Conversion institute opens amid doubts

Leaders of the liberal streams said the institute -- originally devised as a compromise to end a two-year controversy over whether conversions they perform in Israel should be recognized by the state -- does not solve any problems because the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate has not officially agreed to recognize the institute's graduates.

Tsila Kraskin, executive coordinator of the institute for the Jewish Agency, said that Israel's chief rabbis, while they have not explicitly endorsed the institute, hinted at a recent meeting that Orthodox rabbinical courts would consider graduates of the new institute eligible for conversions.

"They said if the institute's graduates will meet their criteria, they will have no problem."

But Rabbi Uri Regev, director of the Reform movement's Religious Action Center in Israel, called the rabbis' statement a bluff.