My Rehovot ( ISSN 1817-101X )

Which restaurants and food products are kosher and which are not? Who is allowed to get married and who is not? Who can be a rabbi and who cannot?

Last week, elections took place to choose the state-empowered body - the Chief Rabbinate Council - that is supposed to answer these questions.

The elections were an upset. The non-hassidic, Lithuanian-haredi rabbinic leadership, which gradually has been gaining more power within the Chief Rabbinate, suffered a major setback. Two of its veteran members, Rabbi of Rehovot Simcha Hakohen Kook and chairman of the Neighborhood Rabbis Council Moshe Rauchverger, who is also a neighborhood rabbi in the Haifa area, were voted out of the council.

Rauchverger and Kook, both connected to the Degel Hatorah party and adamantly backed by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the supreme halachic authority of the haredi Ashkenazi community, were replaced by two rabbis who do not necessarily adhere to his decisions...

Source: Matthew Wagner. Religious Affairs: Honor, haredi-style. JPost.com (3 October 2008) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Religion

Are Chief Rabbinate, Religious Councils antinational?

Aogmas Segede, 28, from Rehovot has been running after Rabbi Hadana for many months now. He and his fiancee opened a file with their local rabbi, Yitzhak Zagai, who interviewed them and passed their file on for approval by Hadana. " To this day, Rabbi Hadana is ignoring us...

"Dror Iyasu, 28, and Mazal Bituo, 27, who came to Israel from Ethiopia in the 1990s, decided to make their two-year relationship official.

But Rabbi Yosef Hadana, the only rabbi in Israel authorized to confirm that they are Jewish - a formality required of all Jewish Israeli citizens ahead of their marriage - is often away from his office and is now in Ethiopia for a week. All Ethiopians seeking to tie the knot have to wait for approval from Rabbi Hadana, whose office is in Tel Aviv.

Over the years, the Chief Rabbinate has ordained dozens of rabbis of Ethiopian origin to serve the 105,000-strong Ethiopian community in Israel. Fifteen of them work for the various Religious Councils.

Another 60 or so kessim (spiritual leaders of Ethiopian Jews) receive salaries as neighborhood rabbis. But they do not have the authority to vet the Judaism of couples seeking to marry.

Iyasu and Bituo came to the Religious Council in Be'er Sheva to open a marriage file about six months ago. Since that time they have been waiting for Rabbi Hadana to approve their status as Jews so they can marry. Their wedding date has been set for August 7.

"We brought out parents and witnesses," Yaisu says. "We thought that within a couple of weeks we would get approval, but instead we were told that the file has been transfered to Rabbi Hadana and is waiting for his approval. We called the rabbi several times and we are always told 'Not right now, call later.' It is corrupt that a person who served his country and pays taxes has to beg a rabbi to confirm his Jewish status - a status that goes without saying."

The community rabbi, Elazar Megeshu, points an accusing finger at the Chief Rabbinate. "One rabbi has taken on himself a task that he cannot carry out properly, and this hurts a whole community. The Chief Rabbinate has closed its ears to the cries of the community, which is seeking equal rights in the rabbinate as well. The Chief Rabbinate simply doesn't want to see them becoming part of the religious framework, or in general to allow Ethiopian Jews to receive religious services in their community."

Aogmas Segede, 28, from Rehovot has been running after Rabbi Hadana for many months now. He and his fiancee opened a file with their local rabbi, Yitzhak Zagai, who interviewed them and passed their file on for approval by Hadana. "To this day, Rabbi Hadana is ignoring us. My fiancee is now seven months pregnant because we did not receive the rabbi's approval to hold the ceremony. We are still waiting for the approval, but he is in Ethiopia and there is no one to turn to," Segede said.

The director general of the Authority for Religious Services in the Prime Minister's Office, Meir Speigler, said in response: "The Authority does not deal with Halakha. That is in the province of the Chief Rabbinate."

The office of Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar responded to numerous requests by Haaretz for a reaction by saying that the chief rabbi was busy with urgent matters.

Rabbi Yosef Hadana went to Ethiopia to give Kashrut approval to a beer factory there whose products are being imported by entrepreneurs in Israel and after a request to the rabbinate with regard to kashrut supervision.

There was no response from Hadana to the young people's complaints in this article, which were relayed to him by his daughter Yehudit and his secretary.

Source: Ayanawo Farada Sanbetu. A marriage of inconvenience. Haaretz.com (27 July 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Religion