The repeatedly postponed elections for new Chief Rabbis and a new Supreme Rabbinate Council were set finally today for December 22 despite warnings by the Israel rabbinate of a boycott of the elections.
The Nominations Board, under the chairmanship of Rabbi Judah Leib Maimon, announced the date to set in motion the machinery for the selection of 70 members to an electoral college which will name a new Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, a new Sephardi Chief Rabbi and six members of the Supreme Rabbinate Council, Forty-two of the 70 must be rabbis, and 28 laymen
The board indicated confidence it could muster a “representative” list of electoral college members despite a decision of the Israeli rabbis, at a recent national protest rally, to refuse all cooperation in the elections.
The key struggle is over the selection of a new Ashkenazi. Chief Rabbi to succeed the late Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzeg. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s Mapai party is reported to favor Rabbi Shlomo Goren, senior army chaplain, for the post, and Rabbi Obadiah Yosef, a member of the Jerusalem rabbinical court for the post of Sephardi Chief Rabbi, now held by Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim, a candidate for reelection.
The National Religious party and the Israel Rabbinate have warned they would not recognize any Chief Rabbis chosen by the Nominations Board without the participation of the out-going Supreme Rabbinate Council. Meanwhile, the National Religious Party replaced Yitzhak Rafael with Dr. Zorah Warhaftig as its member on the Knesset Security and Foreign Affairs Committee because Rafael had espoused Chaplain Goren’s candidacy.
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