Sunday, January 10, 2010

Why Not Ask Gerim to Contribute to Fixing the Geirus Problems

So the question was posed to me by "דניאל בן אברהם" who I'm guessing from the name, is a ger. Why do I suppose that they don't ask the gerim, themselves for suggestions? I thought the discussion that has been following warrants it's own post.

דניאל בן אברהם said...
Michal why do you think גרים themselves aren't being invited to help fix this?

January 10, 2010 4:33 PM
Michaltastik said...
Daniel ben Avraham (Are you the one I know? Who lives somewhere around here?)

I think no one cares. That's what I think. I think the rabbis are busy with their own lives and I don't think they want to create a better system, even though everyone pisses and whines about all these (supposedly Orthodox FFB) Jewish men who go out and find a non-Jew and bring them in for conversion. However, no one of substance cares enough to rock the boat and the rabbis have better things to do. If Tropper had done this because he cared, then he would have tried to work with the existing systems not pull what he pulled.

Furthermore, his standards WEREN'T higher. They really weren't/aren't. His people don't even have a sponsoring rabbi. They work with a married lady over the phone who doesn't even live in their community. We had one of their gerim in the community who attended the Chabad shul. The Chabad rabbi profusely expressed that he was not her rabbi, she just attended his shul. Well, she converted and then walked away from the community-jumped ship. She got her papers and that was it. She would not come to shul, return calls or Emails to anyone, not the rabbi, rebbetzin, not even me-a candidate at that time. What she hoped to accomplish with this? I'm not sure. Perhaps, she was converting for marriage and no knew or maybe they knew. I don't know too many details. The system that Tropper sticks his nose up at, it would be much harder for this to happen.

January 10, 2010 8:17 PM
Michaltastik said...
Tropper looked the part and got some R. Reuven Feinstein on his side. He didn't do this for the community, though. I think more than for money, he wanted to feel important. Listen to those tapes and read enough about him, if you have any lick of intuition or binah, if you will, you will see it RIGHT AWAY.

January 10, 2010 8:20 PM
Mordechai Y. Scher said...
As to why gerim aren't invited to fix the problem: in this case, why are they especially qualified? If the problem is one of organization, anyone can fix that in theory. If the problem has halachic subtleties, then a ger who is a talmid hacham could contribute - but no more than anyone else.

As for 'the rabbanim don't care' - this is patently untrue. Conversion and its many ramifications and proper treatment of candidates and standards and autonomy of local rabbanim, and...has been discussed and debated an awful lot the last few decades. Not always in the public eye; but a hot topic nonetheless. Some rabbanim, like Rav Marc Angel, speak out publicly. Some just work away quietly trying to do the right thing. Conversion is a much bigger scale issue now than anytime in our history, and I suspect that is part of the difficulty reaching some sort of consensus, or accommodation, or even simple cooperation. Then, of course, there is the fairly obvious role of religious politics in the whole mess.

What is so sad is that the people who really suffer for all this are the converts and the potential converts, even if we just discount all the ones who seem insincere or uninterested in a real commitment to Torah.

January 10, 2010 8:52 PM
Michaltastik said...
"why are they especially qualified? If the problem is one of organization, anyone can fix that in theory. If the problem has halachic subtleties, then a ger who is a talmid hacham could contribute - but no more than anyone else."

I don't know. I think some of us, because of our vested interests, are extremely aware of a lot of things going on that the rabbis may not be. I also think a sincere convert has an incentive to care. Having gone through the process, we may be able to see if it could have been more efficient.

For me, when I started my Yahoo group after my conversion, I got some ed-juh-mah-kay-shun on what is going through some of the other conversion candidate's minds. Because I wasn't a rabbi, I was asked questions that someone wouldn't have asked a rabbi or rebbetzin. After all that, then I felt that rabbis are converting a little too easy and not looking at the right stuff. They held me up. I still don't see why my first rabbi met with me for less than an hour TOTAL in our ten or so meetings in that first year. I speak to others and their rabbis would meet with them once a week for like 15 minutes... AN HOUR. Even the Av BD in Manhattan meets with you for at least an hour, at least once.

