Rabbinical Alliance Does Not Consider ‘who is a Jew’ Question a Closed Issue

Rabbi Abraham Gross, President of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, called today upon the Orthodox Rabbinate not to consider the case of “Who Is A Jew” closed. The recent definition by the Israeli Parliament is “totally unacceptable for it permits conversions by the Conservative and Reform bodies to be registered as national Jews,” he said. The Rabbinical Alliance of America, Rabbi Gross said, is calling upon its members and is appealing to all other Rabbinic bodies to exert all pressures on the Israeli government to change the recently enacted law by adding the words “according to Jewish law” when it speaks of conversions. “To accept by silence this recent ruling is to create within our Jewish State a dual category of national versus religious Jew,” he stated. The dangers of such “division” can be the “breakdown of traditional Judaism,” claimed Rabbi Gross. “It is an open invitation to inter-marriage and assimilation,” Rabbi Gross warned.