A/HRC/10/8/Add.2 page 16 48. While the Special Rapporteur welcomes the recent amendments, she notes that the law does not apply to spouses who are both Jews, Muslims, Druzes or members of the same recognized Christian community unless one or both of them are foreigners. Consequently, matters of divorce of such couples have been left in the hands of the religious courts of their respective communities. (c) Religious courts 49. The 1955 Religious Judges Law and the 1962 Druze Courts Law have been interpreted by Jewish, Muslim and Druze religious leaders to mean that judges in these courts must be male. The Special Rapporteur was informed that no women serve as judges in the religious courts of the various recognized religions and only a small number of municipal religious councils include women. She would like to refer to the concluding comments of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW/C/ISR/CO/3, para. 25), in which the Committee expressed its concerns at the State party’s statement that the reservations to articles 7 (b) and 16 of the CEDAW are “unavoidable at this point in time” and its position that laws based on religious values cannot be reformed. It is important to apply a gender perspective and to ensure that women are not discriminated against, including in matters of personal status. 5. Preferential treatment of Orthodox Judaism 50. The State of Israel confers certain powers upon the Chief Rabbinate, which is organized under law and supported by public funding. Concerns have been voiced that preferential treatment is given to the Orthodox Rabbinate to the detriment not only of other religious or belief communities but also of non-Orthodox Jewish groups, such as Reform or Conservative branches. Non-Orthodox Jewish institutions do not have official status and consequently their rabbis cannot officiate at marriages in Israel. Allocations of state resources reportedly favour Orthodox Jewish institutions. Secular or non-observant Jews may also encounter problems if they do not want to be subject to Orthodox religious norms, for example with regard to dietary or burial provisions. The Government of Israel in its initial report to the Human Rights Committee acknowledged that it seems difficult to claim that “freedom from religion” is fully protected, particularly for the Jewish population, due to the interpenetration of religion and Government in several forms, for example by a series of legal institutions and practices which apply Jewish religious norms to the Jewish population (see CCPR/C/81/Add.13, para. 532). 51. The Supreme Court of Israel has ruled on related issues, especially with regard to the recognition of conversions. In 1995, it decided that the Ministry of Interior had no authority to refuse to recognize non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism performed inside Israel for purposes of recognition under the Law of Return. In another decision of 2005, it held that non-Jews living legally in Israel would be able to convert to Judaism by Reform and Conservative religious courts abroad and that State authorities would register their conversion. However, in applying Jewish religious law in matters of personal status, the Orthodox Rabbinical Courts do not recognize persons converted by a non-Orthodox body as Jews which leads to problems as explained above for persons deemed to be unmarriageable in Israel.