The Minister of Religious Affairs, Matan Kahana, recently met with the Civil Service Commissioner, Prof. Daniel Hershkovitz, and pressured him to change the criteria required for the appointment of the head of the state conversion system so that he can tailor the position to a candidate on his behalf, Walla !. Despite the minister’s attempts at persuasion, the Civil Service Commissioner refused.
Minister Kahana is at the heart of a political-religious storm following a government conversion law that he will soon promote, according to which city rabbis will also be able to convert more easily. As part of promoting the outline, Kahana announced last week to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that he intends to remove the current head of the conversion system, Rabbi Moshe Weller. Kahana explained that Weller was appointed to the position by the chief rabbi, David Lau, is “not the right man” to continue in the position in light of Lau’s opposition to the outline he is promoting.
Kahana said in recent days that one of the prominent candidates he would like to appoint to the position is Rabbi Chaim Iram, a former dayan of conversion and rabbi of Elazar in Gush Etzion, who is also involved in formulating the minister’s government outline. In talks with the Civil Service Commissioner, Kahana asked to change the eligibility conditions required for the appointment of the head of the conversion system so that he could tailor the position to a candidate on his behalf, but he the commissioner refused.
Kahana’s outline of conversion arouses great interest in the religious and ultra-Orthodox world, and among other things leads to many objections. Chief Rabbi Lau issued a statement this week stating that “if the conversion outline is promoted and the term of office of the head of the conversion system is terminated, I will have to remove my responsibility from everything that is done in the conversion system,” in his words. If the Chief Rabbi does remove responsibility from the conversion system, conversions will not take place, since his signature is required on the conversion certificates of the converts.
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Minister Kahana’s office declined to comment for this article.
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