Recent events have forced us as a community to take a hard look at the practice of having female converts immerse themselves in a mikveh before a rabbinical court of three men. In the wake of news that a Washington rabbi, Barry Freundel, allegedly spied on women as they were engaging in this ritual, others have described their own troubling and, at times, traumatic experiences at the mikveh.
It is the moment to ask some fundamental questions about how we treat converts. Some are questions of Jewish Law, such as whether it still makes sense for women to immerse themselves in the presence of a beit din, or rabbinical court. But there are other bigger issues to consider about how this ritual is conducted.
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