Open Letter to The Rabbinate of Israel

I had the opportunity this week to accompany my daughter when she went to the Rabbinate in Jerusalem to file the final papers for her "tik". A "tik" is a file -- in this case a file for license to wed. Getting married in Israel is not as simple as it is in the US. In Israel, proof must be presented that one is truly a Jew. In the case of gerim (converts) or those who may have a non Jewish father, or whose parents (either one or both) are gerim, the Rabbinate puts additional pressure and requests for proof on them.

My daughters' father is not Jewish, but I am. Thus the Rabbinate asked for a copy of my Ketubah. I scanned and emailed said Ketubah to Chloe. She presented this to them and they then asked for the ORIGINAL. Now for those of you who know the Halacha (Jewish Law) you know that there is NO WAY I am going let my Ketubah go out of my possession, especially via a carrier service overseas!! So, it was at that point that we requested intervention by Rabbi Shaul Farber and Rabbi Yosef Adler and Rabbi Berel Wein. Rabbi Wein wrote a letter of verification of whom my daughter is and that he knows the family, etc. They finally, in the end, accepted the letter.

So, this past week was just going to be a matter of filing the final paperwork. First, she had to speak to some Haredi Rebbetzin who was wearing the stiffest and ugliest wig I have ever seen. The Rebbitzin did not talk very nicely to my daughter, barely nodded to me -- and asked questions that I thought were none of her business -- all having to do with niddah, and bedikah, etc. My daughter's answers did not please her since she obviously adheres to a much more machmir (strict) observance of the halacha - and she rebuked my daughter very strongly. When she finally terminated her cross examination of my daughter she gave her a form and sent her to 'the man at the end'. So, we trudged over to 'the man at the end'. We waited on line, and waited, and waited, only to learn that it was the wrong line. We were sent to another place 'in the middle'. Again, we waited on line, and waited, and ...again the same response. We were sent back to the 'man at the end' -- only this time we perceived another door and found another person there. This apparently was who we needed to speak with. This man was downright rude. He asked for the tik number and she could not remember it but gave him her name and that of her chosson. He would not do anything without the number. (BTW, none of this was computerized -- EVERYTHING was on paper. It was a small office, and there were not THAT many files around. Finally, we called her Chosson and he gave us the number and thus were we able to do what we needed to do. But this man continued to be arrogant and rude to my daughter.

We left the office and my daughter turned to me and told me that EVERY time she has visited the Rabbinate, they have managed to make her feel worthless and stupid. She then burst into tears, sobbing. Needless to say, I was quite upset.

This is a girl whom they should be THRILLED to help. When she was born, her mother was not religious, her father was not Jewish. She went to public school until she was 9. The chances that she was going to become religious, a Zionist, make aliyah, get married to a nice Jewish boy -- at that time were slim to none!! Instead, they do their best to revile her, to make it difficult for her, to make her feel badly. What a turn off. Instead of ensuring teshuvah and thus continuity, the Rabbinate is going to be responsible for the wholesale leaving of frumkeit by young modern Jews.

Haredi Judaism, with its blinders to the outside world, with its chumras and unscalable concrete walls with barbed wire around it's version of the Torah (not a fence!), is doing much to undermine the work of modern Orthodox Judaism, which seeks to embrace all the good that the secular world has to offer, while yet adhering to the Halacha -- and remaining accessible to modern young Jews, who may yet be disenfranchised. What a shame, what a shanda!!