Although the most significant conflicts between the rabbinate and the government (and within the rabbinate) occurred around the year 1970, there was a preliminary cause celelbre in the early 1960s. Oswald Rufeisen was a Polish Jew, hidden, like countless others, in a convent during World War II. He aided in the rescue of thousands of other Jews. After the war, he converted to Catholicism, eventually becoming as monk. In the 1950s, he sought to emigrate to Israel, due to rising antisemitism in Poland, even towards Jews who had accepted Christianity. Israel, immediately after independence, had implemented the "Law of Return", which grants immediate Israeli citizenship for every Jew. Rufeisen, now called "Brother Daniel", requested the right to immigrate as a Jew. He argued that under halachah, he was indeed a Jew, and entitled to all privileges associated with that status. Many, who were opposed to Torah, favored his argument. They sought to have religion seen as totally not connected with being Jewish in the national sense. Rufeisen was a Jew by birth. His religious opinions were irrelevant. Religious Jews were caught in a quandary. Halachically, there was no question that he was indeed a Jew. But to recognize him as such, would be tantamount to seeing conversion to another faith as a legitimate option. The court ruled that once one has converted to another faith, he can no longer be considered a Jew. The ruling was contrary to halachah, but had nevertheless recognized a connection between the secular State and the Jewish religion. Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik, the doyen of Modern Orthodoxy, when he learned of the 1962 court ruling, said "Thank G-d that they ruled against halachah!" Rufeisen did indeed immigrate to Israel as a non-Jew, living in a Monastery until his death in 1998.
The real crunch came later, in the form of a totally different issue. Israelis were never partial to Conservative and Reform Judaism. As one very anti-religious politician said "the synagogue I don't attend is strictly Orthodox". Israel's first President, Dr. Chaim Weitzman, had said "Reform Judaism is the blank page in the Bible between the Old and New Testaments". But significant numbers of Jews from Western countries were now beginning to come to Israel, together with their non-Jewish spouses, who in some cases had undergone non-Orthodox conversions. The court system had put conversion squarely into the hands of the Chief Rabbinate, which was Orthodox. But what about the millions of Jews who were not Orthodox? Are we to write them and their families off? Even worse than the "Who is a Jew" issue, was the dreaded issue of Mamzerut. A Mamzer, usually mistranslated as "bastard", is the status of a Jewish baby born of either an incestuous or adulterous union. The Torah says that a Mamzer shall not enter he congregation of the L-rd. This is understood to mean that such a person, as well as their offspring, can never marry a legitimate Jew. These cases were historically exceedingly rare. However, with the spread of "liberal" Judaism, not to mention non-religious Jews, it was not uncommon for a woman to be duly married, but not receive a "get"; the Torah mandated bill of divorce from her husband. When she remarries, that is technically adultery, and her children are Mamzerim. When such a case presents itself, the Orthodox rabbi's first duty is to find some basis for invalidating the first marriage, in order to free the children of the second marriage. (Being born out of wedlock does not constitute Mamzerut). But a case presented itself that still is reverberating in rabbinic circles, and changed the nature of the Chief Rabbinate in inestimable ways. That was the Langer case. A Jewish woman had married a Polish man before the war. Some claimed that he had converted. Others claimed that he had had himself circumcised, but never formally converted. They were separated during he war, and each though the other dead. They both wound up in Israel and started new lives. Each remarried. If the man was, indeed, Jewish, then his former wife was committing adultery, and her two children were Mamzerim. If he wasn't really Jewish, her kids were off the hook, but his kids from his second marriage did not want the stigma of being of non-Jewish parentage. The Chief Rabbis at the time threw up their hands. There was, and could be, no solution. But the vast majority of the country was up in arms, seeing this as an unacceptable situation, for which a solution MUST be found. The governemnt was on the verge of dismantling the Chief Rabbinate, and accepting a secular definition of "who is a Jew?". Someone did come with a solution. it was controversial then, it is controversial now. The effects on the rabbinate were huge, and reactions bordered on the disastrous. The years 1972 and 1973 marked a watershed in Israeli Judaism. That will be my next post.