12 Gaza atrocities; Israel employs Internet talkbackers to write pro-Israeli responses

Gaza atrocities; Israel employs Internet talkbackers to write pro-Israeli responses

(1) Breaking silence on Gaza abuses
(2) Israeli soldiers breaking the silence on Gaza atrocities
(3) Breaking the Silence: Phosphorous gas; destruction of hundreds of houses & mosques
(4) Hundreds of schools across Britain to become specialist centres of Holocaust education
(5) British University students ignorant of Basic History
(6) Israel employs Internet talkbackers to write pro-Israeli responses
(7) Ethiopian woman who had her Jewishness revoked was victim of hit & run attack by aspiring rabbinical judge
(8) Diaspora converts to Judaism can no longer immediately "Return" to Israel

(1) Breaking silence on Gaza abuses

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8151336.stm

Page last updated at 10:09 GMT, Wednesday, 15 July 2009 11:09 UK

A human rights group founded by Israeli veterans has collected what it says are damning testimonies from soldiers who took part in the offensive in January against Hamas fighters in Gaza. BBC correspondent Paul Wood looks at the anonymous claims presented by Breaking the Silence.

Standing by the ruins of his home in Gaza, Majdi Abed Rabbo explained how Israeli troops had used him as a human shield.

"The Israeli soldiers handcuffed me and pointed the gun at my neck," he said. "They controlled every step."

In this manner, Mr Abed Rabbo said, he was forced to go in ahead of Israeli soldiers as they cleared houses containing Palestinian gunmen.

This same incident was described by one of the Israeli soldiers who spoke to Breaking the Silence.Israel's military is now looking into Majdi Abed Rabbo's claims

"A Palestinian neighbour is brought in," he says. "It was procedure. The soldier places his gun barrel on the civilian's shoulder."

If true, that was a clear breach of the international laws of war - which say soldiers have a duty of care to non-combatants - and of Israeli law.

The Israeli Supreme Court outlawed the so-called "neighbour policy", of using Palestinians to shield advancing troops, in 2005. ...

(2) Israeli soldiers breaking the silence on Gaza atrocities

From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences) <sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu> Date:  15.07.2009 11:47 PM

Breaking silence on Gaza abuses

[Operation Cast-Lead testimonies can be read at this link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/14_07_09_breaking_the_silence.pdf]

Israel soldiers speak out on Gaza ,

BBC News, July 15, 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8149464.stm

A group of soldiers who took part in Israel's assault in Gaza say widespread abuses were committed against civilians under "permissive" rules of engagement.

The troops said they had been urged to fire on any building or person that seemed suspicious and said Palestinians were sometimes used as human shields.

Breaking the Silence, a campaign group made up of Israeli soldiers, gathered anonymous accounts from 26 soldiers.

Israel denies breaking the laws of war and dismissed the report as hearsay.

The report says testimonies show "the massive and unprecedented blow to the infrastructure and civilians" was a result of Israeli military policy, articulated by the rules of engagement, and encouraged by a belief "the reality of war requires them to shoot and not to ask questions".

One soldier is quoted saying: "The soldiers were made to understand that their lives were the most important, and that there was no way our soldiers would get killed for the sake of leaving civilians the benefit of the doubt."

Another says: "People were not instructed to shoot at everyone they see, but they were told that from a certain distance when they approach a house, no matter who it is - even an old woman - take them down."

Many of the testimonies are in line with claims made by human rights organisations that Israeli military action in Gaza was indiscriminate and disproportionate.

Amnesty International has accused both Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in charge in Gaza, of committing war crimes during the 22-day conflict which ended on 18 January.

Israeli officials insist troops went to great lengths to protect civilians, that Hamas endangered non-combatants by firing from civilian areas and that homes and buildings were destroyed only when there was a specific military need to do so.

'Ill discipline'

Other allegations in the testimonies of the 14 conscripts and 12 reserve soldiers include:

• Civilians were used as human shields, entering buildings ahead of soldiers

• Large swathes of homes and buildings were demolished as a precaution or to secure clear lines of fire for the future. ...

• Soldiers fired at water tanks because they were bored, at a time of severe water shortages for Gazans

• White phosphorus was used in civilian areas in a way some soldiers saw as gratuitous and reckless ...

