UNITED STATES
The New York Times
By MICHAEL PAULSON
OCT. 20, 2014
A week after a Washington rabbi was charged with videotaping women converting to Judaism as they disrobed for ritual baths, the national association of modern Orthodox rabbis said Monday that it would require the appointment of ombudswomen to handle any concerns from women about the conversion process.
The association, the Rabbinical Council of America, is eager to contain the damage from the arrest of Rabbi Barry Freundel, a prominent modern Orthodox rabbi who served on the council’s executive committee and, from 2006 to 2013, presided over its committee on conversions. Rabbi Freundel had been considered an advocate for women’s rights in Orthodox Judaism. The local United States attorney’s office has charged him with using a camera concealed in a clock radio to film women as they showered or changed for immersion in the ritual bath, called a mikvah.
The rabbinical council said Monday that it would not only appoint ombudswomen for each regional tribunal of rabbis overseeing conversions, but would also name a commission, that would include women as members, to recommend ways to prevent abuses of the conversion process.
Women converting to Judaism are required to immerse themselves in a mikvah; Rabbi Freundel, in an unusual step, apparently persuaded some women to take “practice dunks” in the mikvah before the formal immersion.
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