Interesting Psak: Conversion Fraud

Kipa brings an interesting psak of the Higher Conversion Court regarding conversion fraud.

We have all heard the stories, at least the ones that made the news, in recent years where a beis din in Israel, generally the beis din of the Chief Rabbinate, invalidated a conversion retroactively claiming the convert, or potential convert, had defrauded the conversion court and had never really intended to keep the Torah and mitzvos or never believed and therefore the original conversion did not take effect.

A couple of Ethiopian couples, of the Falash Mura tribe, claimed to be part of the Beta Israel community and using the applied Law of Return moved to Israel where they then converted as per the requirements of the Chief Rabbinate conversion court.

The problem is they did this under false identities.

So they converted, and maybe (or maybe not) were even honest in their conversion about their desire to connect with the Jewish people, but the entire premise the operation was based on was false. They did not qualify to come to Israel under the Law of Return, they were not descendants of Beta Israel members, they were not who they said they were. 

the beis din, upon discovering the fraud, decided to revoke the conversion because they had not actually qualified under the Law of Return and should not have qualified to even appear before the beis din to convert. Additionally, they clearly were not being honest, which is a requirement of conversion. They had also presented themselves as brothers and sisters but continued living with each other after conversion and did not marry (I am not clear how they came presenting themselves as couple but also as brothers and sisters but living as married people). The beis din revoked the conversions of all four people based on their fraud.

The four de-converts then appealed to the Beis Din Hagadol requesting that the original conversion be reaffirmed, despite the fraud. After much deliberation, the dayanim Rav Eliezer Igra, Rav Shlomo Shapira and Rav Tzvi Ben Yaakov decided to accept their appeal and declare their conversion valid and they as halachic Jews, with no ability to invalidate their conversion.

The dayanim stated they they are not taking lightly the fraud employed by the converts and recommended the State take action against them with even serious criminal sanctions for defrauding the State in use of the Law of Return and also in defrauding the beis din, and to that end instructed the beis din to inform the police and the prosecutor's office as to what happened and to open an investigation.

I wonder if this means even clear fraud cannot invalidate a conversion - once done, it is done and is final - or if the beis din hagadol determined that while they used fraud to qualify as potential converts the conversion itself was honest and they really intended to be Jews. This distinction would make a difference moving forward...

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