Inside the year-long struggle to pass Shas’s controversial ‘Rabbis Bill’
Critics say legislation that would allow the religious services minister to allocate additional funds to religious councils is ‘essentially a jobs bill with a blank check’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
On Monday evening, after more than a year of effort, lawmakers advanced the so-called Rabbis Bill II in its first reading in the Knesset plenum, 52-39.
The bill, a seemingly prosaic amendment to the Religious Services Law, aims to regulate the contributions of the national government and local municipalities toward the budgets of the bodies providing communal religious services.
But while less well known than the Daycare and Enlistment Bills currently roiling the Knesset, the Rabbis Bill has proven no less contentious — with members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition repeatedly blocking its progress, much to the chagrin of its backers in the ultra-Orthodox Shas party.
Expanding the influence of the Chief Rabbinate
The latest chapter in the long-running story began in June when lawmakers in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee resurfaced an earlier version of the bill that would have greatly expanded the influence of the Chief Rabbinate and the Religious Services Ministry in the appointment of municipal rabbis at the expense of local authorities — and erode the role of women in the process.
While a previous effort in March to revive the legislation — which had first been proposed in mid-2023 but was frozen in the wake of the October 7 attack — had been unsuccessful due to protests by Netanyahu’s secular coalition partners, the exit of the National Unity and New Hope parties from the coalition in the interim removed the final barrier to its reintroduction.
If passed into law, the so-called Rabbis Law could cost taxpayers tens of millions of shekels annually in salaries for hundreds of new neighborhood rabbis employed by local municipalities.
It aimed to create hundreds of publicly funded jobs for rabbis, while giving the Chief Rabbinate of Israel considerable say in the appointment of all new municipal rabbis, prompting criticism that its purpose was to provide jobs for Shas apparatchiks.
It also lowered the minimum number of women on the rabbinical appointment boards from 40 percent to one-third, and essentially granted appointees guaranteed positions until the age of 75.
Likud lawmakers revolt
The reintroduction of the Rabbis Law in June sparked an immediate backlash from Likud lawmakers, who accused the bill’s sponsor, Shas MK Erez Malul, and committee chairman Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism) of acting “like thieves in the night” in order to pass legislation “that causes division” during wartime.
In the end, Prime Minister Netanyahu was forced to order the bill dropped from the Knesset agenda after MKs Moshe Saada and Tally Gotliv blocked it from advancing in the committee, drawing sharp recriminations from Shas.
“There is no coalition, there is no discipline, and the most frustrating thing is that Likud is a party made up of 35 separate factions,” one Shas official told national broadcaster Kan, warning that “the complete dissolution of the coalition is only a matter of time.”
Revision
Faced with failure, the proposal’s backers regrouped, with Shas’s Malul submitting a softened version granting the religious services minister the power to allocate additional funds to local religious councils around the country.
The new bill, which was quickly dubbed the Rabbis Bill II, immediately drew sharp criticism from some watchdog groups due to concerns that it could serve as a backdoor for reintroducing some of the provisions of its predecessor — a claim that Malul and other backers of the legislation denied.
As formulated by Malul, the second Rabbis Bill would amend the Religious Services Law so that the religious services minister, currently Shas’s Michael Malkieli, will be allowed, after consulting with the finance minister, to pay for “salary expenses and positions beyond what is stated” in the law.
According to the bill’s explanatory notes, the legislation would allow the government to help pay the “salaries of regional rabbis, rabbis of moshavim and ritual bath attendants without burdening the regional authorities and councils” — in both communities that have religious councils and those that don’t.
Speaking with The Times of Israel this summer, Malul rebuffed his critics’ concerns, describing them as “cheap populism.”
There are many municipal rabbis in settlements, as well as kessim, or kahenat — religious leaders in the Ethiopian Beta Israel community — whose salaries are anchored in government decisions rather than legislation, he explained.
Local religious councils often “don’t want to take part in paying their salaries and so we are simply creating a route that includes… a special budget for these positions.”
Leverage against Netanyahu
Though it didn’t earn the same level of criticism as its predecessor, however, the second Rabbis Bill also fell victim to opposition from within the coalition — with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir torpedoing the bill on three separate occasions in July as part of an effort to exert leverage on Prime Minister Netanyahu in an unrelated political feud.
Ben Gvir had repeatedly demanded a spot in the now-defunct war cabinet, stating his desire to be among those leading the decision-making in the war. To that end, he actively thwarted the bill in order to pressure the premier to appoint him to the forum.
Revival
But while the bill appeared to be dead in the water, at least temporarily, following the end of the Knesset’s summer recess it was again back on the table after Ben Gvir reportedly backtracked due to Netanyahu’s decision to include him in limited ministerial security consultations.
But while Ben Gvir no longer stood in its way, the bill still faced obstacles before its first reading, with United Torah Judaism arguing that it was being advanced by Shas without coordination. In the end, UTJ set aside its objection as long as it was consulted before future readings.
Having passed its first reading, Rabbis Law II will now return to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee to be prepared for the second and third readings necessary for it to become law.
It is possible, however, that widespread anger at the ultra-Orthodox community over ongoing Haredi efforts to maintain their exemption from military service could contribute to making passing the Rabbis Law II difficult going forward.
This bill “gives the minister the capacity to hire as many rabbis as he wants without any limit” and is “essentially a jobs bill with a blank check,” Rabbi Seth Farber, the director of the ITIM nonprofit, which helps Israelis navigate the country’s religious bureaucracy, told The Times of Israel ahead of Monday’s vote. “It’s a total political scam.”
“For me, the worst part is that they are spending enormous resources, both political and in capital, to provide jobs for people who for the most part don’t serve in the army and who are not taking the national burden, which now is the war, on themselves,” Farber said.
“It’s not just irresponsible; it’s downright insulting.”
Canaan Lidor contributed to this report.