(3) Breaking the Silence: Phosphorous gas; destruction of hundreds of houses & mosques

http://blogs.reuters.com/axismundi/2009/07/15/breaking-the-silence-takes-on-cast-lead/

“Breaking the Silence” Takes on Cast Lead

Posted by: Erika Solomon

After a round of reports and outside critiques of the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead were released two weeks ago, this week the criticism comes from within.

Israeli activist group “Breaking the Silence” has released a new set of testimonies from Israeli soldiers who took part in the Gaza offensive launched this winter.

You can find the entire set of testimonies translated on their website here <http://www.shovrimshtika.org/oferet/index_e.asp>.

As our correspondent Douglas Hamilton reports, the 30 testimonies collected say that the “Israeli army’s imperative was to minimise its own casualties to ensure Israeli public support for the operation.”

“If you’re not sure, kill. Fire power was insane. We went in and the booms were just mad,” says one testimony.

The testimomies were mostly anonymous because conscripted IDF soldiers are not supposed to speak to the media, making some of the stories hard to verify. ...

http://www.shovrimshtika.org/oferet/news_item_e.asp?id=1

A NEW BOOKLET BY "BREAKING THE SILENCE": 7/15/2009

AROUND 30 ISRAELI SOLDIERS TESTIFY ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES IN OPERATION CAST LEAD – A NEW BOOKLET BY "BREAKING THE SILENCE":

"You feel like an infantile little kid with a magnifying glass looking at ants, burning them."

Fifty-four testimonies of Israeli combat soldiers who participated in Operation Cast Lead reveal gaps between the reports given by the army following January’s events; the needless destruction of houses; firing phosphorous in populated areas and an atmosphere that encouraged shooting anywhere.

Half a year after Operation Cast Lead, the organization "Breaking the Silence" is announcing the release of a new booklet today (Wed. 7/15) that includes numerous testimonies by soldiers who participated in the operation. The testimonies expose significant gaps between the official stances of the Israeli military and events on the ground.

Among the 54 testimonies are stories revealing the use of "accepted practices," the destruction of hundreds of houses and mosques for no military purpose, the firing of phosphorous gas in the direction of populated areas, the killing of innocent victims with small arms, the destruction of private property, and most of all, a permissive atmosphere in the command structure that enabled soldiers to act without moral restrictions. The booklet compiles the testimonies of about 30 reserve and regular combat soldiers from various units that participated in the fighting. The testimonies demonstrate that the soldiers were not given directives stating the goal of the operation and, as one soldier testifies, "there was not much said about the issue of innocent civilians."

Many soldiers said that they fought without seeing "the enemy before their eyes." "You feel like an infantile little kid with a magnifying glass looking at ants, burning them," one of the soldiers testified that "a 20-year-old kid should not have to do these kinds of things to other people."

"The testimonies prove that the immoral way the war was carried out was due to the systems in place and not the individual soldier," said Mikhael Mankin from "Breaking the Silence." What was proven yesterday is that through the IDF the exception becomes the norm, and this requires a deep and reflective discussion. This is an urgent call to Israel's society and leadership to take a sober look at the foolishness of our policies." ==

(4) Hundreds of schools across Britain to become specialist centres of Holocaust education

From: IHR News <news@ihr.org> Date:  15.07.2009 05:21 PM

TES - TSL Education (Britain)

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6017262

300 schools to become Holocaust specialists

Published in The TES on 10 July, 2009 | By: Adi Bloom

£1.5m national programme will train a teacher from every secondary school in England

Hundreds of schools across the country are to become specialist centres of Holocaust education under a national scheme launched today.

The plan, which will be rolled out in 300 schools, forms part of the new £1.5 million Holocaust education programme run by London University’s Institute of Education.

As The TES revealed in November, the Holocaust Education Development Programme will provide extensive specialist training for 3,500 teachers - one from every secondary in England.

The first cohort of 150 will attend a one-day workshop in London at the beginning of November and a second workshop three weeks later. This will be followed by similar sessions in Liverpool. The training will then be introduced across the country over the next two years.

From these teachers, 300 will be able to follow up their training with a masters degree module in Holocaust education. Their schools will then become designated beacons of excellence in the subject.

The masters module, which will be delivered online, will be free to participating teachers. The cost will be covered jointly by the Pears Foundation and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. ...

