of whom having questions as to their Jewishness, Drukman became involved in Jewish conversion advocacy, even setting up a special beth din (religious court) for this purpose. In 2004, he was appointed director of the newly created State Conversion Authority, which provides services to candidates for conversion to Judaism through the Prime Minister's Office. Throughout this period, he often came into disagreement with senior Haredi rabbis in Israel in regard to his conversion standards, which they deemed to be too lax according to their reading of halakha (Jewish law). After rabbinic courts rolled back thousands of Drukman's conversions, the Supreme Court of Israel reinstated them. Drukman's efforts were recognised by Benjamin Netanyahu, who said that the rabbi "found a way of bringing hearts together that helped masses of new immigrants to join the ranks of our people". Political career Drukman was considered to be the most influential spiritual leader of Religious Zionism. He was instrumental in shifting this sector over from the centre-left, where it had been during Israel's founding, to the far right. For all of his Jewish advocacy, he was forever mindful to the reality that Israel was founded as a democratic state of all its citizens. For close to 50 years, many political campaigns and deals involving Religious Zionism were forged in Drukman's living room. In 1974, he played a leading role in the establishment of Gush Emunim, an ultranationalist right-wing settler organisation. Drukman was first elected to the Knesset in the 1977 elections on the National Religious Party's (NRP) list and served as a member of the 9th Knesset from 1977 to 1981. He was a member of the Knesset committees for the Appointment of Rabbinic Judges, Foreign Affairs and Defense, and Education and Culture during this tenure. He was re-elected in 1981, again representing the National Religious Party in the 10th Knesset from 1981 to 1984 and serving as a member of the same Knesset committees as he had during the 9th Knesset. He was appointed Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs on 11 August 1981. However, as an opponent of the Camp David Accords, he lost the post on 2 March 1982. On 10 October 1983, he broke away from the NRP and attempted to form a Knesset faction named the Zionist Religious Camp, but was refused permission to do so by the House Committee. Instead, he sat as a single member of Knesset for