ABSTRACT
Rabbi S. Goren has argued that a convert will find it easier to observe Jewish customs and to retain their new Jewish identity when living in a Jewish country. The clause on conversion certificates, restricting their validity to the state of Israel, was added “to deter proselytes from emigrating abroad from Israel”. Rabbi Professor Eliezer Berkovits considers the halakhic requirement “acceptance of commandments” to be “rather vague”. He states that the phrase refers primarily to “acceptance of faith in the one god of Israel, the commandments of circumcision (male only) and immersion in a mikveh”, along with “the abjuring of a former religion” and “the joining of the Jewish people”. The Hutchins family of Christian missionaries misled an Orthodox Rabbi in Chicago USA, and pretended to convert in order to spread Christianity among Jews. The Hutchins then appealed to the High Court of Justice in Israel to recognise their status as Jewish immigrants.
