A Bold Move To Decentralize Israel’s Chief Rabbinate
Under the diaspora’s radar, the Knesset is moving to end the religious monopoly on matters of personal status in Israel, impacting all Jews.
‘This is the moment for change,” Rabbi David Stav, an Halachic scholar and leading advocate for reforming the Chief Rabbinate, said during a Zoom interview sponsored by Tzohar this week.
While American Jews, like the rest of the world, are focused on Vladimir Putin’s brazen assault on Ukraine, a potentially historic transformation in Israeli society is taking place in the Knesset – one that could significantly narrow the gap between Orthodox and liberal and secular Jews everywhere.
On Monday, a Knesset committee is likely to approve a bill that would chip away at the monopoly the Israeli Chief Rabbinate has had over religious life in Israel since the state was founded in 1948. If enacted into law – a process that could take two to three months as the bill goes through three committees before a full parliamentary vote – it would allow community (Orthodox) rabbis throughout the country to perform conversions of adults and children.
Until now, the state has only recognized conversions approved by the Chief Rabbinate. And given that for several decades the Chief Rabbinate has been in the hands of charedi (or, ultra-Orthodox) rabbis who hold to the strictest standards of Jewish law – for example, requiring potential converts to commit to observe all 613 mitzvot – there has been little motivation for candidates to apply and few are accepted.
It is estimated that as few as 2,000 people a year are approved for conversion.
At stake is the Jewish character of the Zionist state, and in the view of some, like Efraim Halevy, a former director of the Mossad, the very future of Israel.
“It’s not just a religious issue but a strategic one,” he told me in an interview some years ago. Halevy said the fact that hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens who came from Russia are unable to convert to Judaism, and that their children grow up status-less and unable to marry in the land where they were born, presents an existential threat to Israeli society. Jews could become a minority in the Jewish state, not even taking into account the Palestinians, Halevy said.
But a solution may well be in the works.
The proposed conversion bill is a key element of a major effort to challenge the monopoly of the Chief Rabbinate in matters of personal status of Israelis – and indirectly of all Jews – regarding issues that include kashrut, marriage, divorce and burial.
It comes at a time when Israel’s coalition government is the most inclusive ever and has no charedi party representation. In addition, the Minister of Religion, Matan Kahana, is a forceful advocate for reform and strengthening Israel’s Jewish identity. A product of the Religious Zionist movment and an air force pilot, he is a worthy opponent of the charedi parties seeking to maintain their power.
“This moment presents the greatest opportunity to change the character of our society since 1948,” says Rabbi David Stav, a leader in the effort to transform the chief rabbinate. He calls for it to be a welcoming body providing moral as well as spiritual leadership to all of Israeli society.
Rabbi Stav, 61, an Halachic scholar, is the chief rabbi of the city of Shoham and a founding leader of Tzohar, a non-political group of hundreds of relatively liberal Orthodox Israeli rabbis seeking to serve as an antidote to the religious establishment’s unyielding practices.
Founded in the wake of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Tzohar calls for tolerance, respect and a user-friendly approach to all Israeli Jews, the majority of whom intensely dislike and resent the Chief Rabbinate for treating them as inauthentic Jews.
Many American Jews, the great majority of whom are not Orthodox, also feel like second-class Jews in the eyes of Israel’s religious establishment.
This past Tuesday I interviewed Rabbi Stav on a Zoom program sponsored by Tzohar and aimed at advocates, in Israel and the diaspora, of the group’s campaign “for systemic change in the perception of Judaism in Israel.”
The overall goal is to gain control of and transform the Chief Rabbinate – the next election is in 2023. Rabbi Stav, who ran unsuccessfully for the post of Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi in 2013, is likely to run again next year, and if the current coalition government holds, his chances would be very good.
But the immediate focus for Tzohar is to pass legislation to reform kashrut, burial, the appointment of rabbinic judges, and conversion.
Kashrut legislation is “already a done deal,” Rabbi Stav noted with pride at the outset of our interview. Last November, the Knesset passed a bill to end the Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly on kashrut supervision, which has a long history of corruption and criticism from state bodies. As of Jan. 1, 2023, independent kashrut organizations will be allowed to compete, sure to lower consumer costs in stores and restaurants.
Our discussion centered on the status of the proposed conversion bill, which Rabbi Stav said is “more complicated and attracts more opposition.”
Much of the criticism, coming from the charedi parties, has been harsh and personal. Rabbi Stav has been characterized by a former Sephardic Chief Rabbi as “an evil man” and by others as someone who would seek out Arabs and visiting African workers for conversion.
On the left, he has come under fire for not speaking out more directly against the Chief Rabbinate. In our discussion, the rabbi described the office as catering to “a small, narrow-minded segment of charedim,” and in other settings he has described it as corrupt, rife with conflicts of interest and causing Jews to turn away from religion.
Rabbi Stav said that since he is being attacked from both sides, maybe he is doing something right. “I never choose a position based on the political left or right,” he said, but rather on the merits of the issue.
I asked him: As an advocate for competition on conversion and kashrut, why doesn’t he call for eliminating the Chief Rabbinate altogether and let each religious stream compete for the souls of Israeli citizens?
He said he is committed to following halacha and asserted that since only about 80 of the approximately 16,000 synagogues in Israel are Conservative or Reform, it was too big a sacrifice at this time to give each of the streams equal legitimacy.
He emphasized, though, that the Chief Rabbinate should “be an umbrella that unites all the Jewish people,” engaging and inspiring people. He pointed to the success of Tzohar in the area of marriages, which for 65 years were under the exclusive control of the Chief Rabbinate. (There are no civil marriages in Israel.) Many couples outside of the Orthodox community are unwilling to be married under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate. Until the so-called Tzohar Law was passed in 2013, the only alternatives were to forego a wedding or be married outside of Israel. Many chose to marry in Cyprus.
The Tzohar Law allows couples to choose any rabbi recognized by the Chief Rabbinate to officiate. Tzohar rabbis, with their emphasis on connecting with all types of couples in a personal and meaningful way, have officiated at large numbers of weddings since the law was passed.
Garnering support for the conversion bill is a challenge, though.
In the U.S., the liberal movements are less than enthusiastic about a Chief Rabbinate that would remain under Orthodox rule. And even Tzohar’s natural allies in the Orthodox Union and its Rabbinical Council of America have been unwilling to support the proposed reforms publicly for fear of alienating the current Chief Rabbinate, which recognizes their status.
On allowing all streams to pray equally at the Kotel, an effort that has stalled because of political pressure from the right, Rabbi Stav said he supports a practical solution that allows men and women to pray near the Kotel, blaming “extremists on both sides” for making the issue more about politics than spiritual expression.
The rabbi called for support from diaspora Jewry in the form of letting friends and colleagues know the truth about the reforms rather than the distorted views opponents offer, and lobbying political and communal leaders at home and Israel.
“Take this message to heart and let’s not miss this opportunity to bring us closer,” he said, adding: “My nightmare is that, God forbid, in ten years the state will be divided into two nations: Israeli and Jewish. I fear that secular Israelis, unwilling to live under ultra-Orthodox control, will leave the country.
“ My mission,” he concluded, “is to engage every soul in the Jewish heritage and the Jewish future.”
For more info on Tzohar: https://tzohar-eng.org