Haredim Threaten Boycott If Zionist Elected Chief Rabbi Of Jerusalem

Haredim will not recognize the kosher supervision and religious decisions of "Zionist" chief rabbi.

Haredim threaten boycott if Jerusalem elects Zionist rabbi
Responding to Mayor Barkat's statement he is committed to appointing Zionist chief rabbi for capital, ultra-Orthodox leaders warn such move could lead to severing ties with municipality
Kobi Nahshoni, Ynet

Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Jerusalem are threatening to cut off all ties with the municipal rabbinate if the city elects a Zionist chief rabbi. Mayor Nir Barkat recently declared that he is committed to appointing a Zionist rabbi for the city.

"If there's a rabbi whose level or halachic views do not correspond with the haredim's demands – the spiritual leaders will call on the community to shun the Jerusalem rabbinate," declared city council member Shlomo Rosenstein (United Torah Judaism).

According to Rosenstein, Jerusalem is one of the only cities in which the haredi public trusts the religious council in matters of kashrut, eruv and mikvaot, and he believes that electing a rabbi who is not accepted by this public could have a devastating effect on ties that have been nurtured for many years.

Such a move, he added, could also deter the hundreds of thousands of ultra-orthodox tourists who rely on the kashrut of local hotels, from staying there.

'Unite around one candidate'
Members of the Zionist religious factions in the capital believe they will be able to reach an agreement with Shas that will allow for the appointment of a Zionist Ashkenazi chief rabbi.

Mayor Barkat said at a conference in Jerusalem on Sunday that there is currently "a genuine opportunity to appoint a Zionist chief rabbi," who can communicate with both the general and observant public.

 
Deputy Mayor David Harari (National Union-National Religious Party), who also spoke at the event, called on the entire religious Zionist public to unite around a single candidate and work for his election.

Rabbi Rabbi Rafi Feuerstein, chairman of the Tzohar organization, added that, "It is unthinkable that at a time when Zionism is under attack around the world, we do not place a Zionist figure at the heart of this country."

With haredim there is no compromise. Every humra (extra strictness they adopt must become the halakhic norm for everyone. There is no haredi concept of following the majority or living as part of a larger community. Everything must be 100% haredi or it is not kosher.

It is this mindset – and Modern Orthodoxy's tepid reaction to it over the past 30 years – that has put us in a position where the extreme has become the halakhic norm.

I think haredi tourists will find a way to visit Jerusalem, eat in Jerusalem and sleep in Jerusalem – even if the new chief rabbi wears a kipa seruga.

Let's hope we see how the haredim cope with this challenge very, very soon.

And let us hope that somehow National Religious and especially Modern Orthodox rabbis stop cowering and start fighting back – although I would not put much hope in this. As the saying goes, all rabbis are cowards.

Comments

[Ben]

The threat about Haredi tourists rejecting visits to Jerusalem because of kipa sruga chief rabbi is totally ridiculous.

Remember, Haredi tourists visit Miami and New York and London and Brussels in hundreds of thousands and non of these cities have haredi chief rabbi or any chief rabbi at all.

It is important to oppose Jewish Taliban/Haredi menace on every single turn. If it is not destroyed, it will consume entire Judaism and destroy the Jewish nation.

[Mike Kane]

why do we need a chief rabbi? the US, Canada, Bahamas, Bermuda, Cuba, and some more have NO chief rabbis.

[Yochanan Lavie]

I think the person who signs himself "Office of the Chief Rabbi" should make it official and become the real Chief Rabbi.

This is as absurd as wanting a US president who is not an American (this is not a swipe at BHO, whom I believe was indeed born in Hawaii).

[Dr. Dave]

I think the chareidim should boycott all municipal and state funding and perhaps we should all boycott chareidi charities.
After all if we are not jewish enough for them, they are not jewish enough to get our money.

[shmuel]

"Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Jerusalem are threatening to cut off all ties with the municipal rabbinate if the city elects a Zionist chief rabbi."

Baffling. Hasn't it been the case ever since the state's founding that the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem was a "Zionist"? What other kind of rabbi would allow himself to be picked by the secular authorities for the job? OK, I'm not the biggest expert in these matters, and I'm sure Rabbi Yitzchok Kolitz (a former chief rabbi of Jerusalem) was perfectly acceptable to charedim, but he was probably no member of the Eda Charedit himself. Anyone out there with some helpful knowledge of these matters?

[Yochanan Lavie]

Apologies to Yehuda HaLevi:

My heart is in the west, and I am in the Middle East--
How can I enjoy food? Can it be kosher to me?

How shall I make vows and honor conversions, while yet
Zionism is held by the rabbinate, and I prefer Arab chains?

Shouldn't it be easy for me to leave all the treif things of Israel --
Seeing how precious it is to behold the dust of the 770 sanctuary (or Uman, Kiryas Joel, etc.).

[state of disgust]

Israel is a free country. If the Haredi don't like it, they can make aliya to Brooklyn, or Nevel, Russia, or Teheran or Uruguay or wherever and wait for the Mashiach to arrive. Think of it as removing urban blight.
Maybe we should start an organization to encourage them to leave - we could call it the Jewish Agency (since they aren't using the name). Sort of a Baron De Rothchild effort to resettle Haredim in Scandinavian socialist countries where they can live on the dole and study Torah.

