For the second time in about two weeks, Israel’s chief rabbis have challenged a ruling by the Supreme Court they believe represents an attack on halachah, or Jewish law, as interpreted by the fervently Orthodox.
Chief Rabbis Yisrael Lau and Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron issued a resolution this week declaring that non-Orthodox Jews should not serve on the country’s municipal religious councils.
The declaration flies in the face of a ruling last month by the Supreme Court that reform and Conservative candidates for the councils may not be rejected because of their religious orientations.
The Reform movement termed it a “hysterical reaction” by the Orthodox rabbinical establishment and a step toward the delegitimation of the Orthodox.
The declaration follows another announcement by the chief rabbis that they would not comply with the Supreme Court’s recent ruling calling for the rabbinical courts to apply civil law, rather than halachah, to property settlements in divorce cases.
Civil law applies the principle of common property and equally divides marital assets upon divorce, while Jewish law generally towards property to the title holder, who is often the husband.
The chief rabbis said the rabbinical courts would not recognize this decision because the authority of halachah has supremacy and could not be violated.
Scholars say the court’s ruling on the divorce issue was an unprecedented challenge to rabbinical authority in Israel.
This week’s resolution by the chief rabbis on religious councils was issued following a special meeting with dozens of Orthodox rabbis, rabbinical court judges and heads of religious councils.
The rabbis declared that the services rendered by religious councils must be administered by those who “believe in halachah, live according to it and accept the authority of the Chief Rabbinate.”
The religious councils are funded by the country’s Ministry of Religious Affairs and are the only providers of basic religious services to Jewish citizens, including burial and marriage.
The rabbis also called on the Knesset to pass legislation that would prevent the representation of non-orthodox members on the councils.
Modern Orthodox Rabbi David Hartman called it “a mistake for the rabbinical establishment to set up a confrontational ethos with the Supreme Court.”
Hartman, who teaches Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University, said the rabbis were “taking their monopoly and putting a loincloth of halachah around it.
“The issue is not whether halachah is more supreme than secular law” and the authority of the state, Hartman said.
In fact, the rabbinical courts derive their status from the government and therefore cannot undermine the authority of the governments’ highest legal body, he said.
If the High Court establishes a ruling, “the rabbis have to find a way to absorb it” within a halachic framework, he said.
In the case of the religious councils, said Hartman, the question is, “do they operate in the name of halachah or are they a civil body (assigned) to provide for the religious needs of society?”
By requiring the councils to admit Reform and Conservative Jews, the Supreme Court “is not making a theological judgment, it’s making a decision about the rights of citizens” to serve on on a civic body, he said.
Eliav Shochetman, professor of Jewish law at Hebrew University, said the “collision” between the secular and religious establishments is not as hard in the case of the religious councils as in the case of divorce settlements.
“Members of the councils do not have the power to make halachic decisions,” he said. “They are only serving as administrators of religious services.”
But the decision on property settlements was different and “very dramatic,” Shochetman said. For the first time in its history, the Supreme Court turned on its head the understanding that “the only law that governs the rabbinical courts” is halachah, he said..
“The rabbis cannot accept such a dictate,” he explained.
Pnina Livni, spokeswoman for Reform’s Movement for Progressive Judaism, said the chief rabbis’ resolution on the councils was a “hysterical reaction.”
The “extremist line of going outside the law” reflects the “frustration and deep desperation” of the rabbis, who seem unable to combine halachah with living in a modern democratic state, she said.
She called the defiance of the law the first step toward the demise of the rabbinical establishment “which won’t have a legitimate base” for its authority.
The rabbis referred in their resolution to Reform Jews as “atheists” and “haters of Israel,” noted Livni, who called it “one of the most aggressive attacks against us by the Chief Rabbinate.”
The spokesman for the chief rabbis, also the spokesman for the Ministry of Religious Affairs, was unavailable for comment, as was the director of the ministry.
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