The specialist teachers will co-ordinate Holocaust education in their schools. Often, the subject is discussed during history, English, RE and citizenship, but with little collaboration between staff. ...

www.hedpuk.org

(5) British University students ignorant of Basic History

The Telegraph (Britain)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5716088/University-students-ignorant-of-most-basic-history-facts-study-shows.html

University students 'ignorant' of most basic history facts, study shows

University students are ignorant about some of the most significant events in history because teaching trendy topics and generic skills has sidelined the topic in schools, a lecturer has warned.

Professor Derek Matthews was so surprised to discover that the students in his economics class at Cardiff University had such a poor grasp of British history that he decided to conduct an experiment.

He set five easy questions, which he believed 'every 18-year-old should know', and over three years 284 first-year university students took the test.

The results confirmed his fears. Just one in six knew that the Duke of Wellington led the British army in the Battle of Waterloo, while only 11.5 per cent could name a British Prime Minister from the 19th century.

On average, the students answered just over one in five questions correctly, and those with history A-level only got two in five right.

In a report on the 'death' of school history teaching, Prof Matthews said the levels of ignorance were an "outrage".

Noting that his students were in the top 15 per cent of their age group for educational success, he said: "This implies that, all things being equal, 85 per cent of my undergraduates' age group know even less than they do.

"In other words, we are looking at a whole generation that knows almost nothing about the history of their (or anyone else's) country.

"This is an outrage and should be intolerable," he added.

His findings were highlighted by Michael Gove, the Conservative schools spokesman, as he pledged to "completely overhaul" the curriculum to ensure pupils are given a proper grounding in science, maths, British history and literature.

The five history questions:
1 – Who was the general in charge of the British Army at the battle of Waterloo?
2 – Who was the reigning monarch when the Spanish Armada attacked Britain?
3 – What was Isambard Kingdom Brunel's profession?
4 – Name one Prime Minister of Britain in the 19th century?
5 – In what country was the Boer War of 1899-1902 fought?

Answers:
1 – Duke of Wellington
2 – Queen Elizabeth I
3 – An engineer
4 – There were 20 – including Disraeli, Gladstone and Peel
5 – South Africa

(6) Israel employs Internet talkbackers to write pro-Israeli responses

From: Kristoffer Larsson <kristoffer.larsson@sobernet.nu> Date: 15.07.2009 02:51 PM

The Foreign Ministry presents: talkbackers in the service of the State

http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=34520

The Foreign Ministry presents: talkbackers in the service of the State

By: Dora Kishinevski

5 July 2009

http://www.calcalist.co.il/internet/articles/0,7340,L-3319543,00.html

Translated for Occupation Magazine by George Malent

After they became an inseparable part of the service provided by public-relations companies and advertising agencies, paid Internet talkbackers are being mobilized in the service in the service of the State. The Foreign Ministry is in the process of setting up a team of students and demobilized soldiers who will work around the clock writing pro-Israeli responses on Internet websites all over the world, and on services like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. The Foreign Ministry’s department for the explanation of Israeli policy* is running the project, and it will be an integral part of it. The project is described in the government budget for 2009 as the “Internet fighting team” – a name that was given to it in order to distinguish it from the existing policy-explanation team, among other reasons, so that it can receive a separate budget. Even though the budget’s size has not yet been disclosed to the public, sources in the Foreign Ministry have told Calcalist that in will be about NIS 600 thousand in its first year, and it will be increased in the future. From the primary budget, about NIS 200 thousand will be invested in round-the-clock activity at the micro-blogging website Twitter, which was recently featured in the headlines for the services it provided to demonstrators during the recent disturbances in Iran.

“To all intents and purposes the Internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose,” Elan Shturman, deputy director of the policy-explanation department in the Foreign Ministry, and who is directly responsible for setting up the project, says in an interview with Calcalist. “Our policy-explanation achievements on the Internet today are impressive in comparison to the resources that have been invested so far, but the other side is also investing resources on the Internet. There is an endless array of pro-Palestinian websites, with huge budgets, rich with information and video clips that everyone can download and post on their websites. They are flooding the Internet with content from the Hamas news agency. It is a well-oiled machine. Our objective is to penetrate into the world in which these discussions are taking place, where reports and videos are published – the blogs, the social networks, the news websites of all sizes. We will introduce a pro-Israeli voice into those places. What is now going on in Iran is the proof of the need for such an operational branch,” adds Shturman. “It’s not like a group of friends is going to bring down the government with Twitter messages, but it does help to expand the struggle to vast dimensions.”

