Conversion head assails ‘haredi clique

The head of Israel’s Conversion Authority lashed out at what he called a “closed haredi clique.” In the latest salvo in an ongoing dispute between the fervently Orthodox leaders of Israel’s rabbinic courts and the conversion courts, which generally are led by more lenient religious Zionists, Rabbi Haim Druckman attacked Rabbi Avraham Atia of the Ashdod Rabbinic Court.In an interview with a religious radio program, Druckman assailed Atia for annulling Druckman’s conversion of a woman 15 years ago and declaring her three children to be gentiles, the Jerusalem Post reported. “How can a rabbinic judge disgrace dozens of learned rabbis?” Druckman said. “It is obscene!” Atia made the ruling based on the woman’s admission that she did not keep Shabbat or adhere to the laws of family purity, which require separation between husband and wife during the period following menstruation.