Unity and Disunity

There is irony in the fact that just when (almost) the entire Jewish population of Israel is united in our effort against Hamas, a unity that is increasingly finding expression through a return to Judaism and Jewish belief, the Rabbinate has struck another blow for disunity and schism.

In the latest instance, a Jerusalem Bet Din retroactively cancelled the conversion of Yossi Fackenheim, son of the late philosopher, Emile Fackenheim. Fackenheim had been converted as a child by the Bet Din of Toronto, which is more Haredi than Modern Orthodox. I am, of course, aware that there were circumstances that might have led others not to convert Yossi. That, however, is beside the point. The issue here, as in the infamous case of R. Sherman, is the undoing of a status action of a fully constituted rabbinical court. Whereas, overwhelmingly, for three millenia rabbinical courts have adopted an attitude of respectful collegiality toward one another, the Haredi dominated rabbinate has decided that noone else in the world has the right to an opinion except itself. In this case, we are talking about a conversion that is solidly grounded in the rulings of the greatest Posek of the second half of the preceding century, R. Moshe Feinstein זצ"ל.

To use a phrase that is enjoying currency, in a different context, עד כאן!