There are currently over 300,000 citizens of Israel, mostly immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who identify as Jews and are sociologically Jews, but are not Jews according to Jewish and Israeli law. Some of these people immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return, while others are a second generation, born in Israel. They attend Israeli schools, celebrate Jewish holidays, and serve in the Israeli army, risking their lives in defense of the Jewish people and the Jewish national homeland.
But because these people are not Jewish according to Jewish law, their human rights are often violated. For example, according to Israeli personal status law, which is based on Jewish law, these Israeli citizens, who see themselves as Jews, may not marry Jews – a limitation that precludes them from marrying some 80% of the population of Israel. Should they circumvent the Jewish marriage laws and establish families, the children of their marriages in many cases will not be Jewish – a result that would lead to assimilation.
The way to resolve this crisis is through conversion to Judaism. Yet although the vast majority of these Israelis are considered to be "zera yisrael" ("the seed of Israel") – that is, blood descendents of Jews – and there is grounds within Jewish law for a lenient approach to their conversion, the gates of conversion are often not open to them. The Chief Rabbinate, which is responsible for conversion in Israel, places a variety of stumbling blocks – both substantive and procedural – in their way. The process of conversion is complex, stringent, and prolonged, spreading over a number of years. As a result, many candidates for conversion do not ultimately join the Jewish people, either because they fail to meet the baseline conditions required by the Rabbinate or because they find the process too arduous to complete. The lack of accessible conversion has thus created a social time bomb that threatens the very future of the Jewish people in the Jewish and democratic state.
IDI is at the forefront of efforts to address this problem. As part of IDI's Religion and State Project, IDI Vice President of Research Prof. Yedidia Stern is spearheading a program that combines both theory and practice, research and advocacy. This program conducts intensive academic research on conversion, engages in activities designed to encourage rabbis and rabbinical court judges to embrace a more welcoming approach to conversion within the framework of Jewish law, and working to shape public opinion and to increase the demand for conversion among Israel's immigrant community.
As a result of these efforts, it is hoped that IDI will impact Israeli conversion policy and help bring about a dramatic increase in the number of potential converts who are recognized as Jews in Israel – not only socially, but by Jewish law and Israeli law as well.