Not enough chiefs

Most haredim don’t use the services of the ‘Zionist’ Chief Rabbinate, but their leaders are nonetheless trying to control the outcome of the first election in the city in 15 years.

By PEGGY CIDOR
Jewish prayer (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Jewish prayer
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Fifteen years have passed since the holy city had a chief rabbi – Ashkenazi or Sephardi.
The last two holders of those positions died of old age, one shortly after the other. During those 15 years, all the parties involved – and there are quite a few – prevented the election of new rabbis, arguing that such an important function required the utmost attention and care. But now, at last, the positions will finally be filled, right after the High Holy Days, through elections scheduled for October 21.
What happened this year that didn’t happen in all those 15 years to finally enable the elections to take place? And even before that, what prevented these elections from going forward for so long in the first place if, as all the parties agree, this was such an important issue? Let’s take a look at the hidden and overt reasons for this situation.
The Jewish residents of Jerusalem are generally divided into three categories: haredi, religious and secular. However, subdividing these categories can get complicated. The first category consists of Ashkenazi and Sephardi haredim; the former can be Lithuanian or hassidic. The secular may observe some religious rituals, and are therefore tricky to define. And the definition of “religious” can be particularly tenuous: There are religious Zionists and traditional Jews, and Sephardi and Ashkenazi contingents within each.
When it comes to electing two new chief rabbis, these distinctions can become a nightmare.
For example, the Ashkenazi haredim largely refuse to use any of the Chief Rabbinate’s services – such as its kashrut certification, its ritual baths and its marriage services – yet they are adamant that they get to decide who will occupy the seat of chief rabbi in this election. Among the Sephardim – religious, traditional or haredi – the issues at stake are loyalty on the one hand (related to a strong desire among some segments of Shas to continue the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s dynasty and name one of his sons to the post), and on the other the candidate’s attitude toward Zionist ideology. There are quite a few Zionists even in the haredi Sephardi community – though many Sephardi haredim, like their Ashkenazi counterparts, do not use the services provided by the Chief Rabbinate.
As such, one may well ask why these sectors even bother with the election.
Politics is an answer, of course, but it’s not the only answer. There is a power struggle at play, as well as many conflicts of interest (not solely religious ones), not to mention the aforementioned pride. And money, naturally. The chief rabbi can allocate a large number of jobs and, in so doing, consolidate a given party’s position.
In this particular case – which seems increasingly like a replay of the recent elections for national chief rabbi – the race may be between haredi and religious Zionist rabbis, but the promoter of the games is a secular person: Mayor Nir Barkat.
In short, both Ashkenazi and Sephardi haredim, who dislike the Chief Rabbinate anyway, are fighting against a secular mayor who supports a religious Zionist for the leadership of an institution whose services that mayor has probably rarely used.
Barkat took an interest in the chief rabbi issue when he was still a member of the opposition on the city council. In those days, he tried to promote the idea of just one chief rabbi for the city, arguing that the distinction between Ashkenazi and Sephardi had become outdated. Though that initiative found some favor in the eyes of mainly traditional and nonaffiliated Jerusalemites, Barkat finally dropped the idea, realizing that it was still too soon to propose such a notion. Instead, he focused on the “Zionization” of the position, arguing that most of the city’s Jewish residents were, in one way or another, more religious Zionist than haredi (the latter community includes factions that are non-Zionist or even anti-Zionist).
Barkat was right in his assessment of attitudes toward religious Zionism, but he misinterpreted the underlying motives of the parties involved.
“It is true that most of those who vote for Shas are Zionists, serve in the army and use many of the Chief Rabbinate’s services,” said a high-ranking member of Shas this week, “but the main issue at stake in this sector is whether the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s family will continue to rule in [the Sephardi haredi] sector, or are those days over? And in that regard, the election of the Sephardi chief rabbi is a crucial point.”
