Is It True that Young Israel Discriminates Against Converts?

hat tip: ajg


There's trouble brewing in the Young Israel synagogue organization according to this The Jewish Week article.  The article focuses on pressure by the official Young Israel leadership to expel its Syracuse synagogue,  Shaarei Torah Orthodox Congregation of Syracuse, allegedly because it has a female president.


The article discusses how the Young Israel Movement has moved religiously and politically to the "Right," which is at odds with some member congregations. 

Several of those leaders interviewed cited in particular an August 2007 letter that included the following in which the organization said there were a series of new regulations:


* Synagogue presidents must be male and Jewish from birth; (emphasis mine)
and more regulations

That's outrageous and contravenes Jewish Law.  One is never supposed to remind a convert that he/she is a convert.  Once someone converts they are Jewish and that's it.  Davka, about their forbidding women from the position as synagogue president, I won't get involved, because I see it as cultural not halachic.  Also, I am not a member of such a shul, nor do I live in the United States.  But I'm shocked by their unabashed discrimination against converts.  It reminds me of the American law which requires all U.S. Presidents to have been born in the United States. 

What's next for Young Israel?  No "BT's*" in high office? 

*Baalei teshuva, those who accepted Torah Judaism, later, not raised in it.