Orthodox converts in Israel – fully recognized by the Chief Rabbinate – are living in legal and social limbo, denied citizenship, as they face systemic bureaucracy and discrimination at the Interior Ministry, despite a lifetime of religious observance.
Although they meet halachic requirements and have received the rabbinate’s approval, converts report being subjected to prolonged delays, contradictory demands, and scrutiny of their religious observance by top-ranking officials. This bureaucratic wall leaves them unable to work legally, access healthcare, or secure basic rights.
Legal advocates and organizations for converts, such as Ohev Ger, describe the Interior Ministry’s actions as unjust, unlawful, and increasingly widespread. They say that hundreds – possibly thousands – of Orthodox converts living in Israel have been denied citizenship, while others have been forced to leave the country altogether.
A prime example of this injustice is the story of Miryam Bellina, an Orthodox convert from Austria. Bellina’s conversion was completed in Vienna in 2022 under a recognized beit din (rabbinical court) and accepted by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. She later married an Israeli man in Jerusalem through the rabbinate and subsequently divorced, also under the rabbinate’s supervision.
Bellina has two children from a previous marriage, who converted with her. They lived for 14 months in the Jewish community in Vienna, but she had to return to her hometown to care for her mother, who was critically ill with lung cancer. During this time, Bellina diligently kept the laws of Shabbat and kashrut.
After Hamas’s October 7, 2023, mega-atrocities in Israel, Bellina’s children experienced a significant increase in antisemitism in their Austrian public schools. Unwilling to enroll them for another year there, she decided to make aliyah.
Bellina had opened a file with the Jewish Agency in Austria in early 2023, but the process had been delayed, and she decided to complete it in Israel. The agency told her they would support her and that only her aliyah interview was missing.
So Bellina took her children and arrived here in October 2024 with all her life savings and the required documentation.
But during her aliyah interview at the Interior Ministry in December 2024, she was informed that her file was not even in the system. It emerged that the Jewish Agency had not transferred her file to the ministry.
Her case was rerouted to Mateh, a special headquarters unit handling converts, resulting in months of further delays and additional documentation requirements.
At one point, Bellina was told she must live for another year in a Jewish community to prove her religious observance, despite the fact that her conversion and marriage were already recognized by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.
“Why do I have to keep proving myself? Am I a second-class Jew?” she said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.
Bellina and her children remained in Israel on tourist visas, without health insurance or access to aliyah benefits. When their apartment in Zichron Ya’acov flooded twice, they were evicted by their landlord, forcing them to move repeatedly.
This instability created ripple effects, as her children could no longer attend school because the Interior Ministry would not register their new address until she had officially made aliyah.
Moving apartments frequently also prevented her from fulfilling the ministry’s requirement to remain in one community for a year to “prove” her Jewishness.
Bellina is a social worker but cannot legally work in her profession here. She has been forced to take three jobs, including cleaning, to provide for her family. Yet, because her children have not been registered in a school, she often has to stay home with them.
Throughout her ordeal, she has battled to receive support. “Who gives an apartment to a single mother, without a work permit, on a tourist visa, alone in the country? No one. No health insurance. Nothing. No help from anyone,” she said in an interview.
In May 2025, however, there appeared to be progress. She testified along with other converts before the Knesset’s Aliyah and Absorption Committee, chaired by MK Gilad Kariv. Despite this, nothing has changed, and the Interior Ministry official handling her file still has not accepted her case.
“Everyone hoped that this [testimony] would be the trigger and would change something, but nothing has happened since then,” she said.
In June 2025, Bellina did get an A/5 visa, but by then it was already too late to register her children in school, and Bituah Leumi could not offer the family any benefits, as they had not been in Israel for 24 months.
Financially depleted and emotionally exhausted, Bellina now has no choice but to return to Austria. She maintains, however, that this move is temporary and that she has not given up on making aliyah. She loves Israel, feels it is the only safe place for her children, and remains determined to fight the injustice.
“There are a lot of cases like mine – people who are treated really unfairly by the Interior Ministry, not even by the rabbinate,” she said.
“It’s really about the injustice. It’s a law that you can’t make decisions about [someone’s] aliyah depending on their religious observance, but they do it.
“Only media attention brings them to their knees,” she added.
A power game
Bellina’s experience is just one example of many. She shared a case of a friend – an Orthodox convert from Spain, who was married to an Israeli citizen for two years through the rabbinate.
Despite this, the husband was told he needed to undergo a paternity test to prove his paternity or otherwise pay NIS 4,000 in order to register their newborn child as an Israeli citizen.
