Community friend’s anger over conversion refusal

V A LONDON man has protested to Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis after being told that the London Beth Din was ending his conversion process.

Filip Slipaczek, a chartered financial planner, 61, has been active for 15 years in fostering Polish-Jewish relations, helping to create links between the Polish embassy in London and Jewish communities.

In an open letter to the Chief Rabbi posted on Facebook, he said he had been accepted by the LBD on to its conversion course in April 2018 but told last November that it was terminating his application.

Mr Slipaczek said the Beth Din had wanted him to relocate from his home in East Barnet to a more religiously Jewish area but, even though he had offered to live with someone in Stamford Hill, he had been turned down.

“There is need for root and branch reform of an institution that regards itself as above and superior to the United Synagogue that it is supposed to represent,” he wrote.

Mr Slipaczek told the JC he was of Irish and Polish parentage and suffered constant bullying in school here. “At the age of 17, my father dropped a bombshell, informing me that his mother was Jewish. Therefore, associating myself with another persecuted minority was quite natural. My paternal Jewish ancestry was confirmed by my most recent DNA test.”

In 2014, he was awarded the silver cross of merit from the Polish government for his work with the Jewish community. He is a patron of the charity Faith Matters.

Mr Slipaczek told the JC that the LBD had wanted him to relocate to Golders Green, Hendon or Edgware, which would “entail either living with a local family or renting or buying a property in addition to the property I already have.”

In his open letter, he said he had organised a rota to spend Shabbat and Yomtov with observant families, which had been initially approved.

He said he had to share responsibility with his younger brother in looking after his 93-year-old mother in Southampton and occasionally in Barnet and an accident he had suffered last July had “temporarily prohibited me from excessive walking without pain”.

He added, “It would appear that, prior to the conversion, my support, advocacy of the Jewish people and the state of Israel was enthusiastically grasped but my entry was sadly not to be permitted.”

The London Beth Din said it did “not discuss individual cases in public. The London Beth Din carries out some 40 conversions every year. Candidates come from all backgrounds, religions and creeds. Every case is unique and is carefully decided on its merits.”

The Beth Din needs root and branch reform’