Israeli high court approves new routes for converting to Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Jewish lawmakers have vowed to pass a law nullifying an Israeli Supreme Court decision recognizing all Orthodox conversions—not only those performed by the state-sponsored Chief Rabbinate—as legally valid.

The Israeli high court’s recent ruling compels the state to accept as Jewish all converts who have undergone Orthodox conversions inside and outside Israel. It is a defeat for the Orthodox rabbinate, which until now has enjoyed sole authority over Jewish institutions in Israel.

The rabbinate’s ultra-strict conversion criteria have made it difficult or impossible for most of the country’s 350,000 non-Jewish immigrants of Jewish ancestry, as well as foreigners living in Israel, to convert to Judaism.