Jewish Fridays - (Rabbinic Dispute In Chicago)

From The Jewish Press

Efforts by the Merkaz Harabbanim of Chicago, that city's oldest organization of Orthodox rabbis, to set up a bet din to deal with conversions has triggered a battle royale with the Chicago Rabbinical Council (CRC), a younger Orthodox organization but long active in the conversion area.


According to sources close to the Merkaz, the older group decided to enter the conversion field because the CRC did not maintain a bet din kavuah, or standing bet din, for the purpose. Experts in the conversion field say that an ad hoc system is inadequate because of the intricacies of the process and the need for great expertise on the applicable laws and practices.

The sources also said that for many decades, non-Orthodox clergy were enlisted by the CRC to sit on conversion bet din panels despite halachic provisions to the contrary. And acceptance of the responsibility to observe the requirements of halacha, the sina qua non of valid conversions, was, according to the sources, not always insisted upon by the panels.


Another problem is that the CRC continues to list among its members clergy without Orthodox credentials or those who have congregations with mixed seating or without a mechitza.

Contacted by The Jewish Press, CRC executive director Rabbi Moshe Kushner dismissed the notion of a rabbinic organizational dispute, but did not deny the gist of the Merkaz source's comments.

Although it's generally agreed that the objectionable practices ceased once Rabbi Gedaliah Dov Schwartz assumed the post of av bet din of the CRC twenty years ago, and while he recently formed a bet din kavuah, Merkaz sources say the CRC has not done all it could to rectify problems stemming from past conversions.The Jewish Press has also learned from sources close to the Israeli Chief Rabbinate that Rabbi Schwartz, who also serves as the av bet din of the Rabbinical Council of America's Beth Din of America, continues to issue certifications, or ishurim, for conversions across the country in which he has not personally participated. In some of those cases, non-Orthodox clergy sat on the conversion panel. Several of the cases were recently rejected by the Chief Rabbinate notwithstanding Rabbi Schwartz's certifications.

Rabbi Schwartz did not return a call seeking comment.

This is for "F.Y.I." purposes only; shared with no intents of lashon hara or to undermine the validity of anyone's gerus which was overseen by the CRC