From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Lawmakers advance long-stalled municipal rabbis bill through first reading
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"
Lawmakers have advanced the so-called Rabbis Bill II in its first reading in the Knesset plenum, 52-39, following months of delays caused by coalition infighting.
The bill, an amendment to the Religious Services Law, aims to regulate how much the government and municipalities contribute to the budgets of the bodies providing communal religious services at the city and regional council levels. Critics say it will enable excess government spending on rabbinical jobs.
The bill states that the religious services minister, currently Shas’s Michael Malkieli, will be allowed, with the agreement of 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” — both within communities featuring religious councils and those without such a body.
The legislation will now advance to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee to be prepared for the second and third readings necessary for it to become law.
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 the vote. “It’s a total political scam.”
Responding to criticism of the legislation, sponsor Erez Malul (Shas) slammed “populist” incitement, telling lawmakers that the bill “simply regulates” budgeting and that local communities will be the ones to determine who serves as their rabbis rather than the Religious Services Minister — “and only if [they] want a rabbi.”
An initial version of the proposal would have created hundreds of publicly funded jobs for Orthodox rabbis, while giving the Chief Rabbinate considerable say in the appointment of all new municipal rabbis, reversing changes instituted in 2022 by the previous government. After that bill was blocked by coalition lawmakers, the current amended version was advanced, but was repeatedly blocked by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. However, it was placed back on the Knesset agenda after he backtracked on his objections to the bill.
Despite Ben Gvir’s approval, 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.
