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On a trip to garner Diaspora support for the expansion of conversion powers in Israel beyond specialized courts to municipal rabbis, Knesset member David Rotem said his legislation specifically aids former Soviet Union immigrants and does not alter the ability of overseas converts to obtain Israeli citizenship.

Rotem, a member of the Yisrael Beiteinu party who proposed the conversion bill as chairman of the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, said at the Consulate General of Israel in New York on April 27 that there are 300,000-400,000 FSU immigrants in Israel who attend Israeli schools and serve in the army, yet are not considered halahkic Jews because conversion courts believe they are converting for personal gain and not "because they want to be part of the Jewish nation."

With the bill facing criticism from the Conservative and Reform movements that giving the chief rabbinate more authority would exclude converts from the privileges of the Law of Return -- which grants Diaspora Jews and their offspring citizenship upon making aliyah -- Rotem assured that "everyone abroad will be recognized as they are today." The bill is not meant to tackle the global dilemma of of "Who is a Jew?" but instead represents "a fundamental change in Israeli law to help [FSU immigrants]," he said.

Rotem said he feels the need to meet with Diaspora leaders, including the American Jewish Committee, the Orthodox Union, and prominent Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist rabbis on this trip, because he would not bring the law to a vote if wasn't certain of the Diaspora's support.

"I am not willing to take responsibility that because of my law the relationship between American Jewry and Israel will suffer a damage," Rotem said during a press conference.

Israeli law currently recognizes all overseas conversions as valid, but Conservative and Reform leaders are worried that local chief rabbis will use their new power under the bill to bar such converts from marrying Jews -- particularly those who received non-Orthodox conversions overseas. Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, head of the Conservative Movement's Rabbinical Assembly, said in a statement that because the bill grants legal authority to the chief rabbinate for conversions, it "would possibly make it impossible for conversions to be performed by Conservative and Masorti rabbis, by some Orthodox rabbis, and by Reform rabbis."

The chief rabbis of Israeli towns are the same rabbis who are marrying off FSU immigrants and would be "friendly" to them during the conversion process while making sure that they understand what they are doing, Rotem said. Also under Rotem's proposal, a convert seeking to marry, but whose local rabbinate refused to grant him that right, could return to the rabbinical court that converted him to acquire his marriage license.

Orthodox Jews in Israel are concerned that local rabbis aren't as qualified as the current courts to perform conversions, but the same rabbis who are responsible for areas of halakha such as kashrut, marriage, eruv, and mikveh should also be trusted with conversion, he said.

"If they are responsible for those things they can be responsible for conversion too," Rotem said.

Also facing criticism that he is proposing the bill primairly to appease his Russian voters, Rotem said he isn't ashamed working for Russian immigrants -- they "fight our wars" and "they are entitled to get a good service." However, the main reason Rotem is pushing conversion changes is "because you can't have a state with three kinds of citizens: Arabs, not Jews, and Jews." A Russian Jew experiencing his son's death in combat -- and then not being able to bury that son in a Jewish cemetery -- is just one of the dangerous situations arising from this problem, Rotem said.

Before moving to Israel, FSU immigrants "don't even know what Judaism means," Rotem said. Therefore, Israel should be more understanding about their desire to convert -- about 75 percent of the immigrants in question in fact do have that desire, he said.

Asked if he is seeking to unite the conversion standards of all Jewish denominations with his conversion bill, Rotem responded "No. It's two different worlds." For example, many Orthodox Jews do not consider a Reform conversion to be a kosher conversion at all, he said.

Rotem said he told Conservative and Reform leaders that if his bill doesn't pass, the conversion situation will stay the same and they won't be in a better place. He said the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, Shlomo Amar, initally signed onto the bill but backed out under pressure from Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, a posek for the Haredi community.

Still, Rotem estimated that 75 percent of municipal rabbis, who would perform conversions under the bill, would comply with the legislation.

"I think that in the end of the day, I can work out the law without them," Rotem said of the Haredi community.

Rotem illustrated the need for his bill through a story of one of his visits to New York. Rotem walked into a practicallty empty synagogue at 8:30 on Shabbat morning, and when he sat down, a man told him to get up and move to the "guest row" -- even though nobody was sitting in Rotem's original row.

While Rotem said he was able to accept that situation, a potential convert put in the same spot would probably never walk into a synagogue again. That's why Israel needs to make sure FSU immigrants and all other potential converts feel wanted, and the bill pushes the conversion process in that direction, Rotem said.

"I will be able to wash my hands and say I did everything in my [ability] to solve the [conversion] problem," he said.