A month after the first round of the rabbinate elections, and more than a year after the original date when the elections were supposed to take place according to the law, the two new chief rabbis of Israel were officially elected. The prolonged rejection of the end of the previous rabbinical terms, Rabbi David Lau and Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, actually led to the legal dissolution of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel for the first time since the establishment of the state; but do not worry, there is no doubt that the rabbinate will return to full functioning in the near future.
In the first round, Rabbi David Yosef, the son of Rabbi Ovadia (the Rishon Lezion in the years 1973-1983, and one of the most important rabbis of recent generations), and the brother of Rabbi Yitzhak, the last Chief Rabbi; Rabbi David now serves as the rabbi of the Har Nof neighborhood, and is active in the Shas Council. On the other side came 2 candidates with an tie of votes, and continued on to the second round: Rabbi Micha Halevi (Rabbi of the city of Petah Tikva) and Rabbi Kalman Ber – Rabbi of Netanya, and a fruit of the educational systems and Yeshivot of the religious Zionism. The agreed candidate for the committee appointed prior to the election, Rabbi Meir Kahane, did not advance to the next round; many of his supporters tended to oppose the candidacy of Rabbi Halevi (who had pledged to accept the agreed candidate), and in practice supported Rabbi Ber, who now won the second round, and was elected as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi.
The new chief rabbis enter their role in a challenging period in many ways: First of all, it seems that the public trust in the main rabbinate system is at an unprecedented low, especially after the cancellation of Minister Matan Kahane’s reform attempts – and there is no doubt that the recent election campaign, which was involved in business politics and lies, did not contribute to this issue. Second, the state’s ability to invest in the Rabbinate and its actions is reduced in light of the war and the security focus. And third, technological innovations, the availability of books and rabbis on the Internet and even artificial intelligence, raise questions about the need for institutionalized rabbinate. We wish the new retainers great success with the start of their decade-long term, and hope to be suprised to the better.
