UNITED STATES
Rabbinical Council of America
Jul 5, 2015 — NEW YORK, July 6, 2015 – The committee charged with reviewing the conversion processes of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) for the purpose of better serving conversion candidates has completed its task and submitted a detailed report that was enthusiastically received by the organization’s membership. This followed a series of presentations by committee members at the RCA’s annual convention – held June 29-July 1, 2015 in Tarrytown, New York – that included a transparent discussion of the issues at hand, a thorough presentation of the committee’s findings and recommendations, and the deep emotion felt by those involved in the review process.
The mandate of the committee – consisting of rabbis and other community representatives – was to evaluate the entire system of conversions in order to identify best practices, understand the delivery of services from all perspectives and make recommendations for establishing a “gold standard” process that is professional, respectful and spiritually engaging. Over a nine-month period, the committee paid attention to both the issues and systems it found deficient, and those areas it found to be appropriate and effective. Its 22–page report is available to the public on the RCA’s website at www.rabbis.org.
Bethany Mandel, a member of the committee who converted to Judaism, said in her address at the RCA convention, “I am hopeful that this report will make it better for American conversion candidates going forward. Working with this incredible group of Jewish professionals and rabbis has reinstilled a lot of the faith I had in Jewish communal life at the outset of my conversion. Evelyn [Fruchter] and I were chosen with those in the RCA knowing that we weren’t going to be ‘yes women,’ that we weren’t going to sit back and take a passive role in this process. We came to the table with our sleeves rolled up, and we were accepted at the table as equals. I have a great deal of respect for that. I’m cautiously optimistic. The framework we’ve laid out here…is a great start, but it’s up to many of you in this room today to make sure that the spirit of these recommendations is carried out. I hope that we are all up to the task.”
The focus of the committee was the Geirus Policies and Standards (GPS) processes and network. GPS was established in 2007 by the RCA and its affiliated Beth Din of America in an effort to standardize conversion practices and better serve conversion candidates. The network is comprised of 12 regional conversion courts administered by a national GPS office and, to date, more than 1,300 candidates have converted to Judaism through the GPS process. A review of the GPS processes had been previously commissioned, but the October 2014 arrest of Barry Freundel expanded the mandate and urgency.
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