Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has announced that he will be one of the city council’s representatives to vote in the upcoming election for the city’s chief rabbis. The announcement is received warmly by the city’s dati leumi and non-chareidi communities.

Despite chareidi efforts to postpone the election, the electorate body has been formed and the voters are expected to meet in the next week or two towards moving ahead the election of chief rabbis of the capital. Enormous pressure was placed on Deputy Minister of Religious Services Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan to form the electorate committee. The electoral body is headed by Rav & Dayan Meir Kahana. One city delegate will be the mayor himself. The second representative of City Hall will be Aaron Ben-Nun who holds the public buildings portfolio.

The delegate from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel will be Yavne Chief Rabbi David Abuchatzera, the delegate of the Ministry of Religious Services attorney Ofir Yaakov. The secretary of the election body will be Rav Chizkiyahu Samin, who is the director Marriage in the ministry.

The dati leumi community is aware that the chareidim are stalling, hoping they will succeed in reaching Rav Stern’s 70th birthday ahead of the election. Rav Stern turns 70 at the end of the year. This would disqualify the rav from running as 70 is the cut off age.

Rabbi Aryeh Stern Shlita is the dati leumi candidate to become Yerushalayim’s next Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, backed by many dati leumi rabbonim, City Hall and many others in the non-chareidi community. Rav Stern is mora d’asra of a shul in Katamon and heads the Halacha Brura Institute. He is known as a talmid chacham, a former talmid of Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)