Rabbi Avraham Gordimer
Rabbi Avraham GordimerRabbi Avraham Gordimer

Gerut (called Giyur in Israel) – conversion to Judaism – is one of the weightiest institutions there can be. Gerut impacts not only the personal halakhic status of those who undergo it, but the status (and marriageability) of untold future generations is profoundly impacted as well.

It is for this reason that Gerut is treated in Halakha with extreme caution, for one wrong move or one wrong motive can invalidate the conversion and cause a myriad of the gravest of consequences. Rabbis who perform Gerut in these times must be acknowledged as total experts in the enterprise and are expected to uphold standards that will be accepted by all, for the good of the Jewish people as well as the converts themselves.

It is the responsibility of the Bet din, the rabbinic court that oversees conversion, to leave no stone unturned in its mandate to assure that every Gerut is beyond satisfactory according to all mainstream halakhic opinions. We are playing with fire, and to fail to cover all bases is extremely derelict and can result in ruination of people’s lives and the lives of their families and descendants for perpetuity.

Recently, articles and an interview regarding a relatively new conversion project – the Project Ruth Orthodox Conversion Program – were published and circulated. The program’s website states that the conversion is “recognized globally”, yet the fact is that this conversion program is not accepted by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate or by any other authoritative rabbinic organization, so that makes one wonder what is going on.

The Project Ruth Orthodox Conversion Program is headed by Rabbi Adam Mintz, whose Orthodox credentials include RIETS semicha (ordination at Yeshiva University’s affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary) and membership in the RCA (Rabbinical Council of America). Rabbi Mintz also led Lincoln Square Synagogue from 1996-2004 and currently serves as the founding rabbi of Kehilat Rayim Ahuvim in Manhattan.

Apparently having shifted gears to a certain extent, Rabbi Mintz is a now member of the Talmud faculty at Maharat, a women’s rabbinical school in Riverdale, not accepted by the RCA or Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and is the founder and director of 929 English, a nondenominational and pluralistic Tanach (Bible) study program.

The other two members of the Project Ruth Orthodox Conversion Program are Rabbis Avram Mlotek and Jon Leener, both graduates of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) in Riverdale, which is affiliated with Maharat, where Rabbi Mintz teaches.

The essence of Gerut is Kabbalat Ha-Mitzvot – acceptance of the Torah and its commandments – for this is what it means to be a Jew. (V. Rambam Hil. Issurei Bi’ah 13:4, 14:2-3,6; Shulchan Aruch – Yoreh Deah 268:2-3) Hence Kabbalat Ha-Mitzvot is a sine qua non for conversion. Gerut is not a membership induction into a club or a mere ritual formality, but is the actual acceptance of Torah and Mitzvot, literally reenacting the acceptance of Torah and Mitzvot at Sinai by Klal Yisroel, the Jewish People, thousands of years ago.

A recent article in The New Yorker provided a firsthand account of conversion by Rabbi Mintz’ team. The author of the article – a Korean American woman married to an unobservant Jewish man, who is also a Kohen – described how Rabbi Mintz suggested that the halahic prohibition of a Kohen being married to a convert can be solved by having the man “abdicate his claim to the kohen lineage”.

The article goes to say, however, that further discussion of this man’s ancestry cast serious doubts on his Kohen status, a not uncommon event that requires research to be validated, and if that is the case, removes the halakhic impediment to the couple being permissibly married as Jews after the woman’s conversion.

The article’s author narrates how Rabbi Mintz and his colleagues who oversaw her conversion remained outside of the room where the immersion in a mikveh occurred. Whereas normative practice for the conversion of women is for the mikveh area to be surrounded by a tarp or the like and for the converting woman, escorted by other women, to wear a robe until entry to the mikveh for immersion, with the Bet din (rabbinic court) being present from afar to witness the fully-covered woman descend to the mikveh (by viewing the woman’s head, for example, as she goes down to immerse), as required by the Rambam (ibid. 14:6) and Shulchan Aruch (ibid. s. 2), that did not occur.

