With the consent of the religious parties, Prime Minister Netanyahu appointed former Justice Minister Moshe Nissim of Likud to head the panel tasked with examining the government’s decision to retain the rabbinate’s monopoly on conversion in the wake of complaints from non-Orthodox groups.
Nissim is a son of former Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Nissim, who served as Sefardi Chief Rabbi from 1955 to 1972.
Israel’s Reform movement lambasted the appointment, saying in a statement: “Unsurprisingly, the Prime Minister’s Office did not consult about the appointment of Mr. Nissim and the parameters of his duties with the non-Orthodox groups which had submitted petitions to the High Court in regard to conversion. This is a direct continuation of the government’s unilateral and aggressive conduct over the Kosel and conversion issues.”
Nissim is partially supportive of religious views. In 2015, he supported the unaltered continuation of Israel’s religious status quo, saying, “There will not be civil marriage in Israel. The intent of its founders was to have one nation here.”
He also said that the authority over marriage and conversion must remain in the hands of botei din and not the civil courts.
But he supported the decision of Tzefas Chief Rabbi Uriel Lavi to grant a get on behalf of a comatose husband and opined that the rabbinate was unnecessarily strict when it came to the conversion of immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}