The committee that will select the next chief rabbis of Jerusalem convened in the Jerusalem Religious Council office at 1:30pm and the decisions reached today will in all likelihood have an impact on the character of the city’s next chief rabbis. The meeting is still in session at this time 3:00PM IL.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who remains committed by a pre-election deal to support the dati leumi candidate, wants input towards deciding on the 24 delegates who will make the decision just who will be appointed to the position.
The mayor, who addressed the participants early on into the session, came armed with his own stenographer. The mayor exclaimed that earlier meetings were not valid, adding there are not even notes (protocol) of the sessions, which serves as testimony of “1,000 witnesses” to the invalidity of those meetings. He brought the stenographer to this session to make certain the decisions and statements made are recorded in fact.
The mayor rejects the fact that no one on the selection committee is without a kippa, insisting the majority of the city’s residents are not frum and this must be reflected by committee representation, providing seats for delegates of the secularists as well as the Reform and Conservative.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
7 Responses
“Secularists” on the “Religious Council” – oh yeah, that makes sense!?!
Mr. Mayor:
Please try the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches and the Muslim Wakf first, and see whether they allow you — a secular politician — to interfere in the selection of their religious leadership.
Respectfully,
Concerned Religious Jew
the rosho shows his true colors once again…
OK, you guys out there who did everything in the world to prevent Reb Meir Porush from getting elected.
You know whom I mean.
You got what you wanted.
Are you happy now?
“I don’t believe in the Torah, but I still reserve the right to modify it to my taste!”
That’s great. Now we see the true face of these clowns.
Do you remember the debate they had on the Yiddishe Shoo between a Rov and a reform.
The reform said that part of the Torah tradition is, -Change by Rabbis for the overall good-.
He mentioned the abolishment of the Shofar when it’s on Shaabos, and the abolishment of Dalet Minim on Shabos.
He also mentioned the Heter Iska and Pruzbel which he claimed, are not sincere, just to encourage the lending of money.
We don’t have anybody strong enough to debate them.
What, turnabout is not fairplay? Enough members of the Israeli Charedi community use the resources of the government (roads, health care, housing subsidies, utilities), and the security it provides (Magav, Tzahal, etc), even the state businesses it still subsidizes or partly owns (El Al, Egged, Bezek, etc) without making the proportionate contribution that Dati Leumi and Chiloni Israelis make financially, nor do many of the loudest critics of Tzionus serve in the defense of their own families, let alone acheynu beis yisroel. — And Yet, THey feel they have a right to participate in determining the country’s leadership, and they follow their gedolim in whom to vote for. SO now, given that Dati Leumi and Chiloni still are a majority in Jerusalem, and they want to exercise their rights in a system that charedi Jerusalemites have accepted if only by living within it and using its resources, Now THEY are reshoim? THEY are in some way taking away Chareidi rights to determine rabbinic/halachic leadership for everyone, whether they asked for charedi opinions/leadership or not?
If you are going to live in a democracy and benefit from it, be prepared to recognize you dont control matters simply becasue your daas torah says such and such.. And if you are not prepared to build consensus and constituencies, but rather wish to dictate, You will eventually find that the rest, the majority, rejects your totalitarian approach. THE WORST PART IS THAT IN TAKING THE APPROACH I SEE IN SOME OF THE COMMENTS HERE, THAT JUSTIFIED REJECTION OF TOTALITARIANISM WILL CLOSE THE DOOR ON BEING MEKAREV MANY JEWISH SOULS. I WOULDN’T WANT THAT ON MY CONSCIENCE.