In Israel, a conversion controversy

JERUSALEM - Raised without religion in Maryland, Shannon sought to make a new life for herself as a Jew in Israel.

In a rigorous conversion process, she studied religious law for a year, took a Hebrew name, and changed her wardrobe to long skirts and sleeves as dictated by Orthodox Jewish custom. Finally, a panel of rabbis pronounced her Jewish.

But five years later, she and tens of thousands like her have suddenly had their conversions annulled by Israel's Rabbinical High Court. The court said the rabbi who headed a government authority overseeing conversions was too liberal in approving them.

The issue, now headed to Israel's Supreme Court, has exposed a power struggle inside Israel's religious establishment over the age-old question of "who is a Jew." It also threatens to deepen the wedge between Israel and American Jews, who largely follow more liberal schools of Judaism.

While 34-year-old Shannon's Israeli citizenship isn't in jeopardy, the ruling diminishes her religious rights. Many rabbis will no longer oversee basic Jewish rituals.

"I'm very worried. I probably will not be able to get married in Israel," she said. "God forbid, if I die, will I be allowed a Jewish burial?"

Shannon was the woman's given name in the small Maryland farm town where she grew up. She asked to withhold her surname and Hebrew first name for fear of antagonizing the rabbis who hold her fate in their hands. Other converts interviewed by the Associated Press made the same request.

The quest for a definition of Jewishness has dogged Israel from its beginning, and has taken on urgency in recent years as immigrants have poured in, primarily from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. Many have Jewish roots but are not considered Jewish under Orthodox religious law because they weren't born to Jewish mothers.

Three years ago the government formed the conversion authority to set universal standards, headed by Haim Drukman, a respected Orthodox rabbi who had already overseen tens of thousands of conversions over the years, including Shannon's.

Born to a Jewish father and Christian mother, Shannon became drawn to her Jewish roots, and in 1995 moved to Israel. She didn't meet the Orthodox rabbinate's criteria of Jewishness, so she underwent conversion, approved by Drukman in 2003, and maintains a religious lifestyle, keeping kosher and not working on the Sabbath.

But in March, the state-funded rabbinical court, which has final say over who is Jewish, reversed her conversion and 40,000 others overseen by Drukman and his followers.

The rabbis based their ruling on their discovery that a Danish woman whom Drukman converted a decade ago did not observe the Sabbath. But the decision was a symptom of a broader struggle.

On one side are ultra-Orthodox hard-liners, who insist converts must embrace their strict interpretation of Judaism for life. On the other side are moderates like Drukman.

"There is a commandment to love every Jew, and there is a special commandment to love the convert," he says.

One goal of Drukman's office was to help the 300,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union whose Jewishness was in question.

Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Dahan, director of the rabbinical courts, said too many people were being converted who weren't genuinely interested in the religion. "Nobody really checked how many of these 300,000 people really wanted to be Jews," Ben-Dahan said.

The decision also has threatened ties with American Jews who belong to the more liberal Reform and Conservative denominations. The ruling on conversions is seen as another blow to their struggle for recognition in Israel.

"Few crises have so divided Israel from the North American Jewish community," the United Jewish Communities, a U.S. umbrella group that donates hundreds of millions of dollars to Israel each year, wrote to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in July.

To the group's plea for action, Olmert replied he was "determined" to solve the conversion crisis.

But the same month, Olmert abruptly fired Drukman. He said the law required the 76-year-old rabbi to retire, but an official said Olmert felt that Drukman's rate of conversions - 3,400 in the three years of his authority's existence - was too slow.

Drukman, speaking to the AP, called the dismissal "foolish and malicious."

The Supreme Court is likely to take up within weeks an action brought by Yael, the Danish woman at the heart of the conflict.

She converted to marry an Israeli man she met 20 years ago, but during divorce proceedings last year, she acknowledged she did not live by Orthodox rules. The rabbis then invalidated her conversion and those of everyone else converted by Drukman.