Minister threatens to bypass Chief Rabbinate in city rabbi elections
Religious Services Min. Azoulay threatens snap elections for city rabbi election committee, despite Chief Rabbinate's objections; Rabbinate alludes to Azoulay's motive being to select his own people for rabbi positions, saying that his 'urgency is strange and problematic.'
Minister of Religious Services David Azoulay (Shas) is working to hold snap elections and appoint a number of city rabbis throughout the country—including for municipalities that already have one chief rabbi—despite oppositions from the Chief Rabbinate, which suspects the move to be politically motivated.
Azoulay justified the rush move with 2018's being an election year in the local authorities, thereby making it likely that such significant appointments will not be possible during that time.
The minister threatened to bypass the Rabbinical Council, which is one of the components of the electoral system, because it does not cooperate with it.
Meanwhile, his opponents suspect that the motives are political, and that this is only an attempt by Shas to elect their own people for the positions of city rabbis.
The story began with a meeting held by the Rabbinical Council at the end of last month, when its members were asked by the Ministry of Religious Services to appoint a representative on their behalf to the local rabbis' election committee, with the goal of choosing a Sephardi rabbi for the city of Rishon Lezion, who will serve alongside its Ashkenazi city rabbi, Yehuda Dov Volpe.
The Rabbinical Council, however, was in no rush to comply. During the meeting, the rabbis questioned the ministry's bizarre policy, which initiates elections in places like Rishon Lezion, while larger cities, in which no one is serving as city rabbi, are not on the agenda.
Instead of appointing representatives to the committee, the members decided to invite Azoulay to the next council meeting to hear him explain his priorities.
'Strange urgency'
In a letter from the office of the President of the Rabbinical Council, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau, to the minister,"The members want to know what the criteria are for choosing another city rabbi in a place where one city rabbi already serves," the office of the President of the Rabbinical Council, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau, wrote in a letter to Minister Azoulay.
The letter then pondered "why in so many places in the country, including large cities such as Haifa, Gedera, Kiryat Malachi, Sderot, Mitzpeh Ramon and Ashkelon, and in many other towns, there are currently no rabbis serving and seemingly no one is about to be appointed soon? And why didn't the council members hear that the Ministry of Religious Services had been active in promoting the process of selecting city rabbis in these cities?"
While the minister was invited by the Rabbinate for a hearing, his senior advisor David Amar—a close associate of Shas chairman Aryeh Deri and Chief Sephardi Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef—sent several letters to Rabbi Lau, in which he mentioned that the ministry intends to hold elections in other cities soon, including Bnei Brak, Yehud and Rehovot.
In one of the letters, the minister's adviser commented that "a number of meetings of the Rabbinate Council were held and no representative was appointed to the Elections Committee."
Accordingly, Amar set an ultimatum to the rabbinate and announced that if he did not cooperate with Azoulay within 14 days, the minister would use his authority under the Jewish religious services regulation and appoint the council's representatives on the election committee himself.
"The timetable that allows the minister to continue the process of choosing rabbis in these cities is diminishing as time goes on, in view of the local council elections that will take place within a year," explained attorney general Amar, "and hence his request."
A source in the rabbinate defined Minister Azoulay's urgency as "strange and problematic," stressing that instead of giving in to it, it should be viewed as a warning sign.
"If there are appointments that will be problematic in three weeks' time," he said, "it is advisable to examine them even more thoroughly now."
Yehuda Shohat, Kobi Nachshoni and Ariela Sternbach contributed to this report.
