High Court orders Chief Rabbinate to elect chief rabbis
Aug 12, 2024 17:20:47 GMT -5
Post by shalom on Aug 12, 2024 17:20:47 GMT -5
High Court orders Chief Rabbinate to elect chief rabbis by Sept. 30
The justices' ruling bypasses the dispute on appointing women to Israel's Chief Rabbi Election Assembly.
Etgar Lefkovits
(August 12, 2024 / JNS)
Israel’s High Court of Justice has ordered the Chief Rabbinate to set an election for new chief rabbis by October, sidestepping a standoff with the rabbinate over the appointment of women rabbis to the body that selects them.
The decision was the latest in a series of clashes between the Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court, and the haredi-dominated religious establishment that controls the Chief Rabbinate over issues of religion and state, including most recently ultra-Orthodox conscription.
Thursday’s ruling, which offers a temporary way around an impasse over women’s representation, tiptoes around the issue that along with raw politics, power struggles and nepotism had delayed the selection of Israel’s next chief rabbis, leaving the posts vacant for the first time since the establishment of the state.
Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau left their posts on June 30, although their terms were meant to end a year earlier.
The stalemate over the elections—ostensibly over the appointment of women to the Chief Rabbi Election Assembly but which coincided with internal ultra-Orthodox power struggles—stemmed from a court ruling in January that women with sufficient knowledge of the Torah and Jewish law (halachah) may be considered rabbis for the purpose of membership in the 150-member Election Assembly.
The Chief Rabbinate, which is run by the ultra-Orthodox, views such a move as an anathema and refuses to appoint any women to slots allocated for rabbis, thereby delaying the vote.
The 150-member voting body was previously composed of 80 Orthodox rabbis—10 of whom are appointed by the Chief Rabbinate—and 70 others, including mayors, lawmakers, members of local religious councils and other public officials.
To resolve the dispute, the ruling would scrap the 10 appointed rabbis, reducing the number of members to 140 in the hopes of defusing the issue for the time being so that chief rabbis can be chosen.
The court ruling acknowledged there is a need to “diversify” the system but also states that an election may be held legally without the disputed category. The court ordered the rabbinate to set a date for the rabbinical elections no later than Sept. 30.
Elections for chief rabbi were due to be held last year but were pushed off as they coincided with municipal elections that were later postponed due to the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Kicked down the road
Rabbi Seth Farber, founder of ITIM: Resources and Advocacy for Jewish Life, a nongovernmental, Jerusalem-based advocacy group for reforming Israel’s religious bureaucracy, which had petitioned the court against the delay, welcomed the path put forward by the court to go ahead with the election even if means circumventing the earlier decision on women.
“Unfortunately, for months, petty politics has been more important for Israel’s government than the religious needs of its citizens,” the American-Israeli Modern Orthodox rabbi told JNS, citing the delays in the delivery of religious services such as conversion the dispute has caused.
“In order to move forward, the court had to decide to circumvent the previous decision to force the rabbinate to consider women rabbis,” Farber said.
Avinoam Kutscher, a former political adviser to the Religious Services Ministry, said: “It appears that the High Court climbed on a high tree by initially trying to force the rabbinate to appoint women rabbis to the assembly, but then when they realized that this caused a crisis, they decided to do away with the personal rabbinical appointments altogether that was set by law.”
Kutscher told JNS that a date for the rabbinical election will be set this week and take place by the end of September, as the court stipulated.
Both men said the issue was only being pushed back until the next election.
“It is my hope that the issue of the appointment of women will be fixed in law by the next Rabbinical Council elections,” Farber said.
“In essence, the court ruling only postponed the problem to a later date,” Kutscher said.
Others see it as a long-term struggle for the soul of the nation, coupled with the question of how to mix ancient tradition and modern life in the Jewish state.
Rabbi Uri Regev, CEO of Hiddush‒For Freedom of Religion and Equality, a cross-denominational nonprofit organization, said: “It is time for the State of Israel to focus on the freedom of religion and conscience enshrined in the [1948] Declaration of Independence which the majority of the Jewish public prefer rather than continue with these endless struggles with an anachronistic Rabbinate in a country that prides itself on its democracy and freedom.”