January 10, 2010 9:07 PM
Michaltastik said...
Perhaps, being fresh out my management class where the management mentality we learned was to constantly review the organization structure and see if it can be tweaked... I suppose you're right, it's just another restructuring. We learned in the class that restructuring is very difficult because of organization inertia. People are set in their ways.

I think this applies here, as well. While they claim they want change and the system isn't good enough, really these old rabbis are set in their ways and you know... let someone else change things... after they retire and they'll be happy for them.

28 comments:

  1. However, no rabbi would ever bother to take advice from a simple "former shiksa"... or former goy, though THAT would be easier.

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  2. Michal, I'm sorry but that is a demeaning, disrespectful, and wildly untrue statement. You have just thoroughly offended the many many rabbanim who have been doing conversions and fighting for gerim since long before you were born.

    I'm sorry you are so bitter and hurt. What's more, I agree that in today's religious political climate, you'd have reason to be. But it still doesn't justify a blanket, snide dismissal of many hard working, committed public servants who labor to uphold and teach Hashem's Torah.

    There's a lot to be fixed, and we've seen some corrupt individuals very recently; but that doesn't warrant your global insult at all. If you're trying to promote intelligent dialogue, I suggest you're going about it the wrong way.

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  3. >Daniel ben Avraham (Are you the one I know? Who lives somewhere around here?)

    Oh, no, I'm a different one. I live in Chicago, though I learned in yeshiva in Queens.

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  4. Born Jews, for the most part, don't think of gerim as Jews but, rather former non-Jews or even non-Jews. They don't like us. They don't want us around. They think we're not good enough and they try to prove it at every turn. Most rabbeim are FFBs. You think I'm wrong, fine. I'm speaking truths that no one wants to acknowledge.

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  5. Ok, not ALL... let me state very clearly... but, more than half, for sure.

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  6. [Mordechai Y. Scher said...
    As to why gerim aren't invited to fix the problem: in this case, why are they especially qualified]

    Oh, I don't know, what would a former Midianite priest know about devising a system of judicial organization?

    Anyway, it would bring a fresh perspective from people who have the most at stake if improvements to this broken system aren't carefully considered and it would afford us the opportunity to advocate for the end of this revocation of Jewishness -- something that no one else has to or has had to endure in the history of Judaism.

    As it says in כתובות: אין אדם רואה חובה לעצמו - No one ever feels he's ever wrong -- even Moshe Rabbeinu couldn't see he was wrong when it came to managing his caseload. WADR, our rabbis, like Moshe are not infallible.

    [However, no rabbi would ever bother to take advice from a simple "former shiksa"...
    or former goy, though THAT would be easier.]

    I suspect the chances are between "slim" and "none" that Michal and I will be asked what we think about the matter of גיור.

    MYS, it's impressive how you stand up for the honor of the rabbis, but I'd like to see you and a lot more people stand up just as vigorously for the honor of converts, people whom the Torah considers to be orphans. It's a mitzvah after all, just like, say, putting on teffilin. You do that everyday, right?

    What we have endured for these past several years, with Tropper -- pants around his ankles - conducting his witch hunt has had a debilitating impact on many if not most of us.

    Count yourself lucky that someone is not going to show up and ask you to toivel yet again; or if you're female a rabbi tells you that you AND your kids aren't Jewish. Most people and rabbis say, "What's the big deal? Just toivel again?" It's like we're not people, much less Jews.

    Meanwhile, the "Gedolim" spend their time worried about people wearing Crocs.

    ------------
    Feel free to use this space to call me snide and disrespectful because I didn't grovel enough.
    ------------
    אל תדון את חברך עד שתגיע למקומו

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  7. Incidentally, this post is a continuation of: http://michalbasavraham.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-geirus-should-be-fixed.html

    Daniel,
    I love your post. I see that you reiterated my point. Perhaps we SHOULD be asked because, after all, we care the most how it plays out. The only parties who are FFB who even come close to having a stake is this are rabbis who have problems with the acceptance of their conversions.

