Basketball player who converted with 'Biden's rabbi' is denied Israeli citizenship

Jared Armstrong studied for months with American Conservative rabbi Michael Beals, known for his links to the US President

Israeli officials have rejected an American basketball player’s conversion to Judaism for a second time because the study was done with a Conservative rabbi.

Jared Armstrong has spent months studying and has travelled to Israel on the Birthright trip, with a view to moving to Israel to play for the Hapoel Haifa basketball team, but has now been denied by Israel’s Interior Ministry.

Rabbi Michael Beals, the Delaware rabbi who supervised Armstrong’s conversion and who has a long-standing relationship to US president Joe Biden, told Haaretz: “This decision shows so much disconnect,” and added that he felt it was “racist” because Armstrong is black.

It adds to pressure on Israel’s Interior Ministry, after its supreme court ruled late last year to recognise non-Orthodox conversions. And, last month, a black Jew originally from the US was told he would get Israeli citizenship after he began a hunger strike following his refusal on the grounds that he had not spent adequate time in the community where he converted.