[Avodah] Court retroactively revokes conversions

[Moshe Feldman]

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 8:47 AM, <T613K at aol.com> wrote on Areivim:
>> It is the rabbis who run conveyor-belt pseudo-conversions who cause
the trouble, not the Bais Din that tries to clarify the status of
converts who never accepted and never intended to accept ol hamitzvos.
 We have had experience with such rabbis and such converts.  It
doesn't matter that some of these rabbis are Orthodox.  There are
definitely Orthodox rabbis out there who are converting people they
have no business converting.
>>

I understand that many RZ rabbis follow the view of Rav Goren zt"l
that in EY the rules of conversion are different than in Chu"l.
Specifically, Rav Goren held that in Chu"l kabballas ol mitzvos is
me'akev because there is no national identity in Chu"l and we fear
that they had converted for an ulterior motive and that they will
revert to their gentile roots once that ulterior motive disappears.
However, in Israel, the view of the Yerushalmi is to be followed that
the ikkar of geirus is joining the Jewish people, and in EY there is
no chashash that they will go back to being goyim.   For more
discussion, see http://www.daat.ac.il/mishpat-ivri/skirot/194-2.htm
(which cites a lenient view of Rav Unterman as well) and
http://www.daat.ac.il/DAAT/kitveyet/sde_chem/lishelat-2.htm

While I personally am uncomfortable with this view, I respect the
rabbanim involved and consider this to be an issue of eilu v'eilu
divrei elokim chayim.

Kol tuv,
Moshe