UNITED STATES
The Jewish Daily Forward
By Dov Linzer
Published January 21, 2015
Recent events have forced us as a community to take a hard look at the practice of having female converts immerse themselves in a mikveh before a rabbinical court of three men. In the wake of news that a Washington rabbi, Barry Freundel, allegedly spied on women as they were engaging in this ritual, others have described their own troubling and, at times, traumatic experiences at the mikveh.
It is the moment to ask some fundamental questions about how we treat converts. Some are questions of Jewish Law, such as whether it still makes sense for women to immerse themselves in the presence of a beit din, or rabbinical court. But there are other bigger issues to consider about how this ritual is conducted.
During the conversion process, the prospective converts are judged in regard to their sincerity and whether they have satisfied the criteria that a beit din has laid out. All this is necessary, but it is also disempowering, particularly when this difficult stage continues for a protracted period of time. What’s more, this can be an invitation for exploitation and abuse. It is our obligation to fix this situation.
One response to the concern of abuse has been the appointment of an ombudsman to oversee conversions done under an organization’s aegis, and to whom a potential convert can turn to when troubling circumstances arise. This is a good technical fix, but it misses the point that more fundamental changes are needed.
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