New Law Splits Rabbis’ Powers

A new “Chief Rabbinate Law” passed by the Knesset last week after long months of preparation, provides that future Sephardic and Ashkenazic Chief Rabbis will have their powers split: one will serve as chairman of the Chief Rabbinate Council and the other as president of the Supreme Rabbinical Court. They will alternate in mid-term.

The law was initiated by the National Religious Party. Its basic rationale is to alleviate the present situation in which both Chief Rabbis serve in both capacities simultaneously. The present incumbents, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadio Yosef and Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, have been on bad personal relations almost since their election eight years ago. The new law will take effect as of the next Chief Rabbi election, which is scheduled in March, 1983.

It was passed by large majority, with Likud and the Labor Alignment joining the NRP to back it. In fact, according to parliamentary observers, the law was the product of intense NRP-Labor consultations, with the Likud reluctantly being forced by its junior coalition partners to support it, too.

The law came under immediate fire from Reform and Conservative activists in Israel because it enshrines in the statute book the exclusivity of the Orthodox stream of Judaism in Israel — particularly in rabbinical jurisdiction to perform marriages.

But Religions Minister Aharon Abu-Hatzeiro insisted that the law did nothing but recapitulate the existing and long standing situation. The vast majority of Israelis supported the Orthodox stream, he said, and the handful of Reform Jews presently living here could not seek to “dictate” to that majority.

Rabbi Menachem Hocohen, a Labor Knesseter active in the discussions that preceded the introduction of the law, said the law merely “photographed the existing status quo.” He said his party did support the right of Reform and Conservative Jews to lead “community life” and that if and when returned to power, Labor would legislate accordingly. But he was vague as to whether that meant Reform rabbis would be given the right to perform marriages.

Prof. Ezra Spicehandler of the Hebrew Union College (Reform) Jerusalem Branch, termed the new law “undemocratic” in that it failed to recognize the rights of Reform and Conservative Jews in Israel.

The Reform movement here recently threatened, at a press conference, to appeal to the Supreme Court if the Ministry of Religion refused to sanction its rabbis to perform marriages. Legal observers believe such an appeal would have stood no chance under existing law — and would certainly be turned down under the new law.