Addressing a kollel in Yerushalayim that trains dayanim affiliated with the dati leumi tzibur, Minister of Religious Services Naftali Bennett promised to do his utmost towards seeing that dati leumi dayanim are appointed. Bennett stated that this has not been the case in the past. He explained the dayanim who served in the IDF and believe in the State of Israel have not been appointed in the past and he plans to change this.
Bennett visited the Eretz Chemda Kollel and explained that today, his deputy minister, Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan and party colleague Shuli Muallem are members of the committee that selects dayanim and they are there to implement change, to advance Zionist dayanim.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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6 Responses
let’s appoint dayanim who are capable and not appoint them based on political views or dress modes.
I once heard about a town that had a machlokes between chassidim of two different rebbes over who should be the shochet of the town. Each group wanted the shochet associated with their chassidus to win the appointment. They finally compromised and decided to cast a gorel and go with the winner. When they presented their solution to the Imrei Emes of Gur he responded by saying “are you insane? The shochet who is most qualified should be appointed. You should first choose the shochet who is the biggest yirai shamayim of the two. Then you can draw a gorel to decide to which rebbe he will visit”. If only we would be honest enough to leave politics out of religious appointments of any kind.
#1 Luckshun Kugel – I 100% agree that Dayanim should be appointed based solely on their abilities (and Yiras Shamayim, of course). The problem has been that for the last while, the Misrad HaDatot has been held by Shas, who used their position to appoint primarily Chareidim to Batei Din, irrespective of the fact that there were many as- or more-qualified DL Dayanim. The current constitution of Batei Din is therefore skewered toward Chareidi Dayanim, despite the fact that Chareidim, as a general matter, do not rely on Batei Din of the Rabbanut.
So – absolutely, all qualified Dayanim, irrespective of their Kippa, should be given equal opportunity to be appointed to the Rabbanut Batei Din. What is important in determining qualification, though, is also a familiarity with the context in which the facts of the case took place and with the society for which one is ruling. Let the best Dayanim – Chareidi or DL – win.
an Israeli Yid
Eretz Hemdah has a five-decade track record of excellence.
In a political system, that is how things are supposed to work. While they call them “Batei Din”, they are government agencies. The American equivalent is not a Beis Din, but any other government “court” (e.g. Tax Court, Traffic court, National Labor Relations Board, etc.).
let’s appoint dayanim who are capable and not appoint them based on political views or dress modes.
THE LaST 20 YEARS, capable dayanim who had a different political view or dress mode from Charedim could never be appointed. The musmachim of these dayanim programs are renouned Talmidi Chachamim and deserve the opportunity to serve the people.