'The Mikveh Bill Harms the very Ethos of the State of Israel as a State for all Jews,’ IDI Researcher Yair Sheleg

In advance of Wednesday’s discussion in the Knesset Interior and Environment Committee on the Mikveh Bill, the head of IDI’s Religion and State program, Yair Sheleg, sent a policy paper to committee MKs asking them to vote against the bill. He said the bill unacceptably discriminates, something which is known to its sponsors and clear in the bill’s explanatory notes. The legislation was presented by its sponsors in reaction to a Supreme Court ruling that public ritual baths could be used by the wider public, including for non-Orthodox conversions.

July 13, 2016 --------- (Interviews available): In advance of Wednesday’s (July 13, 2016) discussion in the Knesset Interior and Environment Committee on the Mikveh Bill, the head of IDI’s Religion and State program, Yair Sheleg, sent a policy paper to committee MKs asking them to vote against the bill. He said the bill unacceptably discriminates, something which is known to its sponsors and clear in the bill’s explanatory notes. The legislation was presented by its sponsors in reaction to a Supreme Court ruling that public ritual baths could be used by the wider public, including for non-Orthodox conversions.

Sheleg noted that the entire purpose of the bill is to prevent Reform and Conservative Jews from using public mikvehs for ritual purposes, harming their ability to take part in spiritual immersion according to their personal belief systems.

“The bill harms the very ethos of the State of Israel as a state for all Jews and not just for one stream of Judaism or another,” Sheleg said.

In addition, Sheleg wrote in the policy paper that the law not only affects those who wish to use the mikveh to complete their non-Orthodox conversions, but also thousands of women who use the mikveh monthly and do not want to be subject to the supervision of an ultra-Orthodox mikveh attendants who is employed by the Chief Rabbinate.

Sheleg concludes that the Chief Rabbinate as a regulator does not have the right to enforce and supervise the way one uses public mikvehs, which are funded by tax-payers’ money.