wake of halakhic decisions rendered by decisors in the 19th and 20th centuries. In each of these responsa, both negative and positive, the questioner received the reply that was desired.
The Affirmative Approach to Conversion
In his permissive decisions, Herzog kept good company with decisors like R. Yaakov Yehiel Weinberg(the last rosh yeshivah of the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin ) and others. These respondents stated that a gentile who is married civilly to a Jewish person, his or her desire to convert should not be construed as giur leshem ishut, conversion for the ulterior motive of marriage, because they are already living together and won't be separated if a conversion is refused.’
Many respondents found halakhic justification for conversion for the sake of marriage. The major cause for this change was the introduction of civil marriage after the Emancipation and the large number of Jews who were legally married to gentiles in the eyes of the State in which they lived. It was impossible to ignore this phenomenon which became one of the most serious issues of many Jewish communities.
The late Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ben Zion Uziel expressed a very positive view of a relationship of this kind:"This woman is already married to a Jew and when she enters the covenant of Judaism (brit ha-yahadut) she will become closer to her husband's family and to his Torah and furthermore the children who will be born to her will be full fledged Jews . This is just like the deeds of Hillel and R. Hiyya, who were certain that in the end they would be proper proselytes, and therefore it is a mitzvah to draw converts near and bring them into the covenant of Judaism ."