Requesting to convert to Judaism. Illustrative Photo: A scene from ‘Arrested Development,’ wikia.

JNS.org – About half of the annual requests in Israel for conversion to Judaism were received from Palestinians, foreign workers, illegal infiltrators, and illegal immigrants, the Israeli Knesset State Control Committee revealed.

There were a total of 200 such conversion cases that were rejected over the past year by the Knesset Exceptions Committee, which must give its approval in order for anyone’s Jewish conversion process to begin in Israel.

Israeli law states that a non-Israeli citizen who is ineligible for “right of return” can begin the conversion process only after receiving permission from the Exceptions Committee, which often involves a drawn-out bureaucratic process.

“The mixture of halachic (Jewish legal) and government immigration policy concerns is not healthy. The Exceptions Committee must transfer its authority to the Interior Ministry, and instead just provide an estimate of the [conversion] candidate’s honesty,” said the head of the State Control Committee, Member of Knesset Karin Elharar (Yesh Atid).