Rabbinate

ITIM demands equal conditions for women in upcoming Chief Rabbinate exams

After women faced severe delays during historic first exams, ITIM threatens legal action against the Chief Rabbinate to ensure equal venues and testing conditions for upcoming certification tests.

Three women who arrived in the morning to sit the Rabbinate exams finally do so at a four-hour delay, April 27, 2026
 The groom hugs the bride from behind, the bride holds a wedding bouquet. (illustrative)

Chief Rabbinate Council sets new financial range for ketubahs

The Supreme Court convenes to maintain the freeze on the law limiting enforcement against haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft dodgers, July 28, 2026.

ITIM organization asks High Court to bar draft evaders from Rabbinate exam benefits

A Tzohar kashrut sticker in a window

High Court sets Tuesday deadline in Tzohar kashrut-license dispute


Cultivated meat and kashrut: What will the Kosher status be? - opinion

The question of the kosher status of cultivated meat products carries great significance for the future of kashrut and may lay the groundwork for entirely new precedents in this area.

 An employee works at a laboratory of Bene Meat Technologies company, which is planning to scale up production of lab-grown meat for use in pet food, in Prague, Czech Republic, November 7, 2023.

High Court rules: Women can be on committee to select Chief Rabbi

The impact of the decision is yet to be seen: it does not mandate, but merely permits, the inclusion of women to be considered for the committee that selects Chief Rabbis and Chief Rabbinate Council.

 A WOMAN seeking divorce in a ‘beit din’ was the sole female in the room until the advent of ‘toanot.’ (Illustrative)

Over 15 IDF soldiers pronounced dead in Gaza without bodies

Pronouncing a person’s death is one of the most sensitive, religiously complex issues faced by the Military Rabbinate.

 An IDF soldier salutes the grave of a fallen soldier at the Har Herzl military cemetery ahead of Israel's Remembrance Day, April 23, 2023.

Chief Rabbi David Lau establishes special rabbinical court to support agunot affected by war

An agunah is a woman unable to be divorced by her husband. During the Israel-Hamas war such cases have become noticeable enough to warrant rabbinical intervention.

 A PHOTO which expresses the pain, fear and frustration of the plight of agunot is part of a photography exhibit of Yad La’isha.

Senior judge in rabbinic court system named as victim in Jerusalem attack

Wasserman was considered one of the more senior and experienced judges in the rabbinical court system.

 People mourn rabbinical judge, Elimelech Wasserman, who was killed in a shooting attack when Hamas gunmen opened fire at a bus stop at the entrance to Jerusalem, in a hearse, ahead of the funeral in Jerusalem November 30, 2023

Rabbinate releases instructions for keeping Shabbat during wartime

Some laws can be altered or followed differently due to the principle of "pikuach nefesh," asving a person's life.

 ASHKENAZI CHIEF Rabbi David Lau (left) and Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef: The silence of our two chief rabbis is thunderously indicative of the abject state of these once meaningful and relevant positions, the writer argues.

New to Israel? Rabbis here aren't the same as they are elsewhere - opinion

Many immigrants assume that the rabbinic model they knew in their country of origin applies in Israel. This is not the case.

 Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Shlomo Amar visits at a Yeshiva in Hispin, northern Israel, October 21, 2021.

The saga of hotels’ late Shabbat and holiday checkout

Why do hotel guests, some of them wealthy, accept the procedure of paying for late check-out abroad, but expect it gratis in Israel?

 SHAS MK Erez Malul, an advocate of free late hotel checkout for Shabbat stays.

Kosher food in Israel is an $800 million racket of corruption - opinion

The direct cost of corrupt kashrut services is very high and burdens the economy with about $800 million, as well as raising the cost of almost all goods to our families, rich and poor.

 Kashrut certificates outside a restaurant in Jerusalem.

Israel's Chief Rabbinate has become a hereditary monarchy - opinion

The position of chief rabbi, which has a ten-year tenure, has become a political tool and the province of members of a few elite families who monopolize it.

 ASHKENAZI CHIEF Rabbi David Lau (left) and Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef: The silence of our two chief rabbis is thunderously indicative of the abject state of these once meaningful and relevant positions, the writer argues.