MARK WASHOVSKY

centuries, as emancipation has brought Jews into the life of their surrounding communities and secularization has softened the taboos against social contact with Gentiles. The posgim have had to deal with an increasing number of Jews wishing to marry Gentiles, a phenomenon complicated by the fact that, should the rabbis refuse to allow the conversion of the non-Jewish marriage partner, the couple can turn to other sources of relief: liberal rabbis, civil marriage, and even non-Jewish religious marriage. For a number of these rabbis, the availability of non-halakhic marriage serves not only as a threat to communal discipline but also as an argument that the prohibition against conversion in these cases may no longer

apply.

R. Shelomo Kluger(d. 1869), a leading Lithuanian respondent, is asked for his opinion on a case which has arisen in “he lands of Germany and France , where the new religion has taken hold".® A Jewish man has fallen in love with a Gentile woman"and cohabited with her several times". He has now returned to the Jewish community, and"it is her intention to convert to Judaism ". Kluger permits the conversion. Relying upon the sources cited at the beginning of this essay, he notes that while those who convert for the purpose of mairiage are not to be accepted, the Bet Din has the discretion to determine in any particular case whether the prospective convert has come to us leshem shamayim. In our case, that determination can be made for two reasons. First, since the Jew has cohabited with his lover "many"** times, we can presume that his desire to marry her is not founded upon lust(or, in the more elegant Talmudic phrase, leshem ishah, for the sake of marrying this woman). Second, it is clear that this man is of an impulsive disposition(da‘ato kalah). He stands on the brink of apostasy(qarov lehishtamed); should we refuse our permission, he will convert to his lover's religion and marry her anyway. Since he has not done this, therefore, since the couple have"returned to his father's house", we have evidence that"her intention is to convert leshem shamayim and not for the purpose of

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