Retroactive Annulment of Giyyur?

BeershevaBubby

Thu, Jun 12 2008, 7:15 am

Quote:

Retroactive Annulment of Giyyur (Conversion)?

By Dr. Zvi Zohar, Chauncey Stillman Professor of Sephardic Law and Ethics at Bar-Ilan University, and Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.

I will begin by presenting a fictitious case, closer perhaps to current halakhic reality in certain circles than many would like to believe:

18-year-old Mary undergoes giyyur in an Orthodox Beit Din and becomes Miriam. Soon after, she marries Reuven, a biologically-born Jew, and they have a son Yehuda and a daughter Sarah. Yehuda grows up, studies in Israeli yeshivot, settles in Israel and becomes a rabbi. While still a yeshiva student, he is invited to serve as a witness at marriages of quite a few friends – sometimes signing the ketubba, sometimes witnessing the kiddushin, sometimes, both. After getting semikha, he not infrequently serves as a member of a court conducting giyyur (as son of a giyyoret, he relates positively to people choosing to be Jewish). He studies for dayyanut, and then begins sitting as dayyan (rabbinical judge) on various cases. Meanwhile, Sarah gets married early, at 17, to a Cohen. They have three boys, who grow up as Cohanim, bless the congregation, get called up for the first aliyya, etc. When the boys are in their teens, Sarah and her husband decide to move to Israel to be near Yehuda and his family. Under Yehuda’s influence, the three boys are sent to yeshivot; they too serve on occasion as witnesses for various halakhic matters, receive pidyon for first-born infants of their peers, and the like.

Miriam, now nearing sixty, has been working secretly for several years on an autobiography – and it is accepted for publication. When published, the public is informed about matters that her husband and close friends have known all along: Miriam opted for giyyur because of Reuven, whom she wanted to marry. She declared acceptence of mitzvot during her giyyur procedure, but was never really convinced that the commandments were ordained by G-d and revealed to Moses, and her observance of halakha, never consistent even at the beginning, soon become spotty, then totally haphazard. She has no problem with the fact that her son Yehuda has adopted a religious lifestyle, and indeed keeps a kosher home for his sake, and when Yehuda and his family come to visit in the U.S., Miriam and Reuven make sure that everything is halakhically meticulous. But when they are alone, they are not religiously observant. Miriam’s good friend Maureen knows someone at the New York Times, and Miriam is interviewed. She tells the reporter how happy she is to be Jewish, and how she really identifies with the Jewish People and the Jewish values of social justice, warm community and family ties, etc. However, she confides, the ritual parts of Judaism – such as Shabbat, kashrut, taharat hamishpaha – never really attracted her, and she doesn’t personally observe them. The interview is picked up by HaAretz, and published in Hebrew in Israel.

Rabbi Axeman, a well-known rabbi who has authored several volumes of responsa, hears about Miriam’s interview. He obtains a copy of HaAretz, and after reading with his own eyes what Miriam said, he immediately concludes that Miriam is really not, and has never been, a Jew. He calls up Yehuda’s Rosh-Yeshiva, whom he knows well, and reveals to him the facts about Yehuda’s mother. They both realize, that since Miriam is not Jewish, neither Yehuda nor Sarah are Jews. Therefore, they have never been married to their spouses. Sarah’s children are not Cohanim – indeed, they are not Jewish at all. Even should Sarah now undergo giyyur, she can never remarry her husband, because he is a Cohen. Halakhically, her children are not related at all to their ‘father’, whether or not they choose giyyur. All those times they were called up to the Torah for the first aliyya – were in vain; all the first-born for whom they received pidyon now have to be located and have the ceremony re-performed – this time, with a ‘real’ Cohen. Kiddushin and Ketubbot witnessed by Sarah’s children, and by her brother Yehuda are invalid; the relevant couples must be located and informed, the marriages re-performed (and what if one of the parties now refuses to do so?). And what of those gerim who became Jews under the auspices of a court in which Yehuda was a member? Well, they are not Jewish, of course, because a giyyur that was not conducted by a court is invalid, and a gentile cannot serve as a dayyan. Similarly, matters of divorce etc. decided by a court in which Yehuda participated are now lacking halakhic validity; if he was witness to a divorce, the marriage may never have been terminated, the woman still eshet ish. If she remarried, her children are deemed to be illegitimate.

To see the entire article including all the footnotes, Click Here

shalhevet

Thu, Jun 12 2008, 7:54 am

There has been a lot of publicity about this recently in the wake of the problems with Rav Druckman's conversions, and a lot of claims/ conclusions, many of which are written by ignorant people have been thrown around.

It would, of course, be terrible if such an extreme case ever happened (and, it seems to me, that the article is halachically correct in its conclusions), but the issue not being addressed is that of who is causing such problems.

For example, in the above fictitious story, whose fault is all the suffering?

Well, it's Mary/ Miriam for lying at the outset about what she believed and/or a beis din that turned a blind eye if they did know her real intent.

