At a meeting called by the Israel's chief rabbis to find ways to block non-Orthodox rabbis from being paid by and recognized by the state, more than 200 rabbis – almost all haredi – omit the standard prayer for the welfare of the State of Israel and fail to sing the national anthem.
Israel's Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar, left, and Yona Metzger, right
Ha'aretz reports:
…The state's intention to recognize and fund the salaries of Reform and Conservative rabbis [in response to a High Court of Justice ruling forcing it to do so] turned the Chief Rabbinate's Office in Jerusalem into a scene of protest and counter-protest yesterday. More than 200 Orthodox rabbis, ministers and MKs - nearly all of them Haredi - held an "emergency meeting" inside the building about foiling the state's plan, while some 50 Conservative and Reform activists gathered outside to urge it forward.
Both groups set aside time for afternoon prayers - one minyan (Jewish prayer quorum ) inside the rabbinate, the other on the sidewalk outside. Each group asked for divine mercy - those inside asking that the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate's rule be maintained, those outside asking that it be broken. The Reform and Conservative ended with the Prayer for the Welfare of the State of Israel, then they sang the national anthem, two other distinguishing features from the minyan inside.
In other words, the two chief rabbis of the State of Israel whose salaries are paid for with tax dollars, whose offices and entire building is paid for with tax dollars, who called a meeting of rabbis and hosted it in that building during their work hours while acting in their official state-salaried positions as chief rabbis, organized a minyan, prayer service, that failed to recite the prayer for the welfare of the State of Israel. They did not even sing the national anthem during the meeting.
It is these ungracious men who seek to decide which rabbis are paid by the state and recognized by it as rabbis and which are not.
There is, I think, a proper response to this despicable behavior – run Shlomo Amar, Yona Metzger and the rest of the haredi rabbis who live off the taxpayers' largesse out of the country on a rail.
Enough is enough.
Throw the bums out.