[MisterApikoros]

Uruguay is a lovely country, with miles of beautiful beaches and some of the finest cattle ranches on the planet.

Please don't send these dregs of humanity to Uruguay, the Paradise on the Parana. Rather, shuffle 'em off to Buffalo. Never much liked that town.

[Ahavah]

Amein Dr. Dave. The only way to cripple them is to cut off their purse strings. The non-Chereidi world has been providing them with most of their funding, out of some sort of "fiddler on the roof" nostalgia or holocaust guilt. This needs to stop. I no longer give a single dime to any agency or charity that supports ultra-orthodox or chereidi sloth and arrogance.

"I say: Let them crash!"

[maven]

UTJ are the Litvaks, same group provoking the conversion crises, and are clearly pushing to increase their political power; they are smaller in number so they need to be stronger by taking the lead in chumras.

[Ben]

Thanks Yohanan Lavie for a beautiful "vort".

[Yochanan Lavie]

You're welcome, Ben.

[Dr. Dave]

YL -

Shouldn't we drink a l'chaim with vodka and mountain dew after such a vort?

[Alana]

"Israel is a free country. If the Haredi don't like it, they can make aliya to Brooklyn, or Nevel, Russia, or Teheran or Uruguay or wherever and wait for the Mashiach to arrive. Think of it as removing urban blight."

Even though they have a grudge against the government of Israel, they aren't going to leave because they know very well that if they were to live in another country, that particular government would not give them much financial support or no financial support at all

[Avraham Nechemiah Ben David]

Are a bunch of Jews living in the hot desert dressed like non-Jewish Polish nobles from the 17th century is hot cloths fit for Siberia really all that theatening? I suppose if you really wanted to scare them away you would bring them some clean underwear and a mirror.

And, Dr. Dave has a great point. How can the Haredim take money from the State of Israel on the one hand but then curse the secular State on the other? Shouldn't these God-fearing penguin dressed people hold true to their values and only accept money from pure sources? Oh, that's right, their values are greed, selfishness, distrust, and a superiority complex that reaches to the heavens. King David would say "oh vey" if he saw what became of his Judaism in Jerusalem.

[Dr. Dave]

King David wouldn't be allowed in the chareidi neighborhoods.

Didn't you hear - his great grandmother was a convert who spent a night alone with a man she wasn't married to.

Obviously this blatent disregard for the chumra of not being alone with a man proves that her conversion was invalid retroactively.

King David is just another shaigetz to the chareidim.

[maven]

dr. d: I think Sherman retroactively annulled her conversion, by the way.

[A. Nuran]

Don't let the door hit you on the tuchis on the way out.

[Reader]

And Rabbi Akiva did not know a word of Torah till he was 40, so his parents obviously didn't care about his Orthodox education. Thank God Rabbi Sherman wasn't there to revoke Rabbi Akiva's Jewishness.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Reader: Wasn't R. Akiva the descendant of converts? If so, maybe his Jewishness would be "revoked."

[Ben]

Shemaya and Avtalion, the 2 sages that preserved Judaism in that generation were both converts.

Is it possible that Sherrrmannn is a reincarnation of a nazi concetration camp guard that likes to torture Jews? He certainly looks like one.

[maven]

Reader: Since retroactive revocations are now allowed, Sherman could revoke Ruth and Rabbi Akiva's Jewishness if he wanted, as well as that of Shemaya and Avtalion.

Ben: Funny, I was thinking the same thing, that in that picture he doesn't look Jewish...

[MisterApikoros]

We can make a good start by relocating these Haredim "to the east," just like the Nazis claimed to do. Let's see, there's Syria, which is actually to the north, then Iraq, than Iran. All three, especially the last, would be countries where the Haredim should feel right at home.

Be sure to note this post in your dossier, Alternative Childcare.

[alternative childcare]

Noted. I'll pass it on to the Wiesenthal Foundation.

[MisterApikoros]

Go right ahead, Arschloch. Pass it on to ADL and Abe "Circle the Wagons" Foxman while you're at it.

Speaking of the Wiesenthal Foundation, they are extremely good at ginning up publicity and donations for themselves, when last year they announced they were "hot on the trail" of some 92-year-old Nazi, Adelbert Heim. It then was revealed that Adelbert Heim had died 16 years before, in Egypt.

You are beneath contempt, even if your comment is a joke.

[Ben]

"Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Jerusalem are threatening to cut off all ties with the municipal rabbinate if the city elects a Zionist chief rabbi."

Stop threataning already, just DO IT. Entire Jewish people would greatly benefit from your absense in the public life.

I suggest you extend you "cutting ties" and stop getting welfare benefits, child allowances, health care, police protection, kollel subsidies, yeshiva grants, rabbinate salaries...etc.

This would be a good beginning. Ultimately, you may even learn to contibute to society, but that may not happen till mashiah times. In the mean time please fulfill your threats and stop blood sucking from the public.

[Avraham Nechemiah Ben David]

Amen t the comment above!