Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana on Wednesday announced the appointment of Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan as the chairman of the Jerusalem Religious Council.

Ben-Dahan served as a Knesset member for Bayit Yehudi and Likud from 2013-2019 and as deputy religious minister from 2013-2015. He also served in the past as the director-general of the Rabbinical Batei Din and director of the Rabbanut.

Kahana’s office issued a statement saying that the appointment was made after consultation with Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion but according to a Kikar H’Shabbat report, Lion was fiercely opposed to the move but Kahana proceeded with the appointment anyway.

“It never happened before that a Religious Affairs Minister appointed a council chairman without the agreement of the mayor,” a source from the Jerusalem Municipality told Kikar. During the conversation with Kahana, Lion also repeated his opposition to Kahana’s decision to dismiss Tzuriel Krispal from his position as chairman of the Council of Jewish Cemeteries (Moetzet Batei Almin).

During Rabbi Ben-Dahan’s term as deputy religious affairs minister, he and Naftali Bennett, who was then serving as the Religious Affairs Minister, tried to advance similar (but less extreme) religious reforms to the ones that Kahana is now advancing.

According to HaGaon HaRav Yitzchak Yosef, shortly after he was appointed as Chief Rabbi in 2013, Bennett and Ben-Dahan pressured him to meet with a Tzohar rabbi regarding giyur reform, and the rabbi pressured him to agree to the mass giyur of minors living with non-Jewish parents.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)