News Brief08:05 AM

(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans to implement a number of reforms suggested by the Halfon committee, headed by Ministry of Immigrant Absorption officials, that aim to encourage non-Jewish immigrants to convert.  Approximately 300,000 people who immigrated to Israel in recent years, most of them from the former Soviet Union, are not Jewish.  Approximately 1,300 decide to convert every year.

Several government officials have blamed the rabbinical courts (batei din) for the fact that most non-Jewish immigrants choose not to convert, saying that if the courts were more lenient there would be many more converts.  Sources in the Rabbinate argue that their standards are based in Jewish law, and say that most non-Jewish immigrants are simply not interested in becoming Jewish.

The government committee suggested, among other things, that the government appoint rabbis who are willing to convert non-Jews according to more lenient standards.  The plan is expected to anger religious parties, which opposed the plan when it was first proposed.  According to Haaretz, the government is hoping to gain approval for the new policies from Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar in order to gain acceptance from the Sephardi-religious Shas party.