    Besides my management class, which I don't really think of as a all-out qualification to know how to fix this, I have a stake in this. I read the blogs and articles about this stuff. I have already obtained comments and opinions from my own online convert news reading/discussion groups hobby.

    Furthermore, I have ideas that others don't seem to be coming up with. I don't understand how they haven't come up with some of them. For example, I think it is paramount that for a rabbi to work in conversions, the checks and balances should require that he learns a thing or two about conversion before he sponsors someone. If someone asks their local shul rabbi do sponsor them and that rabbi is willing but has not worked with a candidate before, he HAS TO be advised, otherwise, how is he supposed to know what he is doing? In the current RCA system, most any rabbi can sponsor someone. Then on top of that, the baytai din go by the rabbi's recomendation. Schneerson said for no Chabad rabbis to do conversions. If a Chabad rabbi sponsors someone, the beis din should wonder what is going on that this rabbi is not following his rebbe.

    The fact is that RCA doesn't uphold the standards they've already set (which aren't much) why should I believe they care to fix things? EJF didn't/doesn't have any more protocols in place than does the RCA, perhaps less. I don't for a second believe anyone at EJF really wants to fix things.

    As in a corporation, individuals are all about themselves and not the whole community. In my management class we learned about how a company should be run, as if companies actually ran that way.... No, they don't. Corruption runs a mock all around us and if you think the big-peyos wearing Jews are exempt, think again.

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  8. Daniel, I called Michal's comments snide because they were. Nobody asked you or her to grovel. That's a cheap comment meant to discredit my objection to her tone and language.

    You want to contribute to the solution of the problem? I agree. I already commented to that effect. There are ways to do it. You may not be asked,but that doesn't prevent you from actually offering real insight. Start with your rav. Become competent in halachah and offer your opinion. I won't repeat everything I said about that.

    As for defending rabbanim, I suggested that Michal (and maybe you) barely know what some rabbanim have been doing to promote good conversions and good treatment of candidates and converts. I gave a few anecdotal examples from my personal knowledge. There's a lot more out there. And I have just as stridently pointed out that rabbanim need to fix what is broken, and do it with greater transparency and integrity in many cases. But that indictment doesn't equal Michal's flippant dismissal of all (corrected later to 'half') rabbanim. That's absurd and undermines her attempt to be taken seriously by the very people she claims she wants to hear her. Or maybe she just wants to vent. And many of my criticisms and comments haven't been made here; but they have been made. Often directly to the rabbanim and others who might make a difference.

    Will I defend converts? Yes, and I have done so loud and clear for a long time. Again, you just don't know. And I have done so loudly protesting the actions of Troppers and Eisensteins and even Rav Sherman to those who need to hear it. Do they listen to me? I don't know, but I've been speaking up and educating others probably alot longer than you.

    Consider myself lucky? Indeed, I am. Born Jewish, I don't get questioned. But you again assume I therefore don't know anything about conversion and the experiences that accompany it. It doesn't matter that my wife is a giyoret (who did it twice) and I have children who will want to get married any day now. Been there, done that, doing that. What's more, in our little kehillah we have a disproportionate number of converts. But we don't much discuss 'converts' because we're just Jews trying to do a good job with Hashem's Torah. And yes, my wife has more than once wondered what will happen when we finally make aliyah.

    And in the end, as Ian Kent used to say, 'you're not special'. There are many many of us who are part of or related to the conversion experience today. Conversion is more widespread than any time in our history; and converts of all sorts are part of more families and communities than ever before.

