Education Minister Naftali Bennett feels the Chief Rabbinate of Israel is not doing its job as it should, expressing criticism against it in connection with the recent announcement of the launching of the independent beis din for giyur known as Giyur K’halacha. Bennett attacked the Chief Rabbinate on Monday evening 9 Elul, speaking with Kol Chai Radio. The minister said “The Chief Rabbinate is not working as it should, explaining that while it must conduct itself in accordance with halacha, In this case we are dealing with a prominent rav, Rabbi Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch Shlita, who has initiated the process along with other prominent rabbonim. Potential converts must not state the Chief Rabbinate does not want to welcome us according to halacha. There are those rabbinates that do not wish to be unwelcoming” stated Bennett.
Bennett went on to explain “They cancelled all of Rabbi [Chaim] Druckman’s conversions. The chief rabbi came and retroactively disqualified the conversions of Rabbi Druckman. One cannot do this to people who converted to Judaism and established families.
Bennett calls on the Chief Rabbis “who were appointed by the chareidim” to provide quality religious services and to welcome converts. There are 300,000 Israelis who are not Jewish according to halacha. They were turned away with irrelevant responses. The Rabbinate brought these problems upon itself”.
Bennett explains that when he arrived at the Rabbinate to get married the rav spoke with him about politics instead of halacha, instead of preparing him for the big step. “When I came with my wife to the Rabbinate in ’99, she was from a secular home and today she observes mitzvos. It was important to me to bring her closer [to Yiddishkheit] and the rabbi came, the one who was supposed to direct us before the wedding and spoke with me about politics. It was quite the chilul Hashem. He added “In the area of kashrus, when one finagles it is unacceptable and a chilul Hashem. We must fix the Rabbinate. The previous Chief Rabbi served for ten years and today is accused of illegal actions and this is a disgrace. Cynical politicians appointed him, a puppet on a string, and I do not accept this. Once again I call on the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to reject shady dealings and politics from within as there are unacceptable practices that do not represent a Kiddush Hashem”.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
4 Responses
If dwelling in a semi-”jewish milieu” is enough, as Bennet intends, to regard one officially as jewish,
could every gentile working in a local religious institution,or say, living in lakewood or Boro Park and speaks a few yiddish expressions claim now to be a jew?!
While it’s preferable to avoid rehashing this ,but-
WADR to the well meaning
‘Rav Druckman’, under whose auspices dozens underwent geirus – while he so happened to be out of the country!
This,sadly, is a quote from someone who lived in the CIS and worked with russian jews:
How many of those 50,000 observe Torah and mitzvos? Those I know who took the tests and passed do not keep anything. It was just “wish me luck on the test!” and then nothing. Being m’ga’er the Russian immigrants who believe in another religion just makes a Fifth Column within Judaism,!
Is the function of the Chief Rabbinate to promote Torah or to promote the state in general, and Religious Zionism in particular?
Is it to perform functions traditionally provided by Torah communities, usually through voluntary organizations such as shuls, mikva committees, tsadakkahs, etc, or is to undermine an independent “civil society” and cause most Israelis to become dependenet on government services and therefore unable to assert independence if the government makes unreasonable demands.
Providing parnassah for hareidim serves the goal of making frum Jews dependent upon the Medinah, and this feeling of dependence makes it difficult to oppose the Medinah when the Medinah adopts anti-Torah policies.
‘The chief rabbi came and retroactively disqualified the conversions of Rabbi Druckman.’
Not true; it was a beit din led by Rav Sherman. Chief Rabbi Amar was reported to have opposed this.
‘ One cannot do this to people who converted to Judaism and established families.’
True. The beit din acted not in accordance with halachah and not in accordance with mesorah. Fortunately the decision was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court, with a decision written by Justice Rubenstein, who is religious. Neither Justice Rubenstein nor Minister Bennett are rabbis; why is it that they get this right but the dayanim of the Rabbinate didn’t?