With general elections behind us and coalition building efforts underway, Rabbi David Stav and his Tzohar Rabbonim organization are busy launching their public awareness campaign ahead of elections for the Chief Rabbis of Israel. Ads already appear in the daily newspapers, a first, as Tzohar plans to bring the Chief Rabbinate elections to the public spotlight, realizing such a move works in its favor.

It is already clear that Rav Stav has entered the race and he is not about to take a passive place among the candidates for Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi. Having headed Tzohar since founding it 17 years ago, serving as the rav of the community of Shoham and a former spokesman of the Hesder Yeshivot Organization, Rav Stav is pushing his agenda, one that he feels is more in line with what the Chief Rabbinate was established to be.

Rav Stav feels the chief rabbis must be more proactive and he plans to spend a great deal of time out in the streets, visiting universities and doing kiruv. He feels the Chief Rabbinate is in need of reform and he and his colleagues will work hard to take the Chief Rabbinate out of chareidi hands, armed with an agenda that reflects the almost two decades of work under the Tzohar banner. Rabbi Stav feels that since the chareidim do not rely upon the Chief Rabbinate, it is more important to have rabbis in place who can reach out and be in touch with the nation which has lost touch with the rabbinate due to its chareidi character.

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(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)