Similarly in the real world there are battei din with all kinds of shittas not acceptable to the gedolei hador (and don't say I am talking about my gedolim, there are universally recognized rabbonim as gedolim) and they KNOWINGLY "convert" people with what they KNOW to be problematic conversions. (I am not even talking Conservative/ Reform here.).

Also if someone comes and lies to a beis din, then whose fault is all the suffering afterwards? There was a case a year or two ago at Soroka hospital in Beersheva where a doctor had a communicable disease (I think hepatitis, but I don't remember) and he infected many patients before he was caught. So is the hospital "at fault" for firing him? The patients were unfortunately innocent victims, but the guilty one is the doctor who lied about his health. and if anyone in the hospital had known he had the disease and still hired him/ kept him on, he would also be guilty.

Sincere converts (who were sincere at the time they converted) have nothing to worry about. And even if there was a problem, they could reconvert (although that of course might raise halachic problems about things that happened before). The ones who are problematic are not having their giyyur retroactively annulled. They were never geirim in the first place.

mimivan

Thu, Jun 12 2008, 8:01 am

shalhevet wrote:

Sincere converts (who were sincere at the time they converted) have nothing to worry about. And even if there was a problem, they could reconvert (although that of course might raise halachic problems about things that happened before). The ones who are problematic are not having their giyyur retroactively annulled. They were never geirim in the first place.

I think even sincere converts need to be on the look out for the highest level conversion they can find...a beis din which would not even think of converting them before it is proven they will live a religious lifestyle. I know of sincere converts who converted with rabbis who were not so careful in ensuring the candidates were learning halacha and keeping mitzvos, and in those rare cases, I blame those who were supposed to oversee the conversion --in a couple of cases, regardless of the converts' sincerity, their geyrus was annulled.(I am not speaking about Rabbi Druckman...I don't know this case) A stamp of approval from the highest level of beis din is a mark of the candidates sincerity...

for example, I don't think anyone would have the chutzpah to be converted by eidas chariedis if they had no intention to keep mitzvos...and I think that kind of beis din would be able to smell a fake convert a mile away.

ora_43

Thu, Jun 12 2008, 8:12 am

Professor (not rabbi) Tzvi Zohar teaches at the "pluralistic" Hartman center and is the same man who "rules" that unmarried s-x is fine as long as the woman uses the mikva (and the relationship is based on mutual respect, however that's defined). In other words, I'd take his halachic articles with more than a grain of salt. In this particular case, I don't quite buy the parallels he's trying to draw between kiddushin and giyur--I think there is reason to believe that intention matters in giyur, and many if not most rabbis hold that a giyur is only valid with intention.

I agree with Shalhevet that if there were really a case such as that in the article, Mary/Miriam would be to blame, not the rabbis who rule her a non-Jew.

However, from what I've seen I believe such a situation is highly improbable. For one thing, I know a couple of women who converted in order to marry, and none of their children are even married to Jews, let alone frum. Generally speaking a women who "converts" for marriage and then doesn't keep mitzvot does not end up with kids who are frum, and definitely not with kids getting married at 17, etc.

In cases I know where people from halachically problematic backgrounds (mom who "converted" for marriage, or had a conservative conversion, etc) later became frum, they realized it was a problem well before they married and had kids themselves. I don't know any rabbi who would perform a marriage involving a convert or child of a convert without making an effort to ensure that the conversion was valid. In other words, I find it highly improbably that an invalid conversion would go undiscovered for decades. I think it would become clear that Mary/Miriam's conversion was an issue as soon as her son went to yeshiva or her daughter decided to marry.

Finally, contrary to popular opinion (or at least the opinion popular among those at the Hartman institute and others who call for "pluralistic" conversion in Israel), rabbis are really not that quick to break up families and invalidate decades of judgements, conversions, and weddings. I believe that if there were a case like this, the rabbis involved would do everything possible to NOT invalidate Miriam's conversion. The conversions in Israel (at least those I've heard of) that were later ruled invalid all involved people who never kept mitzvot and never planned to, not people who kept some mitzvot, thought of themselves as Jewish, raised religious kids, etc. I know converts who quickly went off the derech, and no rabbi ever said their conversion was anything but valid.

shalhevet

Thu, Jun 12 2008, 8:17 am

HindaRochel wrote:

But his arguement is the ritual surpasses the intent, that regardless of her intent the conversion is valid.

That is his conclusion and he is arguing against others who pasken differently. He is trying to say that rabbonim shouldn't be "retroactively annulling" giyur.

