In a slap in the face to the non-Orthodox denominations, Israel’s Interior Ministry rejected on Monday an application for citizenship under the Law of Return from a member of the Jewish community of Uganda who was converted through the Conservative movement.
The application, submitted by Yosef Kibita, was viewed as a test case for the landmark Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that recognized conversions performed in Israel by the Conservative and Reform movements. A member of the 2,000-strong Abayudaya community, Kibita has been living in Israel for four years and his temporary residency visa is due to expire at the end of this month. He is the first member of the community to apply for citizenship under the Law of Return, which governs eligibility for immigrating to Israel.
Responding to the decision, Rabbi Andrew Sacks, director of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement in Israel, said: “In a continued effort to stymie the aliyah of Jews of Color from so-called ‘emerging communities,’ Israel’s Interior Ministry has shown contempt for the Conservative movement, for our converts, for the judicial process, and for the very rules it helped enact. Yosef Kibita had undergone a valid conversion in Uganda. At the suggestion of the court, he underwent an additional conversion in Israel. Now that, too, has been rejected. Even more egregious, the ruling was issued only weeks before Yosef’s visa is set to expire.”
Describing the decision as “racist,” Sacks added that it “brings shame to our country and shows contempt for the Diaspora community.”
Along with a large group of Abayudaya, Kibita was first converted to Judaism in 2002. At the time, the Jewish Agency had yet to deem the Abayudaya a “recognized Jewish community” because they did not have their own rabbi and because they had not yet been approved for membership in the international Conservative-Masorti movement. In 2008, the community had its own rabbi, Gershom Sizomu, ordained. Kibita, along with many other members of the original group of converts, went through a second conversion shortly thereafter, hoping to be finally recognized by Israel.
In 2018, he applied for citizenship under the Law of Return but was rejected. The Interior Ministry told him that his conversion did not meet the required criteria. In response, Kibita, together with the Conservative movement in Israel, petitioned the High Court. They were represented by the Israel Religious Action Center, the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in the country.
In February, the court ruled in favor of the Interior Ministry, noting that Kibita was converted in 2008 – a year before the Abayudaya were accepted into the international Conservative-Masorti movement and a year before they obtained recognized status from the Jewish Agency. Kibita’s work visa was, however, extended until the end of December, and the court recommended that in the meantime, he convert again in a recognized Jewish community.
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When the High Court ruled a month later that non-Orthodox conversions performed in Israel would be recognized for the purpose of the Law of Return, the Conservative movement decided to take up the court’s suggestion and have him converted in the country. Since Kibita had already been practicing Judaism from a young age, the movement decided to suffice with a quick conversion that did not require the usual lengthy period of study.
Ugandan jews make prayers at the new Stern Synagogue in Mbale, eastern Uganda. Stephen Wandera / AP
He submitted his second request for citizenship at the end of June. In the response received on Monday, nearly six months later, the Interior Ministry said that his application was rejected because the Conservative rabbinical court had decided to convert him without requiring him to go through any further studies program.
The study program in which he participated back in Uganda, the letter said, “is not recognized because it is not run by a recognized Jewish community. ”
Kibita has 21 days to appeal the decision. His lawyer Nicole Maor – director of the Legal Aid Center for Olim at IRAC – said it would be appealed.
Under the Law of Return, converts are eligible to immigrate to Israel and obtain automatic citizenship as long as they have been converted in a “recognized Jewish community,” irrespective of the presiding rabbi’s affiliation. In 2016, the Jewish Agency said that it would consider all members of the Abayudaya converted after 2009 to be part of a “recognized Jewish community.” The Interior Ministry, however, which has the final say in such matters, does not recognize them as such.
The Supreme Court’s 8-1 ruling in March came in response to two petitions submitted in 2005 and 2006 by 12 individuals who had undergone non-Orthodox conversions in Israel, but whose requests for citizenship had been rejected by the Interior Ministry.
The Reform and Conservative movements in Israel convert on average about 300 people a year. The vast majority of these converts – about 90 percent – are eligible for citizenship under the Law of Return because they already have at least one Jewish grandparent. Kibita is, therefore, among the small minority of converts for whom the ruling is relevant. He was the first individual in Israel to undergo conversion after the ruling.
Maor noted that Kitbita has been living on Ketura, a kibbutz affiliated with the Conservative-Masorti movement, since arriving in Israel, and he is an active member of the religious community there.
“No Conservative community, anywhere in the world, would dream of demanding that he participate in a more formal study program as a condition for his ‘re-conversion,'” she said. “Yosef is Jewish. He has lived all his life as a Jew. He studied in a Jewish school and received an exclusively Jewish education. His knowledge of Judaism was tested twice by a recognized Beit Din of the Conservative movement that visited his community in Uganda.
So, when the Supreme Court ruled that conversions performed within the framework of the Conservative Movement in Israel would be recognized for the purpose of aliyah, it was clear that Yosef would be an ideal test case. To deny his request and to ignore the documents provided by Kibbutz Ketura and the Beit Din of the Conservative Movement and to not even give him the benefit of a hearing, in breach of the Interior Ministry’s own criteria, is completely outrageous. ”
