“I want to share with you something that happened here, in this very building, a short while ago. Yad L’Achim brought six souls back to Judaism.”
With this dramatic announcement, Rabbi Moshe Bitton, the secretary general of the Jerusalem Rabbinical Courts, began his remarks to a special session this week in Jerusalem for court administrators and senior officials of the Interior, Religious Affairs and Justice ministries.
Rabbi Bitton praised Yad L’Achim’s unstinting efforts in bringing Jewish girls back to Judaism, and stressed that such efforts are a top priority of the Jerusalem Rabbinical Courts. Shortly before the start of the meeting, the Rabbinical Court issued documents to six women who had converted to Islam and married Arabs certifying that they had reaffirmed their commitment to Judaism and that their status as Jews had been restored.
“I must stress that whenever Yad L’Achim approaches us with women survivors [of Arab villages] we give the matter top priority, even pushing off other cases, because there is nothing as important as bringing a lost son or daughter back to their Father in Heaven.”
Rabbi Bitton’s words stirred emotions in the meeting room, especially in the context of the month of Elul, when the topic of “return” tops the Jewish world’s agenda.
Preceding Rabbi Bitton was Mrs. Sara Spindler, of Yad L’Achim’s counter-assimilation department, who spoke of the increase in the number of female Jewish converts to Islam who are being brought by Yad L’Achim to the Rabbinical Courts to have their status as Jews restored.
She presented up-to-date figures on the scope of assimilation in Israel and Yad L’Achim’s activities aimed at prevention and rescue in this critical area.
She noted that Yad L’Achim receives an average of 10 new cases a day of assimilation involving Jewish girls. In the course of her lecture, she detailed Yad L’Achim’s proposals for how to streamline the Rabbinical Courts’ handling of girls seeking to return to Judaism and make it more efficient.
Yad L’Achim praised the dedication of the Rabbinical Courts and their staffers who share Yad L’Achim’s goal and vision, working day and night to help bring Jewish girls back to the Jewish people, offering a maximum of individual attention to each young woman.
During these holy time of the year, when teshuva-returning is on everyone’s minds, this exciting news is certainly a prime example of return.
{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}
