The Supreme Court ordered Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren today to refrain from publishing any statements alleging that Abraham Borkovsky is not Jewish and has given him 30 days to reply to its order. It has also ordered him to explain within 30 days why he refused to have his own religious court publish the record of its deliberations in the Langer case.
Rabbi Goren’s claim to have evidence that Borkovsky’s conversion was not valid was the basis for the ruling by a nine-member rabbinical court last month that Hanoch and Miriam Langer were not "mamzerim" (illegitimates). Borkovsky complained to the court that the ruling of the rabbinical tribunal assembled by Rabbi Goren denied him his rights by conducting its proceedings in secret and refusing to allow him to present his side of the case.
Borkovsky, who claims he is a practicing Jew, was the first husband of the Langers’ mother who he married in Poland after undergoing conversion to Judaism. A rabbinical court in Petach Tikva ruled seven years ago that the Langer children were illegitimate and could not marry because there was no evidence that their mother divorced Borkovsky before she re-married in Israel. Goren’s court overturned that ruling.
If the Supreme Court upholds Borkovsky, the marriages of the Langer children would remain valid according to halacha (religious law) but the legitimacy of any children of those marriages might be questioned. Borkovsky is believed to be acting in conjunction with ultra-Orthodox elements angered by Rabbi Goren’s ruling in the Langer case.
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