The Interior Ministry changed its mind Sunday and agreed during a Supreme Court session to register three non-Orthodox converts to Judaism as Jews within 14 days.
As a result, the high court cancelled the appeals of Gail Moscowitch, an American, and Claudia and Julia Varella, both of Brazil, who had contested the ministry’s refusal to register them.
At the same time, the Reform movement in Israel announced its intention to submit for registration the names of 20 more non-Orthodox converts.
The turn-about occurred after Attorney General Yosef Harish, who was to have defended the Interior Ministry before the high court, stated Friday that he could see no reason to object to the registration of non-Orthodox converts.
He pointed out that the precedent was established when the ministry was forced by court order to register an American non-Orthodox convert, Shoshana Miller, in 1986.
The Interior Ministry initially expressed “grave doubts” about registering people who have undergone non-Orthodox conversions. But at the Sunday court session, the director of the ministry’s population registry, Yehoshua Kahana, said he would comply in view of the attorney general’s opinion.
The legal battle is not over, however. The Supreme Court, acting on an appeal by the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, gave the Interior Ministry 60 days to show cause why it would not refuse to register non-Orthodox converts as Jewish.
Justice Menahem Elon explained that in his view the court should not have allowed the registration of the three appellants “before we have heard the arguments of the Shas movement.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
