Following Monday’s news that the Israeli Supreme Court has issued a landmark ruling allowing converts through the Reform and Conservative streams to apply for Israeli citizenship, Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, issued the statement below:
“Israel today is a country of the first world, to which millions of citizens of third world countries are aspiring to emigrate. The liberalization of the conversion process to non-official rabbinical courts, whether Orthodox or others, might bring millions of people from different countries to Israel as tourists, go through a pro-forma conversion and dilute the character of the only Jewish state in the world."