Ultra-Orthodox-backed Kalman Ber chosen as Ashkenazi chief rabbi in runoff

Top Netanya cleric beats out Rabbi Micha Halevi, who drew anger from religious Zionists by reneging on promise to stay out of race, after initial balloting ended in tie

Rabbi Kalman Ber attends a vote for the new Chief Ashkenazi rabbi, at the Chief Rabbinate headquarters in Jerusalem, October 31, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Rabbi Kalman Ber attends a vote for the new Chief Ashkenazi rabbi, at the Chief Rabbinate headquarters in Jerusalem, October 31, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Top Netanya rabbi Kalman Ber was chosen to be Israel’s next Ashkenazi chief rabbi Thursday, following a year of delays and a bitter battle for the 10-year term.

Ber beat out Petah Tikva Chief Rabbi Micha Halevi 77-58 in the closed ballot vote of politicians, religious authorities and others, riding an upswell of opposition against Halevi for reneging on a promise not to split the religious Zionist vote.

The vote was held some two months after the two candidates tied with 40 votes apiece, leading Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to order a runoff.

Rooted in the religious Zionist camp and its Bnei Akiva youth movement, Ber had nonetheless vied for the spot by looking outside the community for support, winning the backing of the Haredi rabbinic establishment and, crucially, the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party.

Ber will serve alongside Rabbi David Yosef, elected last month to take over as Sephardic chief rabbi from his brother Yitzhak Yosef.

Yitzhak Yosef and former Ashkenazic chief rabbi David Lau stepped down from their posts in July, leaving the positions officially vacant for the first time in more than a century, after elections for their replacements and for the Chief Rabbinate Council were repeatedly pushed off. They were elected to 10-year terms in 2013.

Rabbi Micha Halevi attends a vote for the new Chief Ashkenazi rabbi, at the Chief Rabbinate headquarters in Jerusalem, October 31, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The two chief rabbis split responsibility for running an extensive and lucrative state-run kosher food supervision apparatus and a nationwide rabbinical court system, which has extensive powers over marriage, divorce, burial, and other milestone events.

Both Ber and Halevi were educated in religious Zionist educational institutions and have similar views about the way the rabbinate should be run.

While the post in and of itself isn’t necessarily representative of true rabbinic authority, chief rabbis have access to a bully pulpit and represent the State of Israel in an official capacity both locally and internationally.

They are also able to use their position to cultivate connections and to facilitate the appointment of political cronies.

The vote was a major victory for UTJ, which openly supported Ber.

Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Heritage Minister Meir Porush, a UTJ lawmaker, said Ber’s victory was “an important development for Jewish heritage.” Porush said that Ber had received the backing of all groups across the religious spectrum, and would “undoubtedly succeed in uniting all of Israel in this difficult time.”

Moshe Gafni, a powerful UTJ MK, said he spoke with Ber following the vote.

“We’re very happy and thank God for the result,” Gafni said in a statement.

A voter casts a ballot for the new Chief Ashkenazi rabbi, at the Chief Rabbinate headquarters in Jerusalem, October 31, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Ber’s broad Haredi support and his decision to not to be tagged as an expressly religious Zionist candidate led Ramat Gan’s chief rabbi Yaakov Ariel and a long list of other respected religious Zionist rabbis to come out in support of Halevi.

But Halevi lost the support of many religious Zionist leaders after he ran despite promising to abide by a panel decision that chose another candidate to represent the community largely made up of Orthodox Jewish nationalists.

Among those who came out against Halevi was Rabbi David Stav, head of Tzohar, one of Israel’s largest religious Zionist rabbinic organizations.

“Someone who went against the Torah, morality, and what is just and right cannot be the chief rabbi,” he said before the vote. “Rabbi Halevi promised to accept the decision of the council, then he reneged. That is not moral, not halachic, and not right.”

People hold a sign reading ‘Rabbi Micha = power to Rabbi Tau,’ referring to Rabbi Micha Halevi and extreme right rabbi Zvi Tau, outside the Chief Rabbinate headquarters in Jerusalem, October 31, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

A hardliner, Halevi still won the support of Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party and Aryeh Deri’s ultra-Orthodox Shas, which represents Sephardic interests. Halevi’s loss was seen as a political blow to Smotrich.

Rabbi Seth Farber, founder of ITIM:The Jewish Life Information Center, a progressive organization that helps citizens navigate the bureaucracy of state religious services, accused Smotrich of an “ethical and political failure,” after he switched support to Halevi from Rabbi Meir Kahana, who had been chosen by Ariel’s committee to represent the religious Zionists

“In a dubious deal, he chose to trample religious Zionism, divide the sector’s rabbis, and harm their honor, ultimately failing to appoint a religious Zionist Chief Rabbi,” Farber said.

Kahana only managed to garner 30 votes in the first round among the 70 Knesset members and 70 politicians and public servants who cast ballots for the position once every decade.

The vote had been delayed by the Knesset over the summer after Religious Services Minister Malkieli, of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, argued that municipal voting could interfere with the rabbinical elections.

Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau, left, attends a Chief Rabbinate Council meeting with his Sephardic counterpart Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and David Lau’s father and predecessor Meir Lau, in Jerusalem on December 24, 2023. (Courtesy of the Chief Rabbinate)

But the date was then pushed off again because of two rulings from the Supreme Court, including one instructing them to “consider” appointing women to the all-male voting body.

A poll by the Israel Democracy Institute of over 600 Jewish respondents conducted in June found that 54 percent neither accepted the Chief Rabbinate as a religious or spiritual authority nor held the identity of the next chief rabbis to be particularly important (55%).

Sam Sokol and Gavriel Fiske contributed to this report.

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