The missions: “monitoring” and “fostering discussions”

The Foreign Ministry intends to recruit youths who speak at least one foreign language and who are studying communications, political science or law, or alternatively those whose military background is in units that deal with information analysis. “It is a youthful language”, explains Shturman. “Older people do not know how to write blogs, how to act there, what the accepted norms are. The basic conditions are a high capacity for expression in English – we also have French- and Swedish-speakers – and familiarity with the online milieu. We are looking for people who are already writing blogs and circulating in Facebook”.

Members of the new unit will work at the Ministry (“They will punch a card,” says Shturman) and enjoy the full technical support of Tahila, the government’s ISP, which is responsible for computer infrastructure and Internet services for government departments. “Their missions will be defined along the lines of the government policies that they will be required to defend on the Internet. It could be the situation in Gaza, the situation in the north or whatever is decided. We will determine which international audiences we want to reach through the Internet and the strategy we will use to reach them, and the workers will implement that on in the field. Of course they will not distribute official communiqu?s; they will draft the conversations themselves. We will also activate an Internet-monitoring team – people who will follow blogs, the BBC website, the Arabic websites.”

According to Shturman the project will begin with a limited budget, but he has plans to expand the team and its missions: “the new centre will also be able to support Israel as an economic and commercial entity,” he says. “Alternative energy, for example, now interests the American public and Congress much more than the conflict in the Middle East. If through my team I can post in blogs dealing with alternative energy and push the names of Israeli companies there, I will strengthen Israel’s image as a developed state that contributes to the quality of the environment and to humanity, and along with that I may also manage to help an Israeli company get millions of dollars worth of contracts. The economic potential here is great, but for that we will require a large number of people. What is unique about the Internet is the fragmentation into different communities, every community deals with what interests it. To each of those communities you have to introduce material that is relevant to it.”

The inspiration: covert advertising on the Internet

The Foreign Ministry admits that the inspiration comes from none other than the much-reviled field of compensated commercial talkback: employees of companies and public-relations firms who post words of praise on the Internet for those who sent them there – the company that is their employer or their client. The professional responders normally identify themselves as chance readers of the article they are responding to or as “satisfied customers” of the company they are praising.

Will the responders who are hired for this also present themselves as “ordinary net-surfers”?

“Of course,” says Shturman. “Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the policy-explanation department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis. They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the Foreign Ministry developed.”

Test-firing in the Gaza War

According to Shturman, although it is only now that the project is receiving a budget and a special department in the Foreign Ministry, in practice the Ministry has been using its own responders since the last war in Gaza, when the Ministry recruited volunteer talkbackers. “During Operation Cast Lead we appealed to Jewish communities abroad and with their help we recruited a few thousand volunteers, who were joined by Israeli volunteers. We gave them background material and policy-explanation material, and we sent them to represent the Israeli point of view on news websites and in polls on the Internet,” says Shturman. “Our target audience then was the European Left, which was not friendly towards the policy of the government. For that reason we began to get involved in discussions on blogs in England, Spain and Germany, a very hostile environment.”

And how much change have you effected so far?

“It is hard to prove success in this kind of activity, but it is clear that we succeeded in bypassing the European television networks, which are very critical of Israel, and we have created direct dialogues with the public.”

What things have you done there exactly?

“For example, we sent someone to write in the website of a left-wing group in Spain. He wrote ‘it is not exactly as you say.’ Someone at the website replied to him, and we replied again, we gave arguments, pictures. Dialogue like that opens people’s eyes.”

Elon Gilad, a worker at the Foreign Ministry who coordinated the activities of the volunteer talkbackers during the war in Gaza and will coordinate the activities of the professional talkbackers in the new project, says that volunteering for talkback in defence of Israel started spontaneously: “Many times people contacted us and asked how they could help to explain Israeli policy. They mainly do it at times like the Gaza operation. People just asked for information, and afterwards we saw that the information was distributed all over the Internet. The Ministry of Absorption also started a project at that time, and they transferred to us hundreds of volunteers who speak foreign languages and who will help to spread the information. That project too mainly spreads information on the Internet.”