    Our problems aren't only with conversion. Our attitudes and application of halachah have changed in many areas without good reason. Look at the Orthonomics thread on abortion, for instance. Our problems are with Artscroll hagiographies falsifying history and therefore attitudes, and with rabbanim and educators teaching a more narrow than genuine version of Torah and halachah. Conversion is just one of the areas suffering the effects of this process. It is also one of the most painful, because of how it effects individuals and families and communities.

    So, does this change anything about what I've said? I hope not. As the Rambam insisted, one's words have to be judged on their merits. I stand by what I've said up till now, even without having to establish my credentials.

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  9. Daniel, Sorry. I was longwinded and had to cut my post.

    As for your comment about 'Gedolim' - I don't know who they are. I simply don't subscribe to the idea that I have to learn from people who I think don't represent Torah well for me. But why can't I learn from the many fine rabbanim who do, indeed, set a good example and address issues that I think are important. There is nothing that obligates you to turn to Rav Elyashiv or Rav Malkiel Kotler if they simply don't speak to you. But does that mean you have to also dismiss Rav Gedaliah Dov Schwartz or Rav Yosef Blau? BTW, I hadn't heard anyone cares about Crocs. Missed that one. I don't pay attention to pronouncements coming from quarters I don't want to be a part of anyway.

    You might do the same. Go to the many fine rabbanim who you can see address issues that you know are important in Torah. You're right, love of the ger/convert/stranger is repeated more often than any obligation in Torah. Some of us are even strict and have a humra to marry one to make sure we carry it out. ;-) It is very important, but I think it is only one litmus test in a larger complex of problematic attitudes and implementations, as I noted.

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  10. "I called Michal's comments snide because they were."

    And I'm sick of everyone making snide comments at me. I guess FFBs are allowed to make snide comments towards gerim. People just figure they can push others around and whatever. They don't know, they have no idea that I'll react and I feel I have every right to stick up for myself and my people.

    "You want to contribute to the solution of the problem? I agree. I already commented to that effect. There are ways to do it. You may not be asked,but that doesn't prevent you from actually offering real insight. Start with your rav. Become competent in halachah and offer your opinion. I won't repeat everything I said about that."

    I have done this. I was told to mind my own business because I"m just a woman and gyoress. Then I was yelled at at the top of the (MO no less) rabbi's lungs that I"m not a real woman because I haven't been able to get married since I've converted and this was before I had even been converted a year.

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  11. and don't GET ME STARTED on the greater public of Jewish single men and their snide and arrogantness towards the single Jewish woman and especially the Jewish woman. Furthermore, even a man labeling himself MO liberal should hold myself as a gyoress to a higher standard than anyone holds the FFB woman to.

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  12. The Curmudgeonly Israeli Giyoret says:

    The conversion issue is NOT central to contemporary Judaism, and can be walzed around much of the time. Unless you happen to BE a convert, and then it is the central issue of your whole life.

    Michal is entitled to her own opinion and entitled to be angry about certain issues. She feels what she feels and has experienced what she's experienced.

    Personally, I am neither "angry" nor "bitter". I am too old to hold a grudge agains those who swotted me around in my younger years, and I am too arrogant to release my right to the responsibility for my own feelings. I AM filled with a righteous (if curmudgeonly) indignation about thevery idea of "anulling" conversions.

    Most Jews I meet or choose to associate with have no problem regarding converts as "real Jews".

    Michal is a G-d fearing yiddenah and an MBA student; why shouldn't she be asked about how to improve the conversion situation?

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  13. The Curmudgeonly Israeli Giyoret adds:

    "Some of us are even strict and have a humra to marry one to make sure we carry it out."

    Mordechai, my husband says that's about the only eitza he's ever gotten from Sefer Haredim that made any sense.

    I think this situation is BEGGING for a song parody along the lines of Paul Simon's "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover".

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  14. The Curmudgeonly Israeli Giyoret says:

    "And yes, my wife has more than once wondered what will happen when we finally make aliyah."

    I will take that as an open invitation to exhort you both. Bli neder, this yiddenah will bring you a pot of chicken soup. My husband offers to throw in some cookies,too.

