Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The beef is not with Ivanka...
The fact is that Lookstein was VERY outspoken about the RCA standards. He said they were too strict. So, then he goes and takes on this high profile conversion and spits is out in about 10 months knowing full well that people will know it was a quickie. This isn't about Ivanka. This is about Lookstein lowering the standards for political reasons and ignoring halachah in the process.
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I agree with you about Rabbi Lookstein but you forgot to mention the financial reason for Ivanka's so-called conversion. Both the Kushner and Trump family's are billionares and that was obviously more important than Halacha. Rabbi Lookstein saw money signs and was blindsided.
ReplyDeleteI do have a beef with Ivanka because she knows she's being disrespectful to Judaism but doesn't care. Someone on another blog wrote that Ivanka had everything in life handed to her on a silver platter including her so-called "Orthodox Jewish conversion." So true, so true.
On the Upper East Side, he should need her money? I think it was more political than financially motivated. I think so, because he was extremely outspoken that the new conversion standards are supposedly too strict. Look at my blog post above this one....
ReplyDeleteYou think that the main reason Rabbi Lookstein converted Ivanka in such a short time was to make a political point and you are probably correct.
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed at how many people are defending Ivanka even with the knowledge about the problems with her "conversion." It's sad that fame and money blindside so many to the truth of a situation. I respect you for talking about a subject that many in the Jewish community would rather sweep under the rug. Keep up the good work!
It's funny how many people miss this. If people are up to date with the politics of conversion, they would know that Lookstein and Avi Weiss were outspoken against the RCA "standards." The RCA standards are really not even that strict. They don't even hold to the standards they espouse to keep. Ivanka's not the only 10 month conversion I know of who got a conversion in Manhattan. I know someone from Queens who got a conversion through Manhattan, converting not having gone through high holidays.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, this is what disgusted the Shabbos host, the throwing away of halacha for politics by an ORTHODOX rabbi...
ReplyDelete"A Conversion Critique from Within"
ReplyDeleteAnd he was right. Because he criticized the new standards, people (your regular FFBs, not anyone in power) ARE questioning his conversions.
I blogged the article. I'm concerned that he thinks it's ok to send your kids to public school. You know Conservative converts send their kids to Conservative Jewish schools, right? We're going to do less than them?
ReplyDeleteI don't think converts should offer their opinions on conversion standard since they obviously can't be objective. It should be left only to us Jews. After all, Cohanim have never been allowed to mary converts in order to stay pure.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteSomeone anonymous said that converts shouldn't comment on conversions because we're biased.
1) This is a blog, not a legal forum. I have whatever opinions I wish. If you don't like it, don't read my blog.
2) Opinions on this issue held by converts and conversion candidates run across the spectrum. Some are permissive to almost anyone who wants a conversion. Not everyone who wants an Orthodox conversion should be converted. However, there are converts who will encourage a woman with a Facebook profile picture depicting her breast falling out of the skimpy dress she is wearing in the picture.
Only US Jews? Someone needs to go back to his Torah and Talmud education. A convert is equal to a Jew in any respect once he becomes a Jew. US Jews is not an appropriate Jewish response. Kohanim are not allowed to marry divorced women (even their own ex-wife), non-virgins of any kind, a woman who lived with a man not her husband and so forth. The prohibition against converts is not for the purity of the Kohenim. Interestingly enough a child of a convert can marry a kohen so what kind of egregiously disingenuous microcephalic (or maybe acephalic) pissant would hold these views? Certainly no Jew who is serious about Halacha. After all conversion is the future of Judaism, additionally I think we should leave all Halachic opinions to rabbis that are converts because converts are more educated than YOU Jews. YOU Jews can be Jews without any knowledge of what it means to be a Jew or Judaism, but US converts are actually educated and speak Hebrew. We know Judaism FAR BETTER than YOU Jews...
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