Rabbi Mintz’ Bet din was entirely absent from the room and did not witness the author descend to the mikveh. This seems to be in accordance with a very minority position that has been adopted as the ideal and recommended standard in a responsum penned by Rabbi Jeffrey Fox, the rosh yeshiva of Maharat.

The New Yorker article cites some general background information about Rabbi Mintz’ conversion Bet Din:

His beth din has regularly converted gay, lesbian, and transgender people, and their children. A few of the rabbis who work with him have presided over same-sex weddings. Though Jewish law has not traditionally recognized such unions, Mintz said that a rabbi’s choice to officiate them “in no way disqualifies” him from legally conducting an Orthodox conversion.

Please keep reading for discussion of the first of these issues. The latter issue refers to Rabbi Avram Mlotek’s officiating at gay weddings. (Please also see this article and this one, as well as this article, about various other rabbis affiliated with YCT and the Open Orthodox movement officiating at gay weddings.)

The most detailed description of Rabbi Mintz’ conversion standards comes directly from Rabbi Mintz himself. In a lengthy interview on Talkline with Zev Brenner, Rabbi Mintz declared (starting at 11:20 in the interview) that conversion of active homosexuals is not a problem, explaining that even though Halakha requires that a convert accept the Mitzvot in their entirety, a person whom the Bet din knows is violating the Torah and plans to continue violating it poses no problem for conversion if the person orally accepts the Mitzvot upon conversion and does not vocalize a rejection of any of them.

When challenged on this point (14:30), that by definition an active homosexual (by the person's own admission) is not accepting the Torah’s prohibition on his lifestyle and hence is not accepting all of the Mitzvot, Rabbi Mintz asserted that acceptance of the Mitzvot by an active homosexual prospective convert simply means that he accepts that the Torah prohibits homosexual behavior – and not that he accepts this prohibition upon himself. (This is clearly a very weak and incorrect point, and a de facto admission by Rabbi Mintz as to the illegitimacy of his conversion standards.)

Immediately after this (14:50), Rabbi Mintz labels the RCA’s position against converting homosexuals and the esteemed Rabbi Hershel Schachter’s ruling not to covert the children of homosexual couples as “political decisions” and “not halakhic decisions”. Rabbi Mintz proceeds to explain (18:25) that if he knows that prospective converts will not keep Shabbat or will knowingly and willfully violate any other rules of the Torah due to lack of commitment to these Mitzvot, he would convert them nonetheless so long as they orally declare upon conversion that they accept all of the Mitzvot.

Rabbi Mintz further asserts (31:08) that Gerut standards are communal-based and depend on each society, and are not uniform, elaborating several times during the interview that since (openly) gay people are accepted in Orthodox shuls in his neighborhood, conversion standards must match this attitude.

How many people are converted by Rabbi Mintz’ Bet Din each year? Rabbi Mintz revealed (29:10) that in the course of the past year, he converted 200 people in New York City, in contrast with the RCA’s conversion network, which presided over 200 conversions throughout the entire United States during the past year.

I have writen this article in a diplomatic and matter-of-fact style thus far, but I cannot hold back from stating that Rabbis Mintz, Leener and Mlotek are committing a form of rabbinic malpractice via the Project Ruth Orthodox Conversion Program, and that their endeavors constitutel ziyuf ha-Torah (distortion of the Torah) and are bound to irreparably harm the people they purport to help.

Numerous Orthodox communal rabbis have shared tragic stories about the heartbreak and tears of people who were always told that they were Jews and believed it, but whose Jewish status (and marriageability and more) was later rejected once it was determined that the conversion which they or their parents or grandparents underwent was not in accordance with mainstream Halakha.

More than perhaps any other area of the Torah, Gerut must be performed to exceptionally high standards and be unimpeachable. To do otherwise is to play with fire and to jeopardize the lives of countless well-meaning people who deserve better.

Rabbi Gordimeris a kashruth professional at the OU, Chairman of the Rabbinic Circle at Coalition for Jewish Values, a member of the Rabbinical Council of America, and a member of the New York Bar. His articles about Torah topics and issues in contemporary Orthodoxy are featured in many publications, including Israel National News, Cross-Currents, Times of Israel and Yated Neeman.