Tzohar, the rabbinical organization that has recently launched a campaign to “strengthen the Chief Rabbinate” is considering running candidates in the upcoming elections for Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis.

The candidate for Ashkenazi chief rabbi will probably be the organization’s chairman, Rabbi David Stav, though the move and the choice must still be approved by Tzohar’s leadership.

The elections are expected to be held at the end of March 2013, since both Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger and Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar end their ten-year terms next April.

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Sources in the national-religious Tzohar organization refused to confirm the details, but Stav has been mentioned as a possible candidate for some time now, and many Tzohar rabbis believe that after a decade of Haredi dominance of the Chief Rabbinate, it should be “more national and more Zionist.”

Haredi rabbis still constitute a majority in the selection body that includes 150 rabbis, as well as representatives from the government, Knesset and religious councils.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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