From the Liveblog of
Thursday, October 10, 2024
2nd round of voting to be held to elect next Ashkenazi chief rabbi
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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"
The Chief Rabbi Election Assembly announces that it will hold a second round of voting for Israel’s next Ashkenazi chief rabbi on October 31, after a first ballot ended in a tie between two candidates.
Two days ago, the Attorney General’s Office informed the Religious Services Ministry that a runoff between candidates Micha Halevi, chief rabbi of Petah Tikva, and Kalman Bar, chief rabbi of Netanya, must be held as soon as possible.
Both received 40 votes apiece from the 140 voting members of the assembly, while the rest of the votes went to other candidates who were eliminated from the running. After the election it was discovered that an empty envelope had been submitted in the Ashkenazi race while an envelope containing a ballot for Halevi had been submitted, apparently mistakenly, in the Sephardic election.
In a letter to the Religious Services Ministry’s legal adviser, Deputy Attorney General Avital Sompolinsky stated that because it was placed in the wrong envelope, the additional vote for Halevi could not be counted and the voter’s intent could not be reliably inferred.
In light of this legal advice, the assembly decided to hold the second round at the end of the month, it says in a statement.
The Times of Israel Community.