Editing Conversion to Judaism (section)

===1980s: proposed Israeli joint ''beth din''===
In the 1980s Modern Orthodox Rabbi [[Norman Lamm]], Rosh Yeshiva of [[Yeshiva University]], along with other American and Israeli Orthodox rabbis, worked with Conservative and Reform rabbis to come up with solution to the "Who is a Jew?" issue. In 1989 and 1990 Israeli Prime Minister [[Yitzhak Shamir]] spearheaded an effort to find a way to resolve the impasse.{{Citation needed|date=May 2009}}

A plan was developed by Israeli Cabinet Secretary [[Elyakim Rubenstein]], who negotiated secretly for many months with rabbis from Conservative, Reform and Orthodox Judaism, including faculty at Yeshiva University, with Lamm as ''Rosh Yeshiva''. They were planning to create a joint panel that interviewed people who were converting to Judaism and considering making ''aliyah'' (moving to the State of Israel), and would refer them to a beth din that would convert the candidate following traditional halakha. All negotiating parties came to agreement:{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}}
# Conversions must be carried out according to halakha
# the ''beth din'' (rabbinic court) overseeing the conversion would be Orthodox, perhaps appointed by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and
# there would be three-way dialogue throughout the process.

Many Reform rabbis took offense at the notion that the ''beth din'' must be strictly halakhic and Orthodox, but they acquiesced. However, when word about this project became public, a number of leading haredi rabbis issued a statement denouncing the project, condemning it as a "travesty of halakha". Rabbi Moshe Sherer, Chairman of Agudath Israel World Organization, stated that "Yes we played a role in putting an end to that farce, and I'm proud we did." Norman Lamm condemned this interference by Sherer, stating that this was "the most damaging thing that he [Sherer] ever did in his forty year career."<ref name="Landau">{{Cite book|last=Landau|first=David|title=Piety & Power|publisher=Hill & Wang|year=1993|page=320}}</ref>

Rabbi Lamm wanted this to be only the beginning of a solution to Jewish disunity. He stated that had this unified conversion plan not been destroyed, he wanted to extend this program to the area of halakhic Jewish divorces, thus ending the problem of ''mamzerut''.<ref name="Landau" />