Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Conservative Rabbis Call On Israel To Admit Kenyan Convert

(JTA) — Conservative rabbis have called on Israel to allow a Kenyan convert to study at its yeshiva in Jerusalem.

A visa application submitted by Yehudah Kimani last week was rejected by the country’s Interior Ministry. It is the second time that Kimani has been denied entrance to the country.

“Kimani is a Jew, converted to our religion by Conservative rabbis, and is eligible to become a citizen of Israel according to the country’s own Law of Return,” the Rabbinical Assembly said in a statement issued Monday.

Kimani is a member of the Abayudaya community of converts from Uganda. It is recognized as a Jewish community by the Jewish Agency for Israel, but not by the Interior Ministry.

Kimani arrived in Israel in December with a valid tourist visa to study in a three-month program at the Conservative movement’s yeshiva in Jerusalem. He was detained for questioning, held overnight and put on a plane back to Kenya.

His new request was for a student visa in order to study in a four-month program at the Conservative yeshiva.

“Kimani’s struggles are yet another instance in which non-Orthodox communities have been degraded and denied equal status in Israel, which should instead be welcoming to all Jewish movements and people,” the Rabbinical Assembly statement said. “Conservative conversions are valid under Israel’s own laws, for the purpose of study, immigration and citizenship. The Interior Ministry should immediately grant Kimani a student visa, so that he can visit and learn in our Holy City and continue to grow in his Jewish identity.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.