“You can’t win”

While most of the net-surfers were recruited through websites like giyus.org, which was officially activated by a Jewish lobby, in some cases is it was the Foreign Ministry that took the initiative to contact the surfers and asked them to post talkbacks sympathetic to the State and the government [of Israel] on the Internet and to help recruit volunteers. That’s how Michal Carmi, an active blogger and associate general manager at the high-tech placement company Tripletec, was recruited to the online policy-explanation team.

“During Operation Cast Lead the Foreign Ministry wrote to me and other bloggers and asked us to make our opinions known on the international stage as well,” Carmi tells Calcalist. “They sent us pages with ‘taking points’ and a great many video clips. I focussed my energies on Facebook, and here and there I wrote responses on blogs where words like ‘Holocaust’ and ‘murder’ were used in connection with Israel’s Gaza action. I had some very hard conversations there. Several times the Foreign Ministry also recommended that we access specific blogs and get involved in the discussions that were taking place there.”

And does it work? Does it have any effect?

“I am not sure that that strategy was correct. The Ministry did excellent work, they sent us a flood of accurate information, but it focussed on Israeli suffering and the threat of the missiles. But the view of the Europeans is one-dimensional. Israeli suffering does not seem relevant to them compared to Palestinian suffering.”

“You can never win in this struggle. All you can do is be there and express your position,” is how Gilad sums up the effectiveness so far, as well as his expectations of the operation when it begins to receive a government budget.

* “department for the explanation of Israeli policy” is a translation of only two words in the original Hebrew text: “mahleqet ha-hasbara” – literally, “the department of explanation”. Israeli readers require no elaboration. Henceforth in this article, “hasbara” will be translated as “policy-explanation”. It may also be translated as “public diplomacy” or “propaganda” – trans

(7) Ethiopian woman who had her Jewishness revoked was victim of hit & run attack by aspiring rabbinical judge

 Jul 7, 2009 1:18 | Updated Jul 7, 2009 23:37
Rabbi's wrath
By MATTHEW WAGNER

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443737410&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

The wrath of the rabbis seems to be chasing N., an Ethiopian immigrant who converted to Judaism in 2003.

In recent weeks N. received a letter from the State Conversion Authority, which operates under the aegis of the Chief Rabbinate, informing her that her conversion and Jewish status had been revoked.

At the end of June, the Jerusalem District Court handed down what the Ethiopian community considers to be a disappointingly light sentence to a young, well-connected rabbi who ran down N. with his car in a hit and run attack in January 2006.

The letter announcing the annulment of N.'s conversion was publicized by MK Shlomo Molla (Kadima), who said he was contacted by the Ethiopian woman.

Molla said the reason for the annulment was N's "un-Orthodox lifestyle," and that N. insisted on remaining anonymous and refused to speak to the press.

Sources within the Conversion Authority, who were not familiar with the details of N.'s case, said a conversion is annulled after the fact only when information that was not known by the rabbinical conversion court at the time of the conversion is received.

The most common reason for annulling a conversion, said the source, is the discovery, after cross-referencing data supplied by Interior Ministry with information from the Conversion Authority, that the convert was married to a non-Jew at the time of the conversion.

"There is no way that any conversion court would convert someone if the judges knew that the prospective convert was married to a gentile," said a conversion court judge who works with Ethiopian converts.

"Therefore, if it turns out later that this is the case, we say that there never was a conversion to begin with."

The same Ethiopian woman who had her Jewishness revoked, was the victim of a hit and run attack perpetrated by a yeshiva student aspiring to become a rabbinical judge.

At the time, N. was working as a cashier in a parking lot in Jerusalem. The haredi driver attempted to leave the parking lot without paying. N. blocked the car's exit with her body. But the driver proceeded, lifting the woman onto the hood of the car and carrying her 15 meters before knocking her to the ground.

The woman lost consciousness from the impact and sustained head injuries.

The driver attempted to deny the incident until he was confronted with video from a security camera installed at the scene of the hit and run.

The yeshiva student, who brought to court recommendations from Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Shas spiritual mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, asked Jerusalem District Court Judge Moshe Drori to be lenient, claiming that an excessively stringent ruling that said his offense constituted moral turpitude would block him from being appointed as a judge in the rabbinical courts, which is a public office.

