Argentina vs. Jerusalem
I wouldn’t fault you if you stopped reading here. Religious conversion is a gnarly issue, fraught with strong feeling and centuries of discord. It’s also a collecting point for conflicting responses, especially in a minority community like my own. We tend to welcome people who arrive at our doorstep and valorize the fervor they bring to their commitment. At the same time, we demonize those who leave. They are meshumadim, betrayers, but the word means more. The literal sense is those who have been destroyed.
This story is about the flip of the coin. About a hundred years ago this year, the Syrian-Aleppo Chief Rabbi of Buenos Aires issued a diktat about conversion. His name was Rabbi Shaul Sitehon Dabah, and he was joined by his Ashkenazic counterpart. Rabbi Aharon Goldman. Both were apparently scandalized by the phenomenon of sketchy conversions taking place in the provinces.
In a rare display of East-West cooperation, they declared that no conversions could take place except under the authority of the Palestinian rabbinate, that is pre-state authorities in the Land of Israel. Would-be converts were apparently expected to travel so that their conversions could be confirmed in the rabbinic courts of Jerusalem. I know of no similar ban in other lands of the Diaspora and no cross-boundary hand-holding like Dabah and Goldman. I’m also unaware of the number of people who left for Palestine, putting their lives at risk in cross-Atlantic travel.
Under normal circumstances, this ban (“cherem”) would have faded. Religious discipline is increasingly shaky, and the world Jewish community is frequently ambivalent about deference. But remarkably, the Argentinian ban was just affirmed. Chief Rabbi Yosef Chehebar, a Sephardic (Spanish and Middle Easter Eastern) authority announced this month that the cherem was still in force. All Argentinian conversions had the status of fake-o dake-o scams.
What’s odd here is not so much the delusional nature of Orthodoxy, which is always hurling itself against backsliding, but the failure to reckon with the lay of the land. Barely twenty percent of the Jews of Argentina would identify themselves as some version of Orthodox. They are the kind of Jews you would meet in America, with strong ethnic identities, historical rootedness, but no special commitment to the rigor of Jewish law.
On top of that is the level of revulsion that most modern Jews feel for the Israeli rabbinate. There is very little patience for their political machinations, especially when it comes to the military status of their followers. The official Orthodox rabbinate is regarded as manipulative and parasitical, taking resources from the state and giving nothing in return.
The result of this was a general outcry. The head of the Seminario Rabbinico in Buenos Aries is a product of my movement, Conservative Judaism. He defended the legitimacy and rigor of conversions performed by rabbis aligned with Conservatism and said—with force—that they would continue. Behind his ferocity was something interesting and fierce: a vital rejection of the primacy of Israeli Orthodoxy and the take-no prisoners independence of the Diaspora. Remember his name: Rabbi Ariel Stofenmacher.
The reason is that his principled voice is a vanguard contribution to an old conversation, one of the oldest debates in Jewish life. Who will control the forms and content of Judaism? Rabbi Stofenmacher is standing in the middle of the street calling out his liberation and independence. The rest of the Jewish world should pay close attention.
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The foregoing article is my personal opinion and not that of any other organization or person.