The new agreement between the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel concerning conversion is a welcome and important development. It is unfortunate that this agreement was overshadowed by a small but vocal group of dissenters.

I am a member of the committee of the RCA that drafted this agreement. The committee consists of 10 members, including the directors of the conversion programs of the batei din, the Jewish courts, of Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington and the New York area, as well as present and past leadership of the RCA and myself as director at the time of the Toronto Beis Din (a position now occupied by Rabbi Asher Vale).

I would like to outline why I feel the agreement is an important step.

Telling a person who views themselves as Jewish that we have doubts about their Jewish status is tragic and painful. During my 10 years as director of the Toronto beit din, which handled all Orthodox conversions in Toronto, I went through many boxes of tissues in my office. “How many people cried in my office today,” I would think to myself. I would dread the meetings when I knew what was going to transpire, and I would often choke back tears myself.

Conversion is a spiritual, emotional, beautiful, personal – and legal – process. The convert goes through a process of spiritual growth, growing into Jewish behaviours and Jewish belief to the point where they are prepared to accept all the mitzvahs of the Torah. This is a deep life transformation. Upon conversion, the new Jew accepts to be a part of the Jewish people and of Jewish history, as well as to accept Jewish belief and to live a life of complete observance of Jewish law.

The reality of the modern world created chaos in the area of conversion. Although the RCA is a national organization, there is no Sanhedrin, no organizing central body of conversions. Over the past 75 years, each rabbi undertook conversions for their congregants. And often, due to the great erosion of observance in North America, it became very difficult for an Orthodox rabbi to require a convert to keep Shabbat when no one in the congregation except the rabbi kept Shabbat.

And so many rabbis felt that they had to stretch the limits of the Halachah in order to preserve some semblance of attachment to Jewish life, hoping that maybe in the future the children of this family will become fine, connected Jews. So in order to save David Goldberg when he came to see the rabbi with his fiancé, Christine, the conversion was done without requiring the full acceptance of the mitzvot. And that is not even mentioning the pressure a rabbi would feel from the president or the big giver when their children were dating non-Jews.

This is the reality of North American Jewry. But it created chaos. Rabbi Cohen doesn’t require a convert to keep Shabbat, but Rabbi Levine does. And Rabbi Levine rejects Christine’s conversion if it was done by Rabbi Cohen.

The range of standards in any area brings chaos – or at least bruised feelings and feelings of rejection. Doctors who move here to Canada from foreign countries face the same thing – differing standards inevitably bring rejection.

So that is the choice: do you want to perpetuate the freedom of the individual rabbi to set the standards himself, with the inevitable rejection by others, or do you want to ensure that after all that a convert goes through that they will be accepted by all others as Jewish?

The second path was chosen, and as a result, approximately 25 years ago an effort was begun at the RCA to set standards for conversions done by its member rabbis. From the beginning, the standards required that the convert live a fully observant life, including keeping kosher, keeping Shabbat and making blessings over food. In Toronto, the Orthodox rabbis at that time decided to centralize all conversions into one beit din, one body, in order to have one standard for all Orthodox conversions – and save the tissues and the pain of rejection that inevitably comes with differing standards.

However, even with the drive by the RCA to have uniform conversion standards, individual rabbis continued to do conversions according to their own standards. I must add as an aside that even though I have always personally demanded full observance of converts, I do not impugn the sincerity or competence of other rabbis. There is a rationale in trying to reach out and keep as many Jews connected as we can – and some great halachic authorities have taken this view.

However, that is not the view of the greatest authorities of our day, nor has it ever been the view of the majority of authorities. So the rabbis who were more lenient may very well have been sincere, but I feel, as has the RCA for 25 years, that this leniency does not serve the Jewish people well – and it certainly does not serve the new Jews, the converts, well.

And that brings us to today. A few years ago, the RCA reorganized its central beit din, the Beth Din of America. Rabbi Michael Broyde, a professor of law at Emory University, created a professional court of the highest order to deal with divorces, monetary disputes and conversions.

Many requests for definitive rulings on conversions done by RCA members came to the Beth Din of America – both from north American rabbis and from the Chief Rabbinate in Israel. The director, Rabbi Yona Reiss, a Yale University law graduate, and others in the beit din began to speak of helping to create a system that would allow conversions to be done and not have to be scrutinized afterward for their acceptability. The guidelines for conversions that had been previously distributed were not being universally followed.

I personally told Rabbi Reiss a number of years ago that I felt the Toronto model of a central beit din that is accepted by all was a model to copy throughout North America. So, when the committee on conversion standards announced its interest in creating such a system, I became a member of the committee.

The new process is now in effect. There are regional batei din in all the major metropolitan areas in North America. People outside those cities who want to convert will work with their local rabbi in consultation with the regional beit din, and when the conversion is done, it will be done at the regional beit din. The standards will be completely transparent, the judges will be well-known rabbis and the documentation will be easily recognizable as part of this system.

I think this is good for the Jews, and especially for the new Jews. This move has been incorrectly identified as a demand by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. That is simply not true. It has also been called a shift to the right. But these standards have been the standards of record for 25 years – there is no shifting.

It does remove the holy work of performing conversions from local rabbis themselves, but I think co-operation in the system for the greater good is more important than maintaining individual autonomy. And it is not intended to cast aspersions on any previous conversions – these conversions can continue to be accepted based on their merits.

The motivation of this entire process is to help people in the process of conversion. We want to help. We want to be available to people in this journey. Our Orthodox community – the one I am most familiar with –  has gained immensely from the wonderful converts in our midst. We are a better community because of their presence. There is no desire to build barriers to welcoming new Jews. This entire process is to help people who want to convert, and for that conversion to bring them peace of mind and acceptance.

Rabbi Reuven Tradburks is the spiritual leader of Kehillat Shaarei Torah in Toronto.