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The justices' ruling bypasses the dispute on appointing women to Israel's Chief Rabbi Election Assembly.
Etgar Lefkovits
(August 12, 2024 / JNS)
Israel’s High Court of Justice has ordered the Chief Rabbinate to set an election for new chief rabbis by October, sidestepping a standoff with the rabbinate over the appointment of women rabbis to the body that selects them.
The decision was the latest in a series of clashes between the Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court, and the haredi-dominated religious establishment that controls the Chief Rabbinate over issues of religion and state, including most recently ultra-Orthodox conscription.
Thursday’s ruling, which offers a temporary way around an impasse over women’s representation, tiptoes around the issue that along with raw politics, power struggles and nepotism had delayed the selection of Israel’s next chief rabbis, leaving the posts vacant for the first time since the establishment of the state.
Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau left their posts on June 30, although their terms were meant to end a year earlier.
The stalemate over the elections—ostensibly over the appointment of women to the Chief Rabbi Election Assembly but which coincided with internal ultra-Orthodox power struggles—stemmed from a court ruling in January that women with sufficient knowledge of the Torah and Jewish law (halachah) may be considered rabbis for the purpose of membership in the 150-member Election Assembly.
The Chief Rabbinate, which is run by the ultra-Orthodox, views such a move as an anathema and refuses to appoint any women to slots allocated for rabbis, thereby delaying the vote.
The 150-member voting body was previously composed of 80 Orthodox rabbis—10 of whom are appointed by the Chief Rabbinate—and 70 others, including mayors, lawmakers, members of local religious councils and other public officials.
To resolve the dispute, the ruling would scrap the 10 appointed rabbis, reducing the number of members to 140 in the hopes of defusing the issue for the time being so that chief rabbis can be chosen.
The court ruling acknowledged there is a need to “diversify” the system but also states that an election may be held legally without the disputed category. The court ordered the rabbinate to set a date for the rabbinical elections no later than Sept. 30.
Elections for chief rabbi were due to be held last year but were pushed off as they coincided with municipal elections that were later postponed due to the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Kicked down the road
Rabbi Seth Farber, founder of ITIM: Resources and Advocacy for Jewish Life, a nongovernmental, Jerusalem-based advocacy group for reforming Israel’s religious bureaucracy, which had petitioned the court against the delay, welcomed the path put forward by the court to go ahead with the election even if means circumventing the earlier decision on women.
“Unfortunately, for months, petty politics has been more important for Israel’s government than the religious needs of its citizens,” the American-Israeli Modern Orthodox rabbi told JNS, citing the delays in the delivery of religious services such as conversion the dispute has caused.
“In order to move forward, the court had to decide to circumvent the previous decision to force the rabbinate to consider women rabbis,” Farber said.
Avinoam Kutscher, a former political adviser to the Religious Services Ministry, said: “It appears that the High Court climbed on a high tree by initially trying to force the rabbinate to appoint women rabbis to the assembly, but then when they realized that this caused a crisis, they decided to do away with the personal rabbinical appointments altogether that was set by law.”
Kutscher told JNS that a date for the rabbinical election will be set this week and take place by the end of September, as the court stipulated.
Both men said the issue was only being pushed back until the next election.
“It is my hope that the issue of the appointment of women will be fixed in law by the next Rabbinical Council elections,” Farber said.
“In essence, the court ruling only postponed the problem to a later date,” Kutscher said.
Others see it as a long-term struggle for the soul of the nation, coupled with the question of how to mix ancient tradition and modern life in the Jewish state.
Rabbi Uri Regev, CEO of Hiddush‒For Freedom of Religion and Equality, a cross-denominational nonprofit organization, said: “It is time for the State of Israel to focus on the freedom of religion and conscience enshrined in the [1948] Declaration of Independence which the majority of the Jewish public prefer rather than continue with these endless struggles with an anachronistic Rabbinate in a country that prides itself on its democracy and freedom.”
link
