David Yosef elected as Sephardic chief rabbi, the third from his family in the role
Second round for Ashkenazi chief rabbi to be held next week, following tied vote; election held after disagreements and competing political deals kept positions vacant since July
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
The next Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel is Rabbi David Yosef, the Rabbinate announced Sunday evening, adding that the parallel vote for Ashkenazi chief rabbi resulted in a tie, with a second election round called for next week.
Yosef — the son of the revered former Haredi spiritual leader, the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who also served as Sephardic chief rabbi — had been the favorite for the position. He received the support of 72 of the 140 members of the Chief Rabbi Election Assembly who voted on Sunday.
In accepting the appointment, Yosef said the post was “a great privilege, and with God’s help I will work night and day to unify the nation in this difficult time.”
“I will continue to work with all my strength to unify the people of Israel, out of a deep commitment to Torah values, the people and the land,” Yosef said in a statement. “I will continue to devote my power to strengthen the bond between all the national camps.”
Yosef is the rabbi of Har Nof, a large religious Jerusalem neighborhood, and is a veteran Torah teacher whose brother, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, recently completed a tumultuous and controversial 10-year tenure as chief rabbi. David Yosef is close with Shas party leader Aryeh Deri, and his ascent to Sephardic chief rabbi is a continuation of Shas’s long-time hold on the position.
Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed, came in second with 43 votes. Eliyahu, a popular far-right figure whose controversial statements have made headlines in Israel and around the world, similarly has a father, the late Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, who served as Sephardic chief rabbi.
Rabbi Michael Amos, a rabbinical judge who currently leads Israel’s highest Jewish religious court, received 21 votes.
The race for Ashkenazi chief rabbi resulted in a draw. It was initially announced that there would be a second round later Sunday evening, with all the candidates participating.
But less than two hours later it was decided that the second round would take place next week, after the Rosh Hashanah holiday, with only the two leading candidates — Rabbi Micha Halevi, chief rabbi of Petah Tikva, and Rabbi Kalman Bar, the Ashkenazi city rabbi of Netanya — participating.
Halevi and Bar each received 40 votes, resulting in a tie.
Halevi is a hardline candidate who is backed by both Betzalel Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party and Shas. He recently received negative publicity due to a scandal involving kashrut supervision in Petah Tikva. He has also been slammed for previously promising not to run in the election.
Bar, despite roots in the religious Zionist community and in the Bnei Akiva youth movement, nevertheless received the backing of Degel HaTorah, an ultra-Orthodox party.
Rabbi Meir Kahana, head of the Jewish religious court in Ashkelon, received 30 votes; Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau, a community rabbi in Netanya from a prominent dynasty, received 23; and Rabbi Eliezer Igra, an experienced rabbinical court judge, received just 6.
Elections after stalemate
Some 140 members of the Chief Rabbi Election Assembly voted on Sunday afternoon in Jerusalem, after fierce political battles that marred the race and repeatedly delayed the vote.
The election came after months of political stalemate that had prevented the succession of the previous chief rabbis, the Ashkenazi rabbi David Lau and Sephardi rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, after their 10-year terms expired on July 1.
At the root of the standoff was the Chief Rabbinate’s refusal to honor previous court rulings that instructed it to consider appointing women to one of the categories that constitute its 150-person electing assembly.
Eventually, the High Court of Justice said that although it was still committed to its position to “diversify” the system, the election could still be held legally without the disputed category altogether.
The voting assembly was composed of 70 municipal rabbis affiliated with the Chief Rabbinate and 70 non-rabbi delegates including mayors, lawmakers, cabinet ministers and other public representatives.
The delegates — all men — voted minus the component of 10 personal appointees usually made by the outgoing chief rabbis. This exclusion from the assembly came by Justice Ministry fiat, due to nepotism concerns.
Three of the candidates, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau, Rabbi David Yosef and Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, sought positions once held by their own fathers, and two of them have a brother who just ended their tenure as chief rabbi, and who would be in charge of appointing the 10 delegates.
The Chief Rabbinate, a century-old body, oversees marital laws, burial rites, rabbinic courts, kosher certifications, Jewish conversions and other aspects of Jewish family and religious life in Israel.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
