted to marry Jews, there had been a significant increase in the number of young people investigating Judaism for possible answers to the moral problems of the day. He pointed out also that there was no standardized conversion curriculum for Conservative rabbis, each setting up his own procedure for prospective converts.

For the suggested school, he proposed a nine-month curriculum for converts, divided between set periods of formal instruction and “practice,” After completion of the course, the convert would be required to appear before a Beth Din rabbinical court for determination of the completeness of his or her knowledge and committment and then returned to the original rabbi for the final act of conversion. Under the proposal, would-be converts would be eligible for the procedure only through referral by a rabbi who would oversee the educational procedure.