It is important to add here that there is also a political component to giyur in Israel. The secular governments are/ have been interested in turning the non-Jews in Israel who live among Jews, particularly those from the FSU, into Jews. In fact, the PM recently issued a call for the Rabbanut to be more lenient with giyur. Rest assured that this is not because they are interested in more people doing mitzvos. It is purely nationalistic/ cultural to help them "be easily absorbed". This position has led to demands on the Rabbanut to use the most lenient criteria for giyur, against the normative halacha. Rabbonim were saying for years that Rabbi Druckman's giyurim were problematic (and those performed by Rabbi Goren in the army previously). So the MO camp "has" to perform these giyurim and then have to justify them. The writer here is a professor at Bar Ilan University, and not a rosh yeshiva or posek.

cdawnr

Thu, Jun 12 2008, 9:07 am

ora_43 wrote:

Finally, contrary to popular opinion (or at least the opinion popular among those at the Hartman institute and others who call for "pluralistic" conversion in Israel), rabbis are really not that quick to break up families and invalidate decades of judgements, conversions, and weddings. I believe that if there were a case like this, the rabbis involved would do everything possible to NOT invalidate Miriam's conversion. The conversions in Israel (at least those I've heard of) that were later ruled invalid all involved people who never kept mitzvot and never planned to, not people who kept some mitzvot, thought of themselves as Jewish, raised religious kids, etc. I know converts who quickly went off the derech, and no rabbi ever said their conversion was anything but valid.

I think that this article gave an interesting perspective ont he problem and I think that there is WAY too much politics involved in the situation.

In the sample "case" however, I agree with ora that the rabbanim would not be running to break up a family...or the many other families involved. I think that they would say, hmm Miriam is writing this book 50 yrs after converting, after having tried to live an observant life. Whatever her experiences have been, she is probably viewing her mindframe from 50 yrs back with a different view. At the time, the chances are that she was true in her intentions, but her own life story, perhaps a dissatisfactoin with the way it really was, makes her believe that she did all this for Reuvan. there, easy enoguh to shrug off her book (why she neededto write an autobiography is a different question of course.)

On the other hand, to Ora's statement about knowing early. I do know someone who found out that her grandmother's never actually converted, just pretended she had, when her grandmother was on her deathbed and felt guilty about it. So soemtimes you don't know.

mali

Thu, Jun 12 2008, 9:08 am

HindaRochel wrote:

shalhevet wrote:

Ora, thanks for the great post. The information you provided about the professor is very important to know when discussing the article.

Not really. It would be important to read the article that he wrote and determine exactly what he was saying. From my reading of what he wrote he wasn't giving aproval to relations before marriage but was giving his opinion on the idea and a solution to a current problem that does exist within the frum world, even the frum Charedi world; s*x before marriage.

I'm trying to find the article, let you know what I think then.

HR, do you think he's the first one to think of this brilliant solution? Many Rabbanim have thought about it in the past and decided against it, since it seemingly gives a Hechsher to something that is totally forbidden (albeit not and Issur Kareis). Going against the decision of the vast majority of Orthodox Rabbanim isn't something that can be overlooked upon easily.

freidasima

Thu, Jun 12 2008, 9:30 am

I know the author but haven't read the article. But I also know a drop of Jewish history as do you all. There was Ger Zedek and Ger Toshav. And the definition of Ger Zedek changed throughout the ages. We married into them, they married into us, and whether they did or didn't keep mitzvos, even if you married an eshes yefei toar who wasn't into mitzvos particularly, after all, you won her in a battle in which you killed her whole family, remember? She was considered the mother of your (very Jewish) children...

So where does this leave us? The idea of retroactively annuling giyur is horrible. Just like lehavdil after the shoa there were cases, very very very very few but they existed, of a woman getting a heter to marry after her husband was ostensibly murdered by the Nazis, and many years later after she was married with children, her husband was discovered alive somewhere else in the world.

You know what knowledgable rabbonim did? They found a halachic loophold of some sorts I assume and nothing was said or done to make that women's children into mamzerim.

Lehavdil - and yes I know that the cases are so different....that can be done here. Who was made Jewish is Jewish. The problematic botei din are shut. Period. End of story. And let's keep it that way...we have enough tzurris in Am Yisroel without looking to make more trouble and more sinas yisroel from those who will be pushed away...learn for the future, but what was done, was done.

If the problem is marrying into a frum family from one of these people, then you can go giyur lechumra of a child if necessary in a very fast way if the child is already shomer mitzvos. Yeah, it may hurt but there is a way out. And for the rest...just let it go already.

HindaRochel

Thu, Jun 12 2008, 9:33 am

mali wrote:

HindaRochel wrote:

shalhevet wrote:

Ora, thanks for the great post. The information you provided about the professor is very important to know when discussing the article.

I know he isn't the first and I happen to think his idea is a bad one (to encourage, but not to allow. I do think if a person is going to do it anyway, it is much better to do it after mikveh rather than while in niddah. Similarly, I don't encourage premarital s*x, but if one were to engage in it, please use BC. Much better to not have those babies or an abortion. I actively discourage premarital s*x btw).

But to dismiss his analysis of the law because you disagree with something else he said is poor thinking. Argue with his points. In this case, I think he is correct.

Consider another scenario: woman marries man. Woman is a giyur. She became interested in converting BECAUSE of a man, but having become interested, became convinced that this was the true way of life. She converts. She has kids. She follows Torah laws. She then falls out of love with her dh. He refuses to give her a get. She becomes disenchanted with the courts and their inability to grant her a divorce and states "I only converted because of him, " and stops following Torah in order to avoid a get.

I think there is a very good reason for once a Jew always a Jew.