“It is a power game at the Interior Ministry, because they know with converts, they can do it because they have no support system,” said Bellina.
Although Bellina received support from friends and nonprofit organizations such as Ohev Ger, most organizations only assist olim after their aliyah. Converts stuck in pre-aliyah limbo, without any aliyah benefits, often fall outside these frameworks.
“They won’t do anything unless you have a teudat oleh. Without an Israeli identity card, you can’t register for discounts or anything,” she added.
Leah Aharoni, director of Our People, an organization that assists olim, is currently advocating for more than 40 Orthodox converts facing similar barriers.
The Israel Chief Rabbinate has frequently faced severe criticism for delays in issuing conversion certificates and for the lengthy duration of its conversion process.
However, Aharoni noted that the rabbinate routinely recognizes these conversions and, in some cases, actively vouches for converts whose aliyah applications are delayed or rejected.
“This is not an issue with the rabbinate,” she stressed.
Many cases highlight blatant discrimination. The Interior Ministry often refuses to handle cases deemed too complex, rejects them outright, or even loses the documents, Aharoni maintained.
She cited several cases in which her organization successfully pressured the Interior Ministry to grant citizenship, such as the case of a pregnant woman with eight children who was initially denied citizenship.
In another case, however, a young man from Moscow waited for years to make aliyah but died before receiving approval. In at least one case, Aharoni’s organization took the ministry to court and won. However, she noted that the cost of litigation is unsustainable.
One landmark case involved Elisheva Stross and Avigail Amiel, two sisters from Indonesia, who converted through the Orthodox rabbinical court in Australia in 2016 under Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, an Israeli state-appointed rabbinical judge.
Despite the rabbinate’s recognition, with her marriage conducted under the rabbinate’s auspices, Stross’s aliyah application was rejected in 2019 due to what the Interior Ministry called “a lack of policy” for her circumstances.
Stross was caught in bureaucratic limbo: religious authorities recognized her as Jewish, but civil officials treated her as an outsider.
In an effort to break the stalemate, she underwent a giur lechumra (stringent conversion) to obtain a teudat chumra, a document meant to remove any doubt about her status. Even this failed, as Interior Ministry officials identified her from previously rejected applications and further delayed her case.
“Holding an Indonesian passport, converting in Australia, then eventually returning to the predominantly Muslim country before making aliyah, was too complicated for them. The official reason they gave me for the rejection was that there was no policy in place for my specific situation,” she told the Post.
Only after direct intervention by then-Ashkenazi chief rabbi David Lau (see here), who was contacted by Ullman, was Stross’s status approved. Lau challenged the ministry, arguing that it has no authority to reject a conversion recognized by the Chief Rabbinate. Stross finally received Israeli citizenship in January 2021.
But her case remains the exception. Thousands of Orthodox converts are still left in limbo. Interior Ministry officials continue to question the “genuineness” of conversions and levels of religious observance – despite having no religious authority – leaving converts unable to work, access healthcare, or plan their futures.
Toward systemic change
The Our People organization has met with top Interior Ministry officials to try and change policy, but so far, nothing has changed.
Aharoni is now planning to take legal action against the ministry in an effort to solve this problem and demand that the ministry respect the rabbinate’s decisions and recognize these converts.
They are also running a fundraising campaign to cover legal fees and provide financial support to converts through the organization’s Olim Help Center.
Their campaign page states: “We can no longer wait for one-off miracles. We need systemic change.”
Converting to Judaism is already challenging. Being denied acceptance into the Jewish community in Israel makes it even harder.
As Bellina puts it: “People don’t understand it. Converting is like going through a rebirth. It’s a small trauma to leave everything behind. Your [birth] family is not your family anymore. They don’t understand that. You have to create a whole new identity.”
A spokesperson for the Jewish Agency, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Post that the agency does not make final aliyah approval decisions and that any bureaucratic delays are the responsibility of the Interior Ministry.
In response to why the Interior Ministry rejects the aliyah applications of recognized converts, a spokesperson for the ministry's Population and Immigration Authority told the Post:
"There is a difference between the act of registering a marriage based on halachic considerations and the definition of a Jew for the purposes of the Law of Return, because these are two different laws with different criteria. A marriage certificate is a 'public document' that indicates a marriage and on the basis of which one is registered in the Population Registry as married. The certificate is valid for this registration only. However, the certificate does not constitute proof for the purpose of religion and nationality details and, therefore, is not evidence for checking eligibility for return."