Israel Supreme Court to Renew Hearing on Elections of Chief Rabbis

The Supreme Court today set September 25 as the date when a panel of five of the high tribunal’s jurists will hear again the issue of the validity of the Nominations Board, charged with naming candidates for the post of Israeli Chief Rabbis.

Last week, a three-man panel of the Supreme Court ruled, two-to-one, that the board is a valid body, although three of its eight members had withdrawn at the behest of the Rabbinate Council. The three-man panel ruled, however, that, in view of its own division, the case should be heard again by five members of the High Court.

Israel must elect two Chief Rabbis this year. One, representing the Sephardic community, is certain to be unopposed; he is the incumbent Chief Rabbi Itzhak Nissim. The dispute centers about naming the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi. The Rabbinate Council had originally named four members to the Nominations Board, while the Government had named an equal number. The Council contends now that the present Nominations Board is not valid, since It has only five members. It is that point which the five-man panel must decide after the September 25 hearing.

Gideon Hausner, Israel’s Attorney General, who had charged at a hearing before the Supreme Court that official documents of the Rabbinate Council related to the dispute over the elections of new Chief Rabbis had been falsified, declared meanwhile that he did not use the word “falsified” and that he merely said that the protocols of one of the meetings did not convey exactly what had taken place at that meeting. The Attorney General made this statement following a request for retraction by Chief Rabbi Nissim.