Covering Immigration, Conversion, and the "Who is a Jew" Debate -- To spin or not to spin?

While the Associated Press--and thus most U.S. and U.K.-based newspapers--reported that Israel's Court Urges Israel to Accept Conversions, Israel's own English-language dailies were rather more cautious, using language like "defer" and "postpone."

Arutz Sheva (right-wing): Supreme Court Sends Conversion Hot Potato Back To Government

Haaretz (liberal): Court defers ruling on non-Orthodox conversions in Israel Article.

Jerusalem Post (center-right): Court defers ruling on non-Orthodox conversion.

Maariv (centrist): Supreme Court postpones decision on conversion: For now, judges rule 'Aliyah' to Israel determined by "desire to settle in Israel", not place of conversion.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)--the major news agency for U.S. and diaspora Jews--was even more effusive in its coverage (reproduced in full here because the story was posted as a time-limited "breaking news" brief):

A coup for converts?

Those who convert to Judaism after immigrating to Israel can receive automatic citizenship, Israel’s high court ruled.

Monday’s ruling by the High Court of Justice, which capped seven years of deliberations, was a victory for those who move to Israel for religious studies and then convert abroad, usually via Reform or Conservative rabbis. But the court stopped short of formally recognizing non-Orthodox conversions. It gave the state 45 days to prepare its arguments for preserving the status quo, in which Israel’s Interior Ministry accepts only Orthodox converts for immediate naturalization under the country’s Law of Return.

This ruling and the Interior Ministry's follow-up are of tremendous political and financial importance to Israel. Orthodox and ultraorthodox groups and political parties no doubt will reopen the "who is a Jew?" debate to demand more stringent controls accompanied by a reinforcement of the orthodox monopoly over Israeli civil law (marriages, burials, etc.). Non-orthodox groups, particularly American Jews, will look to the Interior Ministry to liberalize further Israel's conversion and immigration laws. While American Jewish donors are quite generous to Israel and Israeli causes, the question of conversion and the status of non-orthodox Jewry is the one issue on which donors have been prepared to withhold their financial support.

American Jewish donors (note the distinction between donors and American Jews as a whole) tend to be right-wing on Israeli-Palestinian political questions, but they are decidedly left-wing on religious questions. It remains to be what will happen if donors are presented with an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a tightening of the orthodox monopoly.