In a controversial decision which is being appealed to the Supreme Court by the state prosecution and might have ruined Drori's chances of getting himself appointed to the High Court of Justice, Drori ruled that since the young driver's apology had been accepted by the Ethiopian woman, there was no need to determine that the driver's offense constituted moral turpitude.

Much of the 321-page decision was devoted to arguing for the importance of implementing Halacha - including laws governing the process of repentance - in the civil court system.

Drori argued that by sincerely apologizing and paying NIS 10,000 in damages to N., the driver had repented his sin. Drori also obligated the haredi man, a father of three, to perform 150 hours of public service that did not interfere with his teaching at a yeshiva.

As a result of the ruling, the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews strongly lobbied against Drori's candidacy as a Supreme Court justice.

"A judge who appears to be racially biased needs to be double-checked before he is even considered as a candidate to be a justice on the Supreme Court," said Avi Masfin, spokesman for the association.

Masfin said the Ethiopian community was particularly angered by a quote from Drori's decision in which he wrote, "At first [N.] was hesitant, held back by the feeling that she was treated like a dog by the defendant and was therefore not worthy of standing before the court.

"But when she saw that the judge listened to her respectfully, the lawyers took her seriously and the defendant was repentant, there was a real improvement in her self-image."

Molla did not rule out the possibility that there was a connection between the court battle against the young rabbi and the annulment of N.'s conversion. "Perhaps someone in the Rabbinate is angry with N. and wants revenge," the MK said.

(8) Diaspora converts to Judaism can no longer immediately "Return" to Israel

New rules have Diaspora converts waiting on Israel

By Dina Kraft · July 7, 2009

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/07/07/1006367/new-rules-have-diaspora-converts-waiting-on-israel

TEL AVIV (JTA) -- M., a 35-year-old American woman who has been living an Orthodox lifestyle for years, thought she was doing everything right.

She studied Judaism in Los Angeles, had her conversion approved there and moved to Israel to officially start her life as a Jew.

But then, she says, the Israeli Interior Ministry changed the rules on her.

Five months after arriving here, M. is still awaiting Israeli citizenship despite being eligible under the Law of Return, which guarantees Jews worldwide the right to Israeli citizenship.

"The Interior Ministry has so many rules, and they keep changing," said M., who asked not to be identified by name for fear it would jeopardize her bid for Israeli citizenship. "Everyone you speak to there gives a different story for what you need. "It seems people like me are kept deliberately in the dark."

M., a professor of Chinese literature who is married to an Israeli, is one of a growing number of recent converts to Judaism from the Diaspora running into problems in Israel due to a new set of protocols at the Interior Ministry.

Critics say the new rules are too stringent and are disenfranchising Diaspora Jewish communities that approve the conversions, ultimately making it harder than ever for converts from the Diaspora to immigrate to Israel. Supporters say the new rules are meant to separate genuine converts from those interested in little more than a quick path to Israeli citizenship.

The new regulations are the latest chapter in the long-running battle over who is a Jew -- a question that repeatedly has strained Diaspora-Israel relations.

According to the new regulations -- they have not been approved officially but already are being employed, according to advocates who deal with converts -- converts to Judaism from the Diaspora must remain for at least nine months before and after their conversions in the community where they converted before they can immigrate to Israel.

The rules also mandate 350 hours of classes and hands-on practice for converts in the Diaspora (modeled on standards set in Israel for its official conversion institute) and bar any convert who has a non-Jewish relative living in Israel and anyone whose stay in Israel was previously deemed illegal for any period of time.

The rules, proposed by the previous interior minister, Meir Sheetrit, are awaiting approval by the attorney general's office and are being reviewed by the Justice Ministry.

Rabbi Uri Maklev, a Knesset member from the United Torah Judaism party, said through an aide that the rules are meant to protect Israel from those who seek to wrongfully enter as inauthentic Jews.

"We want to safeguard the quality of the Judaism," Maklev said. "There may be many who would like to join, but there are certain standards that need to be maintained and that seems to be the intention of these criteria. Even if one person gets into the country under false pretenses that is a problem, as it can affect generations down the line."

Critics say the regulations constitute an attempt to wrest control over conversions away from rabbinic authorities in the Diaspora. ...

(JTA staff writer Ben Harris contributed to this report from New York.)