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  15. Awwww, I'm actually still working on my bachelor's at this point. When your mother dies the day before your 18th birthday, you just might be too busy working 80 hours a week just to get bay to be able to finish. Now, I have advantages that I didn't have before.

    It doesn't even require a business background. What it takes is admission that there is a problem, caring to try to think up a solution and an innate ability to think outside the box. The last one is a real problem for most people. I was born to break molds, though.

    Nevertheless, the rabbis don't care what I think. If rabbis wanted to fix this, they'd be trying to fix this instead of sleeping with or having phone sex with conversion candidates.

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  16. "If rabbis wanted to fix this, they'd be trying to fix this instead of sleeping with or having phone sex with conversion candidates."

    Again, you've gone and shown obvious disdain for some fine, hard-working, reliable public servants! You've even insulted people who have been fighting over conversion for a long time, and bear the scars on their emotions, family and communal lives, and careers.

    I don't get it. Do you want to be taken seriously, or not? Tell me, so I won't waste my breath here trying to engage in rational conversation. If all you really want is to vent and insult the generalized population that you're angry with, then there is no need for responses of any sort. If you want to be taken seriously by anybody, let alone some of the rabbanim who might be working to improve things (and about which you apparently are little aware), then write like you're serious. For that matter, take my earlier advise and meet with Rav Angel or Rav Bomzer and pour your heart out and offer your insights. As I have already noted, and you choose to ignore, there are rabbanim who have been listening before your time, and publicly advocate for converts and open discussion of the conversion experience. Unless, of course, you simply want to discount the hard and well-meaning work and publications of people like Rav Lamm or Rav Bomzer. I'm beginning to think you, indeed, dismiss them and just want to rant.

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  17. Curmudgeon, I actually argued somewhat tongue in cheek that marrying a convert is a halachic preference. For one thing, even with the obligatory checks the halachah supposes, you can't really know who anyone is nowadays. But a convert is a sure thing. Moreover, the halachah states a preference to marry the daughter of a talmid hacham. I'm no one to judge whether someone is learned or not; but Avraham Avinu!? Who is more pious and learned than him? ;-)

    We'll look forward to that pot of soup and cookies! For now, we fool ourselves into thinking we're doing some good around here; but our eyes our always lifted to Kiryat Shmonah and the Golan....

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  18. >Daniel, I called Michal's comments snide because they were.
    ---

    I would like to the rabbanan are big enough people to not be so m'dakdek about their kavod to not allow Michal to blow off some steam and would instead focus on trying to feel her pain. This witch hunt has been hard enough for all of us, but it's got to be harder on the women -- I think that would at least in part strike a chord with you.

    >Nobody asked you or her to grovel. That's a cheap comment meant to discredit my objection to her tone and language.
    ---

    What should I have said? May I come up on the porch? Seriously, you cannot expect people to remain calm when their status is under constant doubt. I'm sorry if what I said struck you as inappropriate, but this entire matter has been quite disheartening.

    >And in the end, as Ian Kent used to say, 'you're not special'. There are many many of us who are part of or related to the conversion experience today.
    ---
    I never said I was special and I know there are people who have it worse than me. But I don't think this is a good time to 'lecture' me about something that is important to me when it's quite evident that I'm upset. אל תרצה את חברך בשעת כעסו

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  19. It is news to me that geirim are not viewed as regular Jews by anyone in the frum community. the biggest learner in my kollel, the guy that everyone wants to learn with, is a ger, and the kollel is a very large kollel in Boro Park. Also, my rebbe adopted (for lack of a better term) a ger who had joined our Chasidus, and married him off in a largely publicized rebbishe chasunah as if he was his own child, and everyone attended. This isn't some small, quiet, non-mainstream Chasidus, it is the largest Boro Park Chasidus.

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  20. >Daniel,
    I love your post. I see that you reiterated my point. Perhaps we SHOULD be asked because, after all, we care the most how it plays out. The only parties who are FFB who even come close to having a stake is this are rabbis who have problems with the acceptance of their conversions.
    ----
    Michal, sorry, I got carried away. I was just riffin' off of you.

    The only FFBs who only have a stake in this are the rabbis dealing with conversions? That's probably true for the most part.

    I also think another reason we should attend is because of the concept of buy-in. This is important because you don't want the people under you to get too unsettled and fearful about the future. If the rabbis don't want our advice they could at least gauge the response of their proposed solutions and maybe even explain the benefits of their plan to help calm everybody down.

    When I tackle a project on the job, I like to get opinions and involvement from different people; after all, I can't think of everything, it's too hard to do it myself. When I seek help, more often that not, I feel like I come away with the best possible solution.

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  21. BeeZee... again... using male converts as the example of how well converts are treated... The women are not treated as well. The mentality is that we're all whores. Meanwhile the FFB girls are angels around their parents but lifting their skirts for the boys. Another thing, maybe the rabbis should stop converting slutty conversion candidates, then they won't. When I was looking for a rabbi, I had one who tried to have phone sex with me. I kept looking...

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  22. BeeZee -- I think I saw of a video of the 2nd fellow at the chasunah you mentioned.. As for gerim not being viewed as regular Jews in the frum community being news to you, I don't know what to make of it.

    Why don't you do this? Google for information about how the Syrian community, notably in Brooklyn, has treated converts for the past, say 70 years and then come back and let us know what you found.

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  23. Modechai,
    YOU are the one that said gerim are not qualified to fix this problem unless it's a man who is a talmid chochmum. Don't tell me I don't want to be taken seriously. No one actually commented on my original post and the ideas that I had. I thought it was a good system which is not what they do right now. There's no system to question if a sponsoring rabbi is qualified to sponsor someone and give them the knowledge if they aren't. I proposed something that would change the system by resolving that issue. The rabbis are more than welcome to look at the original post, which is my proposal for improvement. You suggest that I bring this to my rabbi... please, I don't want to get laughed at and talked about behind my back about how I care too much about this when I should be throwing my self at the men out there who don't want me because I'm a 34 year old gyoress without a fancy job title or a bachelor's degree.

    Rabbi Bomzer and Rabbi Angel, try as they might, don't have much power to do anything with this. Don't you know? They are considered unacceptable by most rabbis. Don't you see? Tropper was able to garner more credit than them. In the Orthodox world, it's becoming about how long your beard is, and nothing else.

    Do you really think R. Lamm would want to speak out on this issue? Do you really think R. Lamm would meet with a nobody like me to hear my opinions? You are more than welcome to make me an appointment.

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  24. Again, I point out, no one is commenting on my actual ideas in the post:

    http://michalbasavraham.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-geirus-should-be-fixed.html

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  25. Well who do you think the girl was in the wedding situation? She was someone who had also been taken in by a very prominent family after having gone through geirus herself.

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  26. I want to add, actually there are other FFBs with a stake this, such as those related to gerim, most importantly, their spouses, children and grandchildren.

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  27. Daniel-
    I have always been aware of the way Syrians view geirim, and I don't have to Google anything. I have gotten into arguments many, many times with them, as I live in close proximity to a large Syrian center. However, we are talking about how geirim are viewed in the FRUM community. The vast majority of Syrians aren't frum, regardless of whether or not they attend an Orthodox shul on yuntif. They have alot of kavod for their two rabbis and pay lip service to Judaism, but they do not practice. SYs (as we call them) are a mockery, and the majority of frum people who deal with them know that. Other rabbonim state unequivocally that the Syrians are absolutely wrong in their takana against geirim, it is not legitimate or binding, and that they should spend time working to make their community frum, instead of making stupid decisions to react to the fact that they aren't religious. I personally know of rabbonim here in Boro Park who have performed weddings between (actually frum) Syrians and their spouses who are geirim.

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  28. Mr. Scher,
    How's my appointment with R. Lamm coming?

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