Israeli religious leaders criticise supreme court ruling on Jewish conversions

Israeli religious leaders, including key election allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, criticised Tuesday a supreme court decision ending an Orthodox monopoly on Jewish conversions.

Late Monday, the court ruled that people whose conversion to Judaism in Israel was overseen by a reform or conservative rabbi must be considered Jewish and therefore entitled to Israeli citizenship.

Previously, the Jewish state only recognised conservative and reform conversions that took place outside Israel.

Within the country, the stricter Orthodox movements had to sanction conversions for them to be considered legitimate.

While it was not immediately clear how many people the ruling would affect, the decision has been perceived as a challenge to the Orthodox movement's control over determining who is a Jew.

"Someone converted by the reform (movement) and the like are not Jews and no supreme court decision will change that fact," Israel's Chief Rabbi David Lau said in a statement.

Three weeks ahead of elections, backlash from stricter Jewish groups could create political complications for Netanyahu, who has no clear path to re-election without the ironclad support of religious parties.

A lawmaker from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Yoav Ben Tzur, said Tuesday that party leader and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri had submitted a bill to parliament that would effectively overturn the court's decision.

The bill seeks to legally affirm that only institutions acting on behalf of Israel's Orthodox rabbinate could conduct conversions, Ben Tzur told Army Radio.