Jameel feels that I didn’t make myself clear enough when explaining the reasoning behind the Galus Rabbi Certification in my comments on the previous post, so I decided to make an entire posting about it.

Let me start with an analogy.

These days (actually for around the past decade) if an Oleh wants an Israeli driver’s license and already has a foreign one he is now required to take a driving test - but it didn’t used to be that way.

After a noteworthy number of Olim came over from a particular region, the DMV finally realized that a rather significant number of them were showing the DMV fake driver’s licenses (and somehow almost everyone was an engineer or doctor! :)

People with no driving experience (or valid licenses) were getting valid licenses in Israel with fake ids!

Not having access to foreign records, or an easy/quick method of determining which licenses where actually genuine (many of the fakes were printed on the same machines as the genuine articles, just so you understand the extent of the problem), the DMV made a decision that all Olim that present a preexisting license must take a driving test.

Not fair to the other Oleh groups that wouldn’t pull that trick, but no one was going to profile a specific Oleh group and say only they had to take the test despite showing a license.


Moving on, any Oleh that has gone through the Rabbinate and Misrad Hapnim knows that when it comes to foreign documentation they just don’t know how to handle it.

It’s not that there is a specific problem with the documents, or that the clerks aren’t particularly bright, it’s just that there are so many potential formats, and so many types of documents, not to mention no one really knows who anyone is (and I’m not even discussing forgeries). Some Rabbi signed the Get? Well who is he? How do we even know he’s a Rabbi, or if it was done properly (or if he/it is even real)?

Everywhere in the world marriages (and divorces) are registered by the government. And just like everywhere in the world (especially when foreigners are involved) there is a lot of paperwork (even in the U.S.). It’s a bureaucracy. Period.

This new rule will make it much easier for the potential Oleh to go through the various processes he needs to go through when making Aliyah and getting married. With standardized paperwork, and authorized (recognized) processors (the Galus Rabbis), unrecognized, unfamiliar, and unacceptable paperwork will eventually be a thing of the past (or at least a rarity).


Is this a power grab?

Let me ask you.

If you were a potential Ger who wanted to come to Israel. Would you rather go to an authorized/certified Rabbi so that when you make Aliyah the process has its bumps minimized, or would you rather come to Israel and spend a year or two trying to prove that you are Jewish because no one ever heard of this Rabbi from Kalamazoo?

And if you were a Rabbi, wouldn’t you want to be certified, knowing that if you give a Get to someone, if they decided to make Aliya (to Israel, the country with the largest Jewish population) they could quickly get on with their life there without a hassle?


Eretz Yisrael is being revitalized in its role as part of the nucleus of Judaism, and Rav Amar is trying to smooth out a lot of the more serious problems that have up to now existed in the bureaucratic process. He’s doing this the same way Microsoft, Sun and John Bryce do it: Standardization, Authorization, and Certification (respectively).

Is that a power grab?

No. It’s simply inevitable.


Oh, and that it expands the Orthodox Torah-based monopoly on conversions, marriage and divorce beyond the borders of Israel? Well, that’s just an added bonus.