Nevertheless, Barkat remained adamant about promoting his plan and bringing back the position of chief rabbi. And he has become even more dedicated to the task now that he is serving his second term – especially considering that in the October 2013 mayoral elections, his victory was due largely to the religious Zionist sector’s voting for him, the secular candidate, instead for his challenger, religious Zionist Moshe Lion.
His next challenge was to ensure that the 24-member electorate would be largely dedicated to his cause as well. To do so, he needed to prevent the haredim, who have the largest number of synagogues in the city, from gaining enough electoral representatives to deter the election of a religious Zionist candidate.
The electorate consists of 12 representatives of the synagogues in Jerusalem, 11 representatives of the neighborhood councils and a representative of the Religious Affairs Ministry. At present, the fate of the chief rabbinical post lies entirely in the hands of three religious political parties – Shas, United Torah Judaism and Bayit Yehudi, all under a secular mayor. Barkat, who has learned a few things about the art of politics, realized months ago that he had no chance of bringing in two religious Zionist candidates for chief rabbi. In order to get at least one, he needed political backing, which he found in Shas leader Aryeh Deri.
According to sources at Safra Square, Deri, who needed a political victory for reasons unconnected to the rabbinate (namely, his failure to restore Shas to its former power in the last Knesset elections), made Barkat an offer he couldn’t refuse. In exchange for the mayor’s support of Deri’s candidate for Sephardi chief rabbi – Ovadia Yosef’s son Rabbi David Yosef, a member of the Sephardi Council of Torah Sages – Deri would put his constituency’s support behind getting Barkat’s preferred candidate, Rabbi Aryeh Stern – a graduate of the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, the stronghold of religious Zionism – a clear path to the position of Ashkenazi chief rabbi.
But things are not so simple. First, the Ashkenazi haredi constituency is far from being ready to accept defeat. And second, at least for those who usually vote for Shas, there is apparently more than one candidate in the arena. Former national chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, who recently fell out of favor with the Yosef family and Shas’s political leaders, is considering running for the position. Apart from his prestige as a former national chief rabbi, Amar has additional appeal in Barkat’s eyes: Unlike David Yosef, he is openly a Zionist.
“Rabbi Amar is a warm Zionist,” Deputy Mayor Meir Turgeman, himself a Zionist and member of Barkat’s list, said last week. “He expressed it even more during the recent Operation Protective Edge. His concern for the soldiers is well known. He will certainly be elected.”
Former Shas MK Rabbi Haim Amsalem, who formed a new party that failed to meet the threshold in last year’s Knesset run, is also a candidate.
As for the “deal” between Deri and Barkat, nothing is official, of course. And as the source at Safra Square put it, “even Deri cannot prevent Rabbi Amar from running if he wants to.”
The remaining roadblock to installing two chief rabbis is the continued attempts by Ashkenazi haredim to prevent the elections or to change the criteria for the composition of the electoral body.
Their main argument is that the criteria for choosing the representatives were unfair. The haredim had requested that the 12 synagogue representatives be elected according to highest number of congregants, a step that would have given the Ashkenazi haredi sector immediate superiority. Barkat insisted that the 12 representatives be elected in a way that would give representation to all, and chose to include representatives of the neighborhood councils, which are part of Turgeman’s city council portfolio. That was the crucial result of the collaboration between Shas and Barkat, a step that enabled the whole procedure to go forward.
A previous obstacle was the date of the elections. According to the rules, a rabbi who is over 70 years old cannot run. Stern, Barkat’s favored candidate, will be 70 in November; hence election day was set for October to enable him to run.
What remains to be seen is how the High Court of Justice will rule on a petition by the representatives of the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism Party, regarding whether the representatives of the synagogues truly represent the interests of the city’s congregants.
It is worth noting here that the Ashkenazi haredi establishment strongly opposes litigating in the High Court, which it deems a non-Torah venue. Its decision to appeal to the court nonetheless for the sake of nominating a chief rabbi that the community will probably never regard as a religious authority anyway is, therefore, remarkable.