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Is Ivanka Trump Halachically Jewish?

In the past week there have been numerous headlines in newspapers both in Israel and the US about orthodox conversion. Unfortunately, none of the journalist did proper due diligence. Everyone seems to want to foment controversy and paint someone in a negative light. Therefore, I’d like to clarify for you a little bit of the background to the current brouhaha.

Few areas of Jewish life are as fraught with emotion as conversion. Some Jews are deeply suspicious of all converts, no matter how observant the latter may be. Others believe we are morally compelled to do everything possible, including adopting marginal halachic standards, in order to welcome converts into our midst. In between these extremes are the majority of Jews, who understand how difficult it must be for a convert to embrace life as a believing Jew, but also understand the importance of widely accepted and halachically mainstream standards and policies that define who is and who is not a Jew. 

Rabbis, of course, have to deal with the potential convert at every step of the way. With great patience and devotion, they introduce the ger to the beauty, profundity and intricacies of Torah life, culminating in the embrace of our eternal and singular people.

But it is often the rabbi who also experiences deep personal anguish. He may have to tell a non-Jew that halachic Judaism is too demanding and therefore not for him; he may have to break the news to a young couple that, after many months of study, the non-Jewish fiancée does not qualify for an Orthodox conversion; or he may have to tell childless parents wishing to convert an adopted baby that, given their unwillingness to change their lifestyle, their baby will not be recognized as a Jew in the Orthodox community. And sometimes, he may have to make the difficult decision to endanger his rabbinic position and satisfy his conscience rather than agree to a powerful congregant’s request to perform a questionable conversion.

Historically, Orthodox conversions in this country were left in the hands of individual rabbis. For the most part, there was little structure to the conversion process. Sometimes a rabbi would call on his local rabbinic colleagues (or synagogue clergymen or observant laymen) to constitute a beit din at the time of the mikvah immersion. The converts this produced would generally be assured by the rabbi that his good name was sufficiently respected where it counted, and they should not be concerned about future acceptance for themselves or for their offspring.

But the fact of the matter is that while such assurances could be relied upon most of the time, this was not always the case. Even if a rabbi was a member of a recognized Orthodox rabbinic organization, it did not necessarily mean that his conversions would be automatically endorsed. In this respect, conversion was similar to kashrut supervision before the advent of nationally recognized kosher agencies.

Decades ago, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) recognized this problem. Thus, in the late 1980s, the RCA formulated conversion guidelines, urging rabbis to voluntarily follow them and to register conversions that conformed to the guidelines with the RCA. Unfortunately, most conversions were not registered. Thereafter a new system was instituted, whereby rabbis could obtain formal RCA endorsement of a conversion by having the conversion process monitored and reviewed. In addition, a rabbi could obtain RCA endorsement for a conversion already completed if he attested, in writing, to having followed RCA guidelines and standards. Once again, requests for endorsements were the exception rather than the norm. 

Beyond the membership of the RCA, other Orthodox rabbis and rabbinical groups were also performing conversions with even less oversight and monitoring. Could anyone therefore have been surprised to discover that when converts moved from one Jewish community to another, oftentimes the receiving community and its rabbinic leadership had to find a way to establish the bona fides of the converts in question? Could anyone have been truly shocked to find out that in some places lists of acceptable converting rabbis came into existence? 

There may have been a time in Jewish history when it was reasonable to demand that every rabbi’s judgment in matters affecting personal status should be acceptable to all other rabbis. But nowadays, with proliferating rabbinic training institutions and methodologies, the high rate of Jewish mobility and fluid communal and denominational structures and relationships, such mutual recognition is far from being a “given.” 

In light of these realities, in 2008 the RCA decided to create a more formal, structured and efficient conversion framework. Together with their sister organization, the Beth Din of America, the RCA devised a system of regional conversion courts known as Geirus Policies and Standards (GPS), which is mostly comprised of RCA-member rabbis. This approach blends the benefits of personal rabbi-lay relationships with those of a networked local rabbinate. Together, the sponsoring rabbi of a particular convert and the RCA-approved local beit din work to adhere to formally adopted consensus policies and standards. This new system helps ensure uniform standards to guide rabbis and converts alike, while making sure that the personal sensitivities of conversion candidates will be respected and honored as they traverse the complex journey into Judaism. Finally, GPS makes concrete arrangements and provisions to ensure that there will be transparency, confidentiality, permanent record-keeping and all around accountability in the conversion process, from start to finish.

After GPS was established, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel formally recognized the network, endorsing all the rabbis who had been approved by the RCA’s internal approval process and by extension, guaranteeing GPS converts automatic acceptance in Israel.

The current controversy surrounds a woman who was converted by a non-GPS beit din. While the rabbi who convened the beit din, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, is a highly respected member of the modern orthodox community, for some reason, he never requested from the Israeli rabbinate to be recognized as “conversion rabbi.” In addition, since he usually isn’t very involved in conversions, he was not placed on the original list created by the RCA. This being the case, he wasn’t on “the list” of approved conversion rabbis. The RCA has since officially made a request to the Israeli rabbinate on R. Lookstein’s behalf to have him listed.

All of this has NOTHING to do with Ivanka Trump. Ivanka was prepared for conversion by R. Lookstein but was converted by a GPS beit din. There is NO question that Ivanka is a halachic convert and would be accepted in Israel as a full-fledged Jew.