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   Race for chief rabbinate marked by Byzantine politics
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Last Edited411 Name Removed  Apr 03, 2013 10:37pm
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AuthorYair Ettinger
MediaNewspaper - Ha Aretz
News DateThursday, April 4, 2013 04:00:00 AM UTC0:0
DescriptionPresident Shimon Peres paid a holiday visit at the home of Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar on Sunday, just before the last day of Passover. “I would like you to have the privilege, for us to have the privilege, to be chief rabbi for many more years,” Peres told Amar, whose term in office according to law was to have expired on Passover eve. Amar’s term has already been extended by some months to allow the Knesset to pass a law especially to allow him to be elected to an unprecedented second term.

The “Amar bill” has come a long way since it started out last year as a private member’s bill presented by then-MK Eli Aflalo of Kadima, and bore the hallmarks of Shas lawmakers ‏(then in the coalition‏). The new coalition agreement contains a clause that the coalition can, if it wishes, pass the Amar bill. Now, thanks to Peres, the bill has received a statesmanlike seal of approval.

The date for the Chief Rabbinate elections has not yet been set, but will apparently take place during the summer. Most people are indifferent to the race, which they see as taking place in the Orthodox shtetl, even though it impacts marriage, divorce, conversions and the price we pay for products stamped as kosher. As the race heats up it seems none of the candidates is a front runner for either Ashkenazi or Sephardi chief rabbi. Even the Amar law is not assured passage; Israel Beiteinu, for example, is split on how to vote, and even Shas is having trouble deciding.

The makeup of the new coalition can ostensibly turn things upside-down in the rabbinate, which for a few decades now has become heavily ultra-Orthodox. Habayit Hayehudi therefore has a chance to install a chief rabbi, perhaps even two, who are identified as being Zionist and